Tower strolls slowly searching for acacia trees. Giraffes’ favorite treat.
Bloat walks to water, waddles with heavy slow steps. Hippos seek cool bath.
Troop hops high and long. Daily constitutional, kangaroos’ amble.
Black and white striped suits mimic Armani’s men’s wear. Zebras’ dazzle style.
Alfred Hitchcock’s muse, murder gathers on roof tops. Crows screech, caw loudly.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Bjorn is hosting Open Link Night from Sweden. OLN means we are not confined to a particular form of poem, or rhythm, or rhyme scheme. Image created on Bing Create.
FYI: I’ve used the group names of animals here: a group of porcupines is a prickle; a group of flamingos is a flamboyant; a group of giraffes is a tower; a group of hippos is a bloat; a group of kanagaroos is a troop; a group of zebras is a dazzle; and a group of crows is a murder.
Mr. Goodbar and the Red Hots jazz like you’ve never heard it before!
The Sugar Babies, Twizzlers and Sweetarts let your imaginations think about that!
Mike & Ike serving the best hootch in town great way to cap your payday!
Leave the Missus at home or bring her along she’ll enjoy the Big Hunk struttin’ his stuff!
A bit-o-honey for everyone AT THE KIT KAT, WE NEVER DISAPPOINT!
It’s Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, I’m hosting and having a bit of fun with the prompt. I’ve listed names of twenty-seven candy bars and asked folks to create a poem that includes at least one of them in their poem. They’re free to include more than one from the list if they choose. If they select a candy with the word “bar” or “bars” in it, IE Oh Henry Bars, they can drop the word “bars/bar” — however, except for dropping that word, they must include the name of the candy exactly as it’s named in the prompt…no words in between etc. Can you find the candy bars I’ve included?
Image created on Bing Create. Candies I’ve included: Kit Kat, Mr. Goodbar, Red Hots, Sugar Babies, Twizzlers, Sweetarts, Mike & Ike, Payday, Big Hunk Bars, Bit-O-Honey
A flamboyance followed the out-of-control antics of the most orange one. They dumbly stood on one leg seemingly unable to stand on their own two feet.
Conspiracies exploded in numbers as zookeepers looked on aghast. These animals were becoming a colony, a clan, a bloat on the community, a herd of blind cows.
Behaviorists know otters may romp, crocadiles bask, and zebras dazzle. But humans who gaggle, needlessly creating a pandemonium, deliberately crashing the order of things that’s dangerous to every zoo in the world.
All zoo keepers must issue a warning: Beware the squeal of a muskrat in cahoots with a flamboyance. Remember the movie “The Birds” – they gather precariously on a high wire, the murder creating the cacophony. We cannot let them succeed.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is April Fool’s Day and in keeping with the date, Melissa asks us to write a poem that is partially a lie and partially the truth. She suggests a 60% to 40% ratio.
Not sure about my percentages….but suffice it to say, my poem is not about a zoo. There is much truth here however. Note the use of actual names for groups of animals. Flamboyance:a group of flamingos (who are orange and often stand on one foot) Conspiracy: a group of lemurs Colony: a group of ants Clan: a group of hyenas Bloat: a group of hippos Herd of cows Romp: a group of otters Bask: a group of crocodiles Dazzle: a group of zebras Gaggle of geese Pandemonium: a group of parrots and finally, a Murder is a group of crows.
ME: Well, they can do it now. They watch the gulf-stream pattern, from the Gulf of America and the blow-hard-wind data from Mount McKinley. They even have access to X-rated data.
YOU: So what’s their prediction?
ME: A four year blizzard! Be prepared!
YOU: How?
ME: Just head to a fabric store.
YOU: Do those exist anymore?
ME: Go to the one on Blue Avenue and head to the left side of the store. They have a good supply of outerwear patterns. Get plenty of heavy fabric. Take it to a seamstress and tell her to make of it a parka. For your soul then, wear it outside every day and resist the storm!
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Prosery Monday and Lisa is our pubtender. She provides us with the lines “Make of it a parka For your soul.” from Before you know you owned it by Alice Walker. We are to include these exact words, in this exact order, in a 144 word piece of prose/flash fiction. We are however, allowed to add punctuation or change the punctuation. Image made on Bing Create.
. . . remember that old song? Of course you do. Sing it with me! Skip to my Lou, my darlin’!
Let’s skip stones across a pond and then, chalk in hand, draw hopscotch on a sidewalk. Later you can pour me a Scotch and we’ll pour over old photo albums laughing at our childhood antics.
A bit puckered out and perhaps tipsy too, we’ll gawk at the stars, sitting on the stoop. Stooped shoulders with a myriad of wrinkles. Madeline L’Engle’s wrinkles in time singing Skip to my Lou, my darlin’! Oh let’s just skip the malarkey and admit it.
We’re septuagenarians in love with life!
Melissa has us zeugmatically speaking for today’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She explains, “zeugma is defined by Merriam-Webster as ‘a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses.’ Zeugma is a rhetorical device that is used to emphasize, add humor, or surprise a reader.” Hopefully, I’ve done this correctly with the words skip and pour. The words Scotch, stoop, and wrinkle are played with a bit here as well. Madeline L’Engle’s famous novel, A Wrinkle in Time, is also referenced . . . sort of!
Rowan, Puss’ cousin, was the original one. He died on a cold winter’s night giving rise to number two, Tabby Tat. Nearsighted, she met her demise squinting down a busy street. Number three was Kit the Kat, catapulted to fame by a candy bar. Sugar highs and alley fights finally did him in. Mouser came next, not very smart, he followed a mouse into a trap and was last heard to say, oh crap! The next reincarnation came in a far away land. Penelope the Puma, sadly and cruelly killed by a hunter’s hand. Her ghost became the charming Ms. Cheetah, seduced to her death by a devilish Tom. Lorna the Lynx was up next. She lolled through life until her untimely death. And now if you’ve been counting with me we’ve come to the ninth penultimate life. That final reiteration, none other than Felicity Feline, intensely happy, true to her name. I am delighted to report, she found a happy home with the prolific painter, Mr. Louis Wain. Her portrait, painted in joyous colors, stands out in his collection. And so, while all those other eight are forgotten Felicity lives on in perpetuity, frozen in time, displayed on an easel, for generations to visit and see.
Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics on prompt where Melissa is introducing us to the English artist Louis Wain. He is “best known for his drawings of anthropomorphised cats. Born in Londin in 1860…he attended the West London School of Art, where he would go on to teach for a time….In 1884…The Illustrated London News was first to publish Wain’s art. It wasn’t until 1886 that he received more widespread recognition….he was elected president of the National Cat Club….he was a prolific artist. During his lifetime, he drew thousands of cats (it is estimated that the number exceeds 150,000.” Melissa asks us to choose one of his paintings/drawings she includes in her prompt, and to “write a poem inspired by the artwork. Simple enough, right? There’s just one catch – you may not use the word cat anywhere in your poem, including the title.”
I selected Wain’s painting, Untitled.
I had some fun with this….using many different words that refer to cats: puss, tabby, kit, mouser, puma, cheetah, tom, lynx, and feline. I also had some fun with wordplay, without using the word “cat” as in the Kit Kat candy bar, and catapulted.
Yes, the dish ran away with the spoon, but Mother Goose got it wrong. She laid an egg with this one. It was not a happily-ever-after tale.
Turns out the dish was a cad. A saucer with sterling designs, and always a cups man.
Young utensil that she was, she never guessed his real intention to tarnish her reputation.
He led her past the infamous cow the one who jumped over the moon. Romancing her under cover of night, surely, he thought, she’d swoon.
But alas, there were too many stars that night, revealing what he truly was really made of. Just cheap melamine, not Royal Doulton or Spode.
Avoiding every advance he dished out, she ran back to the cat and the fiddle. She maintained her sterling reputation, after all, she was always a respectable ladle!
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe where today is Open Link Night and poets may post any one poem of their choosing.
This little diddle is an edited version of NaPoWriMo’s day 22 prompt: “to write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips. Or perhaps your two things could be linked somehow – like a rock and a hard place – and be utterly sick of being so joined. The possibilities are endless!”
For those of you not familiar with this Mother Goose nursery rhyme, it goes like this: Hey, diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.
In Lucy’s words: Snoopy’s on a stamp? What is wrong with philatelists? Are they all dog lovers? Do they all have beagles? I’ll bet they all have at least one girl in their family! A mother, a sister, an aunt. When you look at it that way, they probably have more! I’m smart. I give sound advice for five cents a pop. I’m confident and strong. You’ll be calling me Madame President some day! So WAKE UP! It’s Lucy for the WIN!!!
Screenshot
Written for day 15 at NaPoWriMo where we’re directed to a site that includes postage stamps from many countries and asked to pick one and write about it. Not one of my better poems…..but for day 15, it’ll have to suffice.
Mr. and Mrs. Tabby Cat sat down to have a very long chat. They’d just returned from quite a sail that really produced quite a tale.
They bravely decided to set afloat in what they thought was a sturdy boat. They left at night under a harvest moon only to be met by a horrific typhoon.
The seas roiled and got very rough, they soon decided they’d had enough. Now back home, they sat in a puddle whiskers rattled, feelings a muddle.
Boots came off, dropped with a plop. “What can we do so our spirits don’t flop?” “I’ll bake a pie,” said Mrs. Cat. “We’ll savor its scent then eat, until we’re quite content.”
Tummies full, their dreams so sweet and now this prompt is finally complete!
Image created in Bing Create.
This was quite a prompt for day 13 at NaPoWriMo! Yes, April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write a poem every day.
Today’s involved prompt: create a word list that includes 5 words related to the senses, two concrete nouns, and two verbs. Then come up with a rhyming word for each of those 7 words! See my list below. And then, of course, write a poem using all those words, trying to include the rhyme in the poem! It’s what I call a sudoku prompt!
5 sense words chosen with they rhyming word sweet : complete for taste scent : content something you smell rough : enough for touch plop : flop a sound you can hear puddle : muddle something you can see
Two concrete nouns and their rhyming words cat : chat moon: typhoon
Two verbs and their rhyming word sail : tale float : boat
lillian the home poet 