People are different. Color, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, language, citizenship, culture.
Gather them all in one place, in concentric circles facing each other, holding hands. Each circle defined by a trait.
Note: circles have no beginning or end. He who joined first disappears. She who joined last disappears. All are integral to their circle.
Herein lies a truth of geometric principle. Concentric circles differ in radii but have the same center point. And what is that same center point?
As Maya Angelou famously wrote, “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.” The center point is our humanity.
Sadly however, truth is not constructed reality when the builder is a demolitionist.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today I am hosting: go to https://dversepoets.com to see the prompt this poem is motivated by.
He or she or it peers out from window’s side. Black obsidian-like pupil orange incandescent iris. Half there, half hidden. All knowing? Fearful? Oblivious? Seer by unearned reputation among feathered fowl.
I arrange alphabetical letters. Create single words, strung-along thoughts gibberish with mismatched curves. Leaked ink stains fingers, dribbles dots on embossed paper smears black blotches. Accidental undefined punctuation blobs.
What seers roost among us? Spew artificial intelligence scenarios. Indulge everyman, everywoman, every androgynous human. Note the ever present “man” in that word. Want it? Steal it or create it. At the cost of many for the pleasure of few.
That all seeing obsidian eye? Taxidermist’s handiwork unfinished. Half-body only. Nothing else behind the window. What you see? Rancid carnage, stuffed roadkill. Alternative reality. This is all we get. ““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting the pub’s Open Link Night today, as well as dVerse LIVE on Saturday from 10 to 11 AM EST. Folks can post any poem of their choosing, no required length, form, or topic OR write an ekphrastic poem, one that is motivated by one of three “window” images I’ve provided, or any “window image” of their choosing.Owl image above from Pixabay.com
Join us LIVE on Saturday, October 25th, between 10 and 11 AM EST!! Want to see and hear poets from around the globe read their poems (all in English)? We’re a very friendly bunch! Come join us to sit in, read a poem of your choice, and/or join in the conversation. Click here and then click on the Zoom meeting link provided (video and audio). Hope to see you Saturday, October 25th between 10 and 11 AM at our LIVE session!
In the waning days of autumn nature sheds its hilarity. Crimson red, halloween orange, and golden yellow leaves shrivel, lose their vim and fall. Farmers’ fields, stripped of crops seem eeirly clold and barren.
I seek warmth, light and respite. Candles lit, afghan wrapped, mulled wine and book at hand, I hibernate. I am, afterall, a creature of nature. Slowed by age and sensitive to seasonal biorhythms.
Shared with dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
nature’s cancan skirts vivid orange, gold, crimson red leaves delight the eyes
windows opened wide fresh breezes ruffle curtains pumpkins on display
witches roam the streets moms and dads with little ones door to door for treats
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Dora’s prompt is entitled Tripping the October Light Fantastic. She asks us to write a poem about October. Photo from last October in Boston’s Public Garden.
Rooftops cold, lifeless. No sharing. No caring. Dead metaphorically.
Values depleted. Hopper’s view of the future, stark warning. Resist.
Jarring emptiness. Where were you when it happened? Democracy failed.
Today Sanaa hosts OLN at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We can either post a poem of our choosing OR post a poem related to the image above.
Chiseled jaw, high cheekbones. Tired eyes glance sideways, energy depleted. Joyless. Her exquisitely shaped lips rouged deepest red. Closed, not pursed, yet somehow gentle. Dark tendrils hang beside her face, drooping as if exhausted. Indigo headscarf appears torn. Disheveled from constant wear or symbolic of war torn life. Blues bleed pale into background. Not thickened red of blood but bleeding nonetheless. One lustrous pearl earring hangs coldly, boldly iridescent in a palette of darkness. Did she really wear it for the sitting? Or is it the artist’s one defiant stroke?
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Image from Pixabay.com
Want to hear and watch poets from around the globe read a poem aloud? Come join us as I host dVerse LIVE on Saturday, June 21st from 10 to 11 AM Boston time. Last time I hosted, we had folks from Sweden, Pakistan, all across the US, Kenya, the UK, Australia, South Africa, and Trinidad Tobago! Come read a poem of your own or just sit in to listen. We’re a friendly bunch. The more the merrier!
To join us LIVE on Saturday, June 21st from 10 to 11 AM Boston time, just click here and scroll down to the LIVE LINK. Hope to see you there!
Never planned to join the circus, although there is a hereditary tendency. My Uncle Bob ran away to the circus, several times. But he always came back.
Never planned to join the circus, but what a circus we’re living in now! Twenty-four-seven news cycle, clown leading buffoons under the big top.
Never planned to join the circus, but it’s tempting to become an escape artist. I’d lose myself in romance novels and Netflix, or any kind of my own-made cocoon.
Uncle Bob, if you’re anywhere out there, somewhere in the cosmos, help us find our way back home again. Just like you always did.
Kim is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She asks us to write a poem “that starts with a surprising hook, which can be one to three lines, but must develop into a fully-fledged poem.”
A bit of explanation: in a few years, I’ll become an octogenarian. I actually did have an Uncle Bob, who every time his wife became pregnant, ran away to the circus. Absolutely true – he had four children so he ran away four times! But he always came back- well before they were born. He was a wonderful uncle and as my childhood memories recall, had a lot of fun with his kids.
PS: here in the U.S., this is no time for any of us to be escape artists. It’s time to speak out, stand up, and resist!
. . . on the precipice, fulcrum loaded, solar eclipse of political moves. Millions watch across the globe piece by piece, light diminishes. Cold suffocating hot air engulfs a nation as vitriol spews. Lies repeated hold strong
Sleep marred by days of nightmares. Innocents assaulted, banished. Aid rescinded, innocents die. What power are my words when thousands follow blindly refusing to call the man what he is.
User and abuser of people. Expunger of honest history repeating tenets of horrific history. One-armed salutes multiply behind closed doors. We live now in a darkly evil tunnel.
Humans hammer on its cold metal walls scream warnings sadly unheeded. Spineless creatures grovel in the muck lick the boot, kiss the ring, subservient to an orange tyrant who redefines the words “bully pulpit”.
Poem created and published * the day after Harvard refused to capitulate to Trump’s demands for federal oversight on admissions, curriculum, faculty hires, and general University policies
* on the day Trump retaliated by freezing $2 billion of federal funds from Harvard including critical research grants to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham-Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Insstitute and Beth Israel Deaconess Mecial Center (all affiliated with Harvard Medical School).
*one day after Trump defied the Supreme Court’s order announcing in a press conference while meeting with the President of El Salvadore, that he would not ask for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvadore prison, even though his administration admitted his abduction and imprisonment there was an “administrative error”.
*and at least one month after Trump cancelled 5800 USAID contracts including some related to polio, HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria clinics in African countries. “People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know [how many] because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
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.
lillian the home poet 