Footprints disappear
in cool damp sand ridges
as low tide changes course.
Sun light
does a glisten dance,
as waters disappear in clouds.
We share our solitude,
grateful for the off-season
to rediscover love.
Written for dVerse where Victoria asks us to rewrite an older poem and add some imagery. The original Glisten is the first poem I posted when I began this blog in March 2015. Photo: Provincetown, on Cape Cod.
One dot from a pointillists’s brush,
starts the ripple in a river’s sheen.
Grab the energy of love,
fling it long and fling it wide.
Build positives and can-do-its
into mountains of hope.
Add a life-time partner
and work together
to pass it on.
Tending the bar today at dVerse, asking everyone to write a self portrait quadrille: 44 words – no more, no less; not including title. Stop by and see how folks paint themselves with words rather than a brush! Photo Credit: Pointillism by NikkiNavaille.
Sunflowers
pivot eager brown faces
toward the sun
and turn away at dusk.
Nature’s solar sensors.
Photo taken in Provincetown, Cape Cod. A tanka is a 5 line poem with the following linear form: short,long,short,long,long. Sometimes it follows this syllabic form: 5,7,5,7,7.
Deal the cards,
jokers are wild and ante is high.
Life’s tough
with card sharks at every turn.
Bluffing is no longer an option.
Sharing for Open Link Night at dVerse, the Poets’ Virtual Pub.
They were left behind
like empty carts in a now empty parking lot.
Once touched, then guided by sure hands
doing for others, sometimes in steady sun,
or picking up the pace in life affirming rain.
They weathered storms until they could not.
And now they sit, in that mawkish pool of wet,
that sickening smell of decay.
They sit in a place where no one comes,
drowning in their memories.
Photo by Janet Webb. Written for the incomparable Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers where we’re asked today, to respond to Ms. Wolf’s photo in 100 words or less. Word Count: 71. Rochelle: please excuse the free verse rather than fiction today!
She rocked the hours and days away
parched and drawn,
waiting for a visitor’s smile
to soothe her lonesome soul.
Tending the bar at dVerse today, Walter asks us to write a poem that somehow deals with the idea of drought. For many of our elderly, this is a condition of life, not the out-of-doors.
It was a day like any other day – until it wasn’t.
Rocking the elliptical to A Hard Day’s Night, I suddenly stopped. Did some invisible vice just clamp on to my chest? The Beatles still blared in my headset, I started to pump again . . . nope . . . can’t breathe. Off the machine . . . slowly out the club door into the sweltering day. I watched my feet in slow motion as the sun magnified everything. Sweat dripped through my pores. The elephant sitting on my chest was an unbelievable load. Takotsubo? The heart blows out in the shape of a Japanese octopus trap. Really? And everything slowed down to match the thick soup of summer’s oppressive heat. If you’re a woman who lives with stress, or has lived through stress, you should know the word: Takotsubo. I didn’t. Until I did.
octopus seeks its prey
eight suctioned tentacles grab and twist
latch on to suck out life
It’s haibun Monday at dVerse Poet’s Pub where Toni is tending bar. She asks us to write a haibun (one paragraph of prose followed by a haiku) that relates to hot hot hot — perhaps a memory from a hot summer day. This is my memory. My experience. I urge all readers to read about Takotsubo, sometimes called Broken Heart Syndrome. It is real and frightening. In most cases, women completely recover with no lasting damage to the heart. I am, fortunately, one of those women, although it took three months. We must all learn to handle stress in our lives. It is a matter of life and death. Photo on left is a Japanese octopus catcher. Xray on right shows the left portion of the heart blown out like a takotsubo….the heart does not pump efficiently. Take care of yourself out there!
And there they sat,
some agreed and some did not.
All taught as youth,
the tenants of democracy.
Respect the office
if not the man.
One voice spoke to all
until the word was harshly flung.
Liar! then gasps within the pause.
Heads turned to find the voice
whose tongue had struck,
lashed civility at its whipping post.
That word’s echo
replays throughout the land.
The fabric of decorum
a scrim forever rent,
as thread by shred
our dignity is torn.
Written in respons to a MOOC University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop assignment.
Explanation: On September 9, 2009, President Obama was addressing Congress when South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson interrupted him by shouting “Liar!” There were audible gasps and stares. It was unprecedented for a president addressing Congress to be heckled. Representative Wilson later apologized and was formally rebuked by Congress. Some critics believe this was a watershed moment in the behavior of politicians. Somehow, I’ve always connected this event to the refrain in the song American Pie, “…the day the music died.” In my mind, this was the day decorum died.
Effervescent, she shook up life
until it bubbled delicious.
Wore glitter star barrettes
high-kicking through life
like a sequined Rockette.
Bjorn is tending the bar today at dVerse and asks us to write a Twitter poem:
exactly 140 characters. A character is defined as a letter, space, hyphen, or punctuation mark.
Yep, that’s me. About 10 years ago, celebrating with the Boston Pops on the 4th of July on the esplanade. This shot made the jumbotron that night! I always wanted to be a Rockette! 🙂
Ice cube pressed to lips,
nostrils flare at exhales
as shoulders heave.
Ignore the oppressive humidity.
Ignore salt tears and warm blood.
Let ice cold droplets dilute the red,
drip to chin, to chest
stain rug.
He seemed different,
until he did not.
Walt is tending bar today, this third day of dVerse’s fifth anniversary. He asks us to write a poem that reacts to this quotation by Sebastian Barry from his novel A Long, Long Way: “I am cold, even though the heat of early summer is adequate. I am cold becasue I cannot find my heart.”
lillian the home poet 