There is a pain too raw.
Too personal to write down.
Wrapped in the shrouds of death
it came too near,
but for angels along the way.
Pain of illness, threat of death,
most astute tutors of life.
Love every mundane moment,
cherish them as a gift.
Celebrate every dawn.
Namrah soared high. Twenty years after the Peabody children wished him live, he decided to return. Would they want to travel on his golden wings again? He’d taken so many children across the globe on secret midnight rides. Sometimes circling the full moon, chasing shooting stars across the skies. He’d not been above American shores in all these years. Would Allen and Susan consider themselves too old to climb aboard his teal feathered back?
Closer to their city now, but why so dark? Hovering over their yard, he stared in disbelief. Piles of bricks, uprooted trees, scattered roof tiles, shattered glass. Fear seized his heart. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this rubbish? A solitary tear escaped one azure sequined eye. Has time destroyed the home, the town of his origins? Are Allen and Susan alive?
Prosery is a genre created by dVerse. Pub tenders choose one line of poetry and writers must use that exact line (only the punctuation may be changed; word order must be the same) in a piece of prose, 144 words or less in length, sans title.
Cleaning out her grandmother’s home
she found only one mirror.
Hidden in the back of a drawer
buried under delicate handkerchiefs.
Some with embroidered flowers,
others with faded tatted edging.
It had multiple cracks
but the maple handle’s patina
still glowed.
The bouquet began drooping days ago.
Calla lily bodies downed,
long stems succumbed to gravity.
Sunflower heads
ruffled edges turning brown,
faces no longer meet the eye.
Nearby, on oak sidebar,
shriveled pink-veined orchid petals
ready to fall.
Retreated to their tents
they sleep encased in sleeping bags.
Bought on sale,
blue cloth on the outside.
Inside, cowboys ride horses,
stand with guns holstered by cacti.
Childlike Western print
on bright yellow flannel.
Embers pale in campfire ash.
Gathered for their fiftieth
they take the tour,
campus now lush with trees.
Three-story new student center
sports three dining options,
baristas in the Coffee Corner.
Library tables barren, minus green
Readers’ Guides to Periodical Literature.
Fossils still displayed in the Geology Museum.
Scientist by training, environmentalist by trade,
he took over cooking after retirement.
Meticulous shopping lists.
Weekly menu spreadsheets.
One recipe covers two nights.
Red aproned
in black and white tiled galley kitchen.
Meal cooked, served, eaten.
Leftovers stored for another day.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Bjorn asks us to write a Cadralor. This is a relatively new poetry form. It is comprised of five unrelated, highly-visual stanzas. Each stanza must stand alone as a poem. Stanzas should be fewer than ten lines and usually each stanza has the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial – each stanza should be like a scene or a photograph. The fifth stanza is the crucible and should answer the question “For what do you yearn?” In the case of Remainders, I’m emphasizing that the leftovers, in each of the stanzas, has or has had value. In the last stanza, leftovers is taken literally.
Her mother was a stoner,
flowerchild of the sixties.
Braless, barefoot, oblivious.
She copulated in a purple haze.
Love child born in a stream,
drifted from womb to surface
floated in sun’s glistened path.
Named according to her origins.
Forever asked,
why Mica Shist?
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, De would like us to use the word “stone” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
When I saw the word stone, immediately thought of rocks, then different types of rocks as in metamorphic, granite, and mica schist. Mica schist is a metamorphic rock that includes the mineral schist. When on the surface, schist gives a sparkle to the rock. Some say mica is nature’s glitter. So I decided to have a little fun with the prompt! Image from Pixabay.com
I mellow in my Provincetown days.
I watch and listen to the ocean tides,
their fidelity to lunar rhythms.
My body rests in this place.
Skies often pastel my respite.
Blushing dawns. Tinted sunsets.
Sherbet orange melts into lemon yellow.
Pinks blur into shades of grey and soft orchid.
I’m struck by how colors blend here.
As if the palette is tipped
just ever so slightly
and delineations disappear.
For two weeks every year,
I leave the world behind.
I do not come to recharge;
quite the opposite.
I simply come to be.
I seldom use it –
the full-length mirror.
When I do, it makes me wonder,
who is that person?
I’ve had fun with crepe paper.
That weird webbing you could stretch.
Make it wider and longer.
Hung it all over the family room
for many a birthday party.
So I have crepe skin on my arms.
Okay, be honest. In other places too.
I understand the term’s origins.
How did my mother climb into that frame?
Save your clucking tongue,
your “you haven’t changed a bit” comments.
I prefer to see my value in other ways.
In my husband’s eyes.
In my daughter’s forty-seven year old smile.
In my forty-five year old son’s weekly calls.
In the tik toks and quick texts shared with five grandkids.
I’ll wear capri pants, sleeveless tops,
sparkly eye shadow below my thinning brows.
I love my almost pure white streak
in the midst of my grey hair.
Save your tears for somebody else.
I’m quite content to be a septuagenarian.
The mirror be damned!
Today I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’ve asked folks to go to the website https://mybirthdayhits.com and plug in their birth date. The site then gives you the musical hit that made #1 on the charts for every birthday you’ve celebrated until 2021. So for example, if your birthday is today, September 28th and you were born in 1952, you plug in that date and the site will give you the #1 hit for every year on September 28th from 1952 until 2021! AND the site gives you a recording you can listen to as well. Such fun! So the prompt today is to take at least one of the #1 hits from your birthdate and include the song title, word for word, in your poem. You can use more than one #1 hit if you wish.
My birthday is May 13th: In 2007, my 60th birthday, the #1 hit was Makes Me Wonder by Maroon 5; in 2021, for my 74th birthday, the #1 hit was Save Your Tears by The Weeknd. You’ll find those titles in my poem today.
Before this
brick, concrete, two hospitals,
Old West’s church steeple.
My Boston’s high-rise views.
Before this
seventh floor balcony,
city walks.
My outside.
Here, the ocean lives outside my door.
Sun rises in pastel silence.
Serenity lingers on the breeze.
I can just be.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for global poets. Today the word to use in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title, is linger. Photos taken from our deck this morning in Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod.
Her brain lingers.
Tries to recall the thread.
But she’s stuck.
Can’t remember.
Her tongue fumbles.
Later she excuses herself saying
My brain , , , it
lingers
these days
. . . stuck
on the
last good
conversation
we – – –
had.
But that was in 2017.
He’ll visit again tomorrow.
Petulant nature
angry at summer’s demise.
Rain pelts. Thunder roars.
Lightning cracks and flashes.
Temper-tantrum stomping.
She pouts today.
Glum gray overcast sky,
like widow’s shroud.
Hides distinct features,
individual clouds indiscernible.
Cormorant swarm takes its leave.
Thousands bob in ocean.
Race forward, then streak to sky.
Mass exit. Black shapes,
like inkblots everywhere.
Provincetown deserters,
just like tourists.
Summer in their rearview mirror.
Fading. Disappearing. Gone.
Page turned.
Autumns’ quiet delights
somewhere on the horizon,
not quite yet in view.
Written for OLN at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Photo and video taken yesterday morning in Provincetown. Sadly, I didn’t think to get my phone to photograph and video tape it until the swarm’s mass had already passed … this is the tail end and it’s still incredible to look at these images!
Wine me this evening.
Let us sit together
sipping and listening.
No words needed.
Waves roll in, roll out.
No other sound.
Love can be silent.
Side by side many years.
Children raised, married,
parenting their own.
We have time to reflect
on what was,
what is,
and what is yet to come.
The years ahead,
far less than those behind.
And yet we smile,
sit together,
sipping and listening.
lillian the home poet 