Toddler’s rosy ice-cold cheeks. Zooming, bumping down icy hills on cafeteria-trays as sleds. Crack-the-whip flying on ice skates. Chocolate ganache, icing supreme, marguerita on the rocks, please. Icicle turrets on snow castles, I scream for ice cream. Smiling me, at a list like this.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Mish asks us to include the word “ice” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.Image by annca from Pixabay
They lived a merry-go-round life senses dulled by blurred vision. Maniacal calliope music, mired in manufactured grooves.
She rode the blue horse its mane gilded in gold. hands cold on metal pole, forever spinning ahead.
He rode two steeds behind, eyes wild with lust chasing her round and round, never gaining ground.
Desperately out of synch his up to her down so close, but always out of reach. Gold ring dangling in neon lights they rode on and on and on.
Rewritten from a poem I penned in 2016. Shared at dVerse OLN LIVE, the virtual pub for poets around the globe, today, Saturday January 21st.
Come join us LIVE from 10 to 11 AM EST, Saturday, January 21st. Read a poem of your choosing aloud, or just come to watch and listen. We’re a very friendly bunch! Click join us…you’ll find the link for Saturday’s LIVE session here!
Time is a glutton. Step back in time with me, behind gardenia laden breeze. School days, school days, good old golden rule days.
I remember mother’s shaking hand, she enjoyed a staccato existence. Track my life Crayola bright. It must be a dream because they leave the body.
I was born to die and so many have blood on their hands. May you burn in hell.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. For Thursday’s Meet the Bar prompt, Laura asked us to create a “Found Poem” by using only the first lines of the first poem we wrote in each month of 2022. We cannot add any words to the first lines, except prepositions and conjunctions to assist with the flow of the poem. I’ve added three words: “behind, because, and.” The two lines, “school days, school days, good old golden rule days” are the first line of my haibun written on August 2, 2022. This was indeed a sudoku prompt but with no choice as to the lines of our poem for today. I was quite surprised to see these first lines….some quite dark!
Oh . . . let it go! Quit complaining about growing old. I’m half-way through my septuagenarian years, big deal! If you divide life into seasons, I’m probably long past autumn, well into winter. Things I have on my must-do list, goals to achieve, to make my “mark” on the world?
So what if some of them don’t get done. I’m happy I can bend over to pull on my galoshes! Carless in Boston, I leave footprints in the snow walking to the store or to the doctor’s office. Shows me I’m still here, above ground. I’ll bet I can still make snow angels. I know I can – you’d just have to help me get up.
Think of life as a merry-go-round, concentrate on the merry part. So we can’t climb up to sit on the tallest horse anymore. Let’s just sit in the carriage the one with benches on both sides. It goes around just as fast as the horse. It just doesn’t go up and down anymore. That’s us you know . . . leveled out to enjoy the ride.
I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’ve provided a list of song titles about winter and cold weather. Writers must include at least two of the song titles from the list, within their poem, word for word. They can add punctuation between the words of the song title; or split the words over two lines (enjambment); but the titles must clearly be included in the body of the poem, word for word.
I’ve included three titles from the list in my poem: Let It Go, Winter Things, and Footprints in the Snow. Pub opens at 3 PM EST. Come join us!
Sun still shines at dawn to cause their demise at Charter Street Burial Ground.
I crave escape. A pen, and a plethora of words curtailing his gigolo lust, two stars over, from above the moon.
Respect provides a healthier view. Illuminated on my tree, “There is good in this world.”
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe where today is Meet The Bar Day. Laura asks us to look at the most recent poems we’ve written, preferably the last twelve poems, and taking the last lines from each of the poems, rearrange them into a new poem! A poetic sudoku! I did exactly that, not adding any words; not using enjambment (splitting words over two lines). These are the exact words from the last lines of the last twelve poems I posted to dVerse, (minus a prosery prompt since that was prose). Interesting how it turned out. Photo is from a visit to Glendalough, Ireland on a cruise a number of years ago.
The lonely lady sat under the cherry moon drinking beer from the dregs of a can. Battered and bent, the can that is, found behind nearby trees.
She sipped the tepid stuff with a straw found in a Dairy Queen cup. She didn’t begrudge the stray cats who found it first and licked it clean.
Holding her pinkie up as she sipped she fancied herself a queen, enjoying her finely steeped tea from a delicate porcelain cup.
Nose held up high between her sips, she imagined herself at a cocktail party. She’d never admit she was simply avoiding the stench from dog feces nearby.
She turned down an indecent proposal from the man two benches down, never one to be swept away by anyone’s grandiose airs.
Mirabelle maintains her standards, her dignity and pride shining through. “I once was a wealthy Contessa, dear two stars over, from above the moon.”
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and introducing people to the Golden Raspberry Awards. They’re the opposite of the Academy Awards. Instead of presenting an Oscar for the Best Movie of the Year, Best Actor, Best Documentary etc, they present Razzies for the Worst Movie of the Year, the Worst Actor etc. A piece of trivia: Sylvester Stallone has won more Razzies as Worst Actor than any one else: he has ten!
In today’s prompt,I’ve provided a list of thirteen movies that won a Razzie as Worst Movie of the Year and asked folks to write a poem that includes at least one of the movie titles, word for word, in the body of their poem. Folks are free to use more than one. I’ve used five: The Lonely Lady (1983); Under the Cherry Moon (1986); Cocktail Party (1988); Indecent Proposal (1993); and Swept Away (2002). Photo from Pixabay.com
track my life Crayola bright. Pink infant with colicky baby blues. Grade school cobalt uniform morphed to purple-gold cheerleader poms. College reading, black and white print in mahogany-shelved library stacks. Wedding-white then tie-dyed kaleidoscope kids. Senior grey? Never. It’s silver in my golden years.
Merril is hosting dverse tonight, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She asks us to use the word “track” or a form of the word, within our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Photo: yep, that’s me, without my glassesabout two months ago.
Runt of the litter shoved out of the way, last in the romping puppy play. Some day she thought, I’ll be as big as you. And if I’m not, I’ll shine in another way.
It’s Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa asks us to consider peer pressure. Image from Pixabay.com
Lately, there’ve been too many days when I want to escape somewhere to a place where news does not exist. No headlines. No statistics. There is so much horror around us. And our “around” is no longer just our neighborhood. It’s the world.
Some days, I want to pull inward to savor the good I know exists. That’s difficult to do when images of Ukraine and murdered school children invade my thoughts. I feel guilty even writing this. But I wonder, could the twenty-four/seven news cycles exist in a thirty/seventy topical format? Surely at any given time, there are thirty percent of the things happening across the world that are good? These are the things they don’t tell us. I think we need to know about them. Maybe then we won’t be so debilitated and would be motivated to turn prayers into action.
Image: me ruminating some years ago. Although for the prose above, there should not be a smile on my face…..or perhaps I’m thinking about the good?
Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa asks us to include the line “These are the things they don’t tell us” in a piece of prose (not poetry) that is no more than 144 lines in length, sans title. The line is from Girl Du Jour, from Notes on Uvalde.
She enjoyed a staccato existence, never a sustained note ecstatically percussive. High on life, she jived from one gig to another town after town, no stage too small. Showmanship and flair, nothing static in her repertoire. Gender be damned, she was a one-man band.
Quadrille (poem of exactly 44 words, sans title) written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Mish is hosting and asks us to include the word “static” within our poem. Note: I ecSTATICally included static twice!
lillian the home poet 