The Cadralar: Poetic Form for the Times

lillian9 Comments

1.
Red yarn raucously stretched,
tangled up and down stairs.
Cat spent
chin rests on ball’s remainder,
tail and right paw ensnared.

2.
Snow melts under warming sun.
Water rushes over boulders
carves trail in mountainside.
Carries, tosses rocks and branches
gurgles loudly in rapids below.

3.
Tuk tuks, bicycles, tarp covered trucks, cars.
All jockey in and out as drivers gesticulate.
Heat blazes, smog suffocates.
Traffic lights. Detour signs. No matter.
Throng pushes ever on.

4.
Hurdles placed, runners crouched
starter gun sounds.
Numbered bibs blurr.
Some clear barriers, never look back.
Others fall, lay defeated. Eating dry dust.

5.
Blue tsunami gathering steam.
November third in sight.
Maneuvering through noise
through blustering lies
the race to empathy, truth, democracy.

Written for Meet The Bar at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Laura asks us to write a CADRALAR, a unique poetic form explained below.

Cadralar:
Poem of five numbered stanzas.
Each stanza an imagist poem that can stand alone: a photograph if you will, but seemingly unrelated to the other stanzas, until you read the 5th and final stanza.
Stanzas’ lines should be similar in length.
Final 5th stanza, reveals the thread between the first four stanzas and answers the question, “What do you yearn for?”

Hint: I often find it helpful to go back and read the first four stanzas, after reading the final one!

FYI for those readers not from the US: November 3rd is election day in the US. It is not a presidential election year – that doesn’t come until 2028. But, we do vote for a large number of US congress folks (House of Representatives and the Senate), as well as important state offices including governors and members of state legislatures. If we “flip” Senate and House seats to the Democratic party, it will strip Donald Trump of much of his power and there could even be another impeachment, albeit a successful one in terms of removing him from office. All of these are possibilities. Many in the US, like across the globe, are tired and furious with what the Trump administration has done to the US and its ripple effect on the globe as well. Stay tuned for results on November 3rd.

*Red is the color of the Republican party: the group of sycophants following President Trump’s MAGA agenda.

*Blue is the color of the Democratic party.

The Would-Be Poet

lillian15 Comments

Trumpet wails
smoke curls in jazz club
ice clinks in whiskey glasses.
Eyes glued to stage
they sit, imagining,
caught in her spell.

Red moist lips
sing in raspy sex-tinged voice
I put a spell on you.
Hips gyrate slowly
arms stretch above her head
hands writhe seductively.

He sits, shoulders slumped.
Food spattered lapels
ink stained fingertips.
The poet, as he’s known,
soaks in the atmosphere
with nowhere to go.

His mind travels
with her every word.
Imagines himself
inside her throat,
inside her eyes,
inside her soul.

Why can’t his words
do to his readers
what her voice
her words
her body
do to him?


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Sanaa hosts Tuesday Poetics with a prompt titled Thirteen Songs, Thirteen Hauntings.

She gives us a list of thirteen songs and asks us to be inspired by one of them. We’re to let the music determine the mood, imagery, setting, and voice of the poem. I’ve selected I Put a Spell on You, by Nina Simone. The music and video definitely inspired my poem. Click on the video above, watch and listen for a bit and you’ll understand why.

On this All Hallow’s Eve . . .

lillian7 Comments

Robert and Emma lie undetected in the shed beside the town’s garbage dump. Dead for centuries, their spirits are still quite lively. Their love, strong as the day they wed in 1801. They find the stench of garbage more pleasing than their decomposition all those years ago.

Their skeletal rattlings have always scared away the curious. But the night of October 31st 2026, something was different. Hundreds of critters who tunneled into their space as frost took hold, suddenly breathed their last. The dead were settling in under their mud roof and something was shuffling overhead as the wind began to howl. Bats swooped nearby. Children screamed. Witches from the local coven flew overhead, cackling, screaming their names.

Energized, they stood up. Stretched tall. Their phalenges reached out and entwined. They’d waited centuries for the night of the waking dead. Surely this was it.


Written for Prosery Monday on dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Today Kim gives us the line “The dead were settling in under their mud roof and something was shuffling overhead” from Alice Oswald’s poem Body. We’re to use that line, word for word, within a piece of prose or flash fiction that is a maximum of 144 words in length. Extra credit if the story is exactly 144 words in length. Mine is!

Image created on Bing!

An Apple a Day

lillian4 Comments

Apple me
a healthy life
bees round my blossoms
a honey in my life
applesauced surprises
but never a pie in my face!


Written for Thursday’s Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Mish hosts and we can post any poem of our choosing or write to her optional prompt, which I chose to do. The optional prompt: write a poem inspired by René Magritte’s painting, Son of Man. I chose to have a bit of fun with the image!

Azul’s World

lillian17 Comments

I’d like to see the world
through Azul’s eyes.

Where trees are lush green
vibrant with life.

Where every face is smiling,
grinning happily.
Side-by-side neighbors
whether across the globe,
the continent, the island,
the city or neighborhood.
Where there are no others.
Only a world of us and we.

Where all children are kissed by mothers
beneath trees melodious with caroling birds
hidden among their leaves.
Where the rising moon thrives
shining hope and beaming light,
even as the setting sun
paints the sky in waves
of yellow and crimson orange.

May we all see our world
through the eyes of Azul.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and am delighted to post four pieces of artwork created by Azul, an 8-year old boy from the Philippines. I’ve never met Azul, only his wonderful father. I’ve posted four of Azul’s drawings/paintings and asked folks to create a poem inspired by one or more of them. I think he’s a budding artist! In case you’re interested, here’s the fourth piece of Azul’s art that I did not include in my poem. It too is beautiful.

A Time Piece

lillian19 Comments

He stands, shoulders stooped,
face wizened over years,
holding his ancient pocket watch.
Engraved words,
palmed almost to nothingness.
His great-grandfather’s name, birth date,
barely a whisper on gold.
Who to gift with this heirloom?
Unmarried, no heirs.
His to carry to the grave.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “pocket” within our quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words sans title. Image created in Bing.

Pilgrimage Over the Seas

lillian16 Comments

Forty days, forty nights,
escapist pleasure journey.
Biblical allusion not intended.
Worm of guilt
bored occasionally into mind.
Guilt of the privileged sort.

News cycle ignored.
Earth’s scenery, our view of choice.
Oceanic patterns, lulling waves.
Occasional roiling seas
cause drunken-like weaving
walking ship’s corridors.

Icelandic land of fire and ice,
revealed its secrets
in midst of deep rift.
Two tectonic plates still shift.

Greenland’s hospitable coast
contrasted with glaciers and ice sheet.
Cold shoulders in the distance,
flaunt their daunting interior.

Bay of Fundy’s highest tides
reveal Nature’s pummeling forces.
Ocean’s height belligerently batters
river’s flow in opposite direction.

Maine’s light houses,
generational directional beacons.
Nova Scotia’s history laid bare
in Gaelic village of yore.

Forty days and forty nights,
pilgrimage complete.
Domestic work claims attention,
simplistic refreshing of our abode.
More difficult November task,  
refreshing our country as well.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Bjorn asks us to write a poem dealing with a pilgrimage of sorts. Poem and all photos refer to and taken on our recent 40 days and 40 nights trip that included Iceland, Greenland, going above the Arctic Circle, Nova Scotia, New Foundland, Bay of Fundy, Quebec City, and Maine. Incredible scenery….incredible to be away and appreciate the land and so many diverse people.

Poets Imbibing at the Pub Tonight!

lillian9 Comments

Make me some songalicious drinks.
One with a marguerita beat.
Make one classical:
limoncello on ice with
bow plucked sugar on glass brim,
meant to avoid a puckered grin.
Finale me with whiskey sour chants.
Light on the sour mix
to end with humdingers!


Quadrille created for dVerse Poets, a virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, De asks us to include the word “hum” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.

Loved the prompt so much, this is my second poem for it!

A Short Political Ditty for the Times

lillian17 Comments

Hum-diddly-dee
hum-diddly-dum.
Sing out with glee,
beat that drum!

Add words to your tune,
“sycophants be gone”!
Revile the buffoon,
use your brassiest song.

Come November third
rise up, Land of the Brave.
Drown this theater of the absurd
in a tsunami blue wave!



Written for dVerse, the online pub for poets around the globe. Today, De asks us to write a quadrille including the word “hum” or a form of the word.

Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title, that includes a particular word provided in the prompt.

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

lillian9 Comments

In the midst of strife and stress
I find myself traveling the world,
seeking nature’s quiet views.
Balm for my soul.

Standing far above the sea
I walk slowly beside hand hewn fences
near centuries old barn.
My steps saunter in times gone by.

Wild golden glow blooms brightly
amidst tall grasses swaying in breeze.
White spruce stand tall
framing views of Bras d’or Lake.

Photos to peruse later
insure Cape Breton stays with me.
This peaceful place shall always be
only a journal page away.




All photos taken yesterday, September 9, as we walked the grounds of Highland Village, a historical Gaelic village on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.

Through the late 18th and early 19th centuries, thousands of Gaels settled eastern Nova Scotia in patterns of chain immigration. Most of those immigrants spoke Gaelic, a Celtic language closely related to Irish. Despite a rigorous climate and landscape, Scottish Gaels adopted to life in Nova Scotia. In this place, we go back in time, and walk through their history.