Month: April 2020

Done

lillian17 Comments

Thunder raged outside.
Rain battered windows
rattled trees.
She slumped inside.

His words, his memory,
his voice. All hollow now.
Ink blurred by tears,
love’s letters torn to shreds

Ripped asunder.
Bits and pieces of paper
scattered across the floor.
Love spent, annihilated.

Too many bits and pieces,
impossible to reassemble.
She collapsed into the abyss
eye of the storm.

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Day 13: National Poetry Writing Month. Prompt from Toads was a real challenge today: 1) Write a poem using 3 to 13 words from the following quotation:

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

2) AND the poem must employ a metaphor: a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. In Done, the storm rages outside and inside. Love letters torn into bits and pieces are her life; in her mind, too shredded to reassemble.

FOR A MORE POSITIVE AND FUN POST TODAY, go to my prosery post, for dVerse, The Second Act.

The Second Act

lillian33 Comments

“You said you’d follow me anywhere,” he yelled out above the roar. She stood there shaking. Obviously he didn’t understand the meaning of hyperbole!

Her parents had warned her. Her stodgy father mumbled “He’s a fly-by-night.” Her mother wrung her hands and kept repeating “He’s not good enough for you.” But she loved him. So she followed her heart.

It was romantic at first. Driving cross-country in his converted VW van. Lying on the hood looking up at the stars. Then he got this ridiculous idea. She didn’t think he meant it literally for God’s sake! Who really runs away to the circus??? But here she was. Sequined tights, gaudy tiara, leather grips on her hands. No one left and no one came on the bare platform. It was her turn. And there he was, hanging upside down swinging on that damned trapeze!

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Sarah is hosting Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. However, we’re not writing poems today! Prosery is the use of a given line from a poem, word for word, within the work of flash fiction which can be no more than 144 words, sans title. 

Sarah’s line which we must use within our flash fiction is “No one left and no one came onto the bare platform.” it is from Edward Thomas’ poem Adelstrop.
Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Johnny lives on . . .

lillian8 Comments

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”  The character Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing.

You in 1963. Kellerman’s Resort.
Me in 1987, some movie theater
somewhere nondescript.
You danced. Oh how you danced!

I’ve watched, over and over.
Over thirty plus years.
Your moves,
always the same.

You in 1963,
at Kellerman’s.
Me in my living room,
watching a DVD.

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An odd poem to post on Easter Sunday….BUT I’m following Toads prompt for National Poetry Writing Month, day 12: write a poem to or about someone you love who doesn’t know you love them!
Well, I have family and my beloved of 50 years….and really can’t think of someone who doesn’t know I love them….I’m a very demonstrative person! So best I can do is the character from Dirty Dancing, Johnny Castle. LOVE his moves and have watched the DVD many many times over the years. Also love dancing to Time of My Life with my hubby….but we don’t do the lift! 

May it be nonfiction . . .

lillian6 Comments

Lady in Red,
Ruler of the University.
Guardian to extraterrestrials,
humans, exactoids
and shape-shifters.

She sets the rules.
Lanes within which to live.
All played nicely
until humans did not.
They selectively listened.

She gave warnings.
Melted ice shelves
raised ocean levels
sent pestilence.
Cried foul many a time.

Still their souls eroded.
While others flourished
humans seemed to rot.
They battered earth,
debased each other.

Lady in Red,
All Seeing One.
What could she do
but plead, cajole?
Demand loudly, STOP.

They did not.

And with breaking heart
she raised her arm,
rescinded humanity.
Flung them from the field
into suffocating darkness.

Earth and all her humans,
banished from the cosmos.
Extraterrestrials, exactoids
and even shape-shifters
watched and learned.

And the Lady in Red wept
for their inhumanity,
for the world.

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Day 11 of National Poetry Writing Month. Today Toads asks us to choose one of the Russian sci-fi posters provided in the prompt, and write a poem about it. I found this challenging . . . not in my comfort zone.

Flower Child

lillian4 Comments

Bloom wherever you are planted, my dear.
Her mother’s sage advice.
And she did.

She fancied herself an annual,
as her life took many turns.
And always, she bloomed,
but never with perennial roots.

She took odd jobs to secure her keep.
Brought joy and happiness
wherever she landed,
for whatever her growing season.

She took a new name in every town.
Dahlia for Davenport. Pansy in Peoria.
Hitchhiking cross country
she became Zinnia in LA.

Suitors brought her flowers,
obsequiously wooing her.
When they got too close.
she uprooted once again.

She carried one note always
written in careful hand,
folded inside the pocket
of her well-worn floral wrap.

When last I seek the sun
and it rises not on me,
place me ‘neath the fertile ground
with marker at my head.

Etch my epitaph in simple script
that all might finally know.
Here lies Marigold.
Daughter of Chrys Anthemum,
and dweller of the Cosmos.

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Day 10: National Poetry Writing Month, where the challenge is to write a poem every day. Written for Toads where today we are to write an Ekphrasis: a poem that is motivated by a work of art. 

This work of art by Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916) is titled Mystery. He is a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist . “My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”

Metamorphosis-19

lillian26 Comments

We emerged from our cocoons,
beautifully.
Heard laughter again
marveled at smiles
touched outstretched hands
reveled in freedom.
And our spirits soared.

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Day 9: National Poetry Month where the challenge is to write a poem every day in April.

Written for the prompt at Toads We are to use one of the scientific illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian, artist and naturalist, to motivate our poem. Merian traveled to Suriname in South America in 1699. The trip was sponsored by the city of Amsterdam. Remarkably for the time, Maria traveled with her young daughter, but with no male companion.  In 1705, she published a book about the insect life of Suriname, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.  Maria Sibylla Merian was one of the first naturalists to draw insects from direct study. The poem is also written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today Frank asks us to write a 7 line poem. No other content or form restrictions. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

And to all my readers, stay safe and stay healthy!

La Jolla Coastal Walk

lillian8 Comments

Winds whirl as clouds build
heavens thunder, upset calm.
Ominous sky shifts like easel askew,
pearlescent clouds turn darkest grey.
Ocean current races toward home,
whitecaps crashing shore.
Nearby, daisies’ ruffled petals
duck and dance to nature’s roar.

Sole large succulent leans in, thrilled.
Meets nature’s tantrum with aplomb.
Its tall spike-stems ignore the ballyhoo,
resolute, they refuse to sway.
I stand on cliff, sprayed by foam,
wait for rain, weather’s soaking encore.
It never comes and so with mettle
I hike further up the coast I adore.

Written for day 8 of National Poetry Month. Responding to a Toads prompt to write an L’Arora, a poetry form developed by Laura Lamarca. It is an 8-lined stanza with the following rhyme scheme: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, f. The poem is usually a minimum of 4 stanzas, but for Toads, 2 are allowed.
Poem motivated by photo from our La Jolla coastal walk about a month ago. Now we are back in chilly Boston! 

Covid-19, The Unveiler

lillian25 Comments

Welcome to the After Awards,
bracelet signifiers distributed
and assigned.
Hero. Survivor. Privileged.

Before the Age of Corona
we lived unaware.
Blithely took much for granted.
We thought nothing of what we had
when so many others had nothing.

A home, savings, vacations
books and toys for our kids.
Safe neighborhoods
cupboards chockfull
and mobility.

In donning masks
our eyes began to see.
Privileged were we.
We watched numbers
numbly, then fearfully.

Even the privileged succumbed.

And then came the New Dawn.
BC took on a second meaning,
Before Corona.
And we understood,
after being assigned
our Privileged bracelet.
It was a jewelry of shame.
And yet,
now we actually were,
because we lived.

And we would shed that arrogant air,
and we would share
and we would care
and we would love.

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Day 7 of national poetry month where the challenge is to write a poem every day.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where Bjorn asks us to write a poem about the pandemic, for example, how it might look on the other side. At Toads, we are asked to somehow write about bracelets. Image from Pixabay.com

To all my readers, stay safe. Stay healthy.

A Seal’s Life

lillian70 Comments

I savor La Jolla’s coast.
Feeding delight near the cove
time to frolic in rushing waves,
flipper scoot on to sand.
I snort my derision
at gawking beings.

But the best, oh the best . . .
sun drenched rocks.
Lying close, just resting.
Crowds be damned.

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Written for day 6, national poetry month. Combines prompts from Toads to write in the voice of another (can be an animal) and the dVerse Monday quadrille word-prompt, “close”. A quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Prompt word muse be used in body of the poem.

Photo taken last month at what is called the Children’s Pool in La Jolla, California. Originally designated as a sheltered sandy beach for children to swim, it has been taken over by seals. Many people walk the coast line to watch the seals there, and on nearby rocks.