Victrola plays Glen Miller’s Moonlight Serenade.
She sits dozing, blue-veined hands quiet,
elbows on doily-covered armrests.
Asleep, she was dancing with him.
Awakening to reality
she stares at his empty chair.
Only a figment in her dreams now,
she still misses him every day.
A quadrille written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting today, asking folks to include the word “figment” (or a form of the word) in their poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Image created in Bing Create.
lillian the home poet 
I love the poignancy with which this poem is penned, Lillian! 💖💖
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Thank you, Sanaa!
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This is so wonderful. I can only imagine how it feels, parting after a life together. We actually went to a funeral for Lotta’s uncle this weekend…
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Thank you, Bjorn. Yes….I am forever grateful to have had these 11 extra years with George….almost lost him to a cardiac arrest. My mother spent 8 years alone after my father died….she told me there was many a night she turned on music and pretended to be dancing with him. 🙂 Please give my best to Lotta. Are you still visiting her mother weekly?
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We do… and she is still alive.
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Nice ekphrastic write, Lillian.
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Actually I wrote the poem first and then created the image in AI with Bing Create.
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reverse AI ekphrastic. Love it!
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So very poignant….a powerful yet serene scene……wonderful prompt.
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What a poignant reflection on the iamge, how “love dances on”!
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poignant indeed. my father in law still leaves the radio on for the mother in laws photo six years after losing her. some bonds are never broken.
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I absolutely adore where you went with this one. I can see her dreaming in her chair as she dances in another time and space.
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Such a sweet and sad poem! Love lives on after death, even if it’s only in our dreams.
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A heartfelt quadrille.
much🤍love
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I never thought figment could be sad, but when a loved one becomes a figment . . .
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Quadrilliffic capture and presentation Lillian, both the verse and the AI graphics.
My hats off. And thanks for the cool prompt!
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Beautifully written and poignant, Lillian.
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Poignant and moving Lil. More and more empty chairs every year… 🫤
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A truly relatable poem. This scene is played out every day somewhere in the world.
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Ahhh…of course she does! What lovely memories she keeps of him. Beautifully penned, Lillian.
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Such a poignant poem. Lovely.
Thank you for the prompt!
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He lives on in her heart. What a beautiful love poem.
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Your Quadrille is beautifully bitter and sweet.
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Oh, I love this, Lillian! The power of love and music transcends everything. This is such a tender write and your graphic is incredible. Very moving piece.
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What an evocative litany of the richness of memory – and of loss. Vivid to me from the experience of bitter-sweet nostalgia, and I guess to you, too. Thank you for sharing from that deep well.
I’m listening to Elton John’s greatest hits at the moment – a dance teacher in Berlin shared the link – so figments are fierce tonight!
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Sad but beautiful words.
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A beautifully evocative quadrille on a lost loved one. I like the natural rhythm of the verse as well—it nicely underscores the habitual summoning of presence and mourning of absence.
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Probably the bane of many, “figment in her dreams.” If that is a crank-up victrola her song won’t last too long. Nice picture find though.
..
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