Life

Old House. Boston Place.

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Our first home in Illinois had no front yard.
Stepped off the front porch at your own peril,
into the dug-out pit for a new college gym.
Construction equipment clanged and buzzed
constantly digging, laying pipes and beams.
Inside, we served visitors spaghetti suppers
on our auction bought wiggly table top
screwed into four tall two-by-fours.
Rotary telephone hung on peeling plastered wall,
rarely used for expensive long distance calls.
We watched Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show
on our nine-inch black and white television.
As the old song goes,
“Those were the days my friends.”

Fifty-six years later, it’s high-rise condo life.
Outside our windows, Boston’s city scape
includes trees, few green areas,
buildings in every direction.
When guests or family arrive,
we serve delicious meals with wine
at our lovely oak claw-foot dining table.
Large screen television streams movies,
24/7 news, sitcoms of every genre.
Our handheld “telephone” is a clock,
calendar, address book and weather man.
It streams music on Spotify.
Reaches friends nearby and across the globe
with audio and video calls.

Gratefully happy then.
Thankfully happy now.
So is the old adage true?
Things are not better,
they’re not worse,
they’re just different.
What say you?


NAPOWRIMO Day 29. Prompt: In your poem today, compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.

AI image created on Bing Create.

We Must Learn from Others

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Lessons from ancient cultures,
wisdom in Native Americans’ ways.
Guiding principles to live in harmony
passed down from generation to generation.

Debwewin is Truth.
Represented by the turtle.
The tortoise carries lessons of life on its back.
Years piled upon years.

It walks slowly,
sometimes laboriously,
feet firmly planted in earth’s reality.
Its purpose was, still is, forward movement.

Honest plodding, slogging, traipsing at times.
Memories, achievements, failures, goals.
All stored and carried through life’s journey.
No regrets. This is me. In this place. Now.

Everything past, a part of my weight,
my girth, my being, my soul.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
Today Mish is hosting, providing us with a very special prompt that explains The Seven Grandfather Teachings, a set of Anishinaabe guiding principals for living a good life in harmony with nature and others . . . all of creation.

Mish explains: “These ancient teachings have been passed down for generations through stories and ceremonies. Many Native American organizations have adopted these sacred laws as a foundation. Because they are the basis for a worldview rooted in respecting each other and the natural world, these values are often represented by a specific animal. We’re asked to write a poem influenced by the Seven Grandfather Teachings in any way that we would like. We may choose to focus on one or embody them all.“

I’ve chosen to write about Debwewin, Truth, represented by the turtle. “The turtle carries the teachings of life on his back. Slow and meticulous. Understand the importance of the journey. Be true to yourself. Speak your truth.“

Metaphor Me

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Dandelion me.
Youthful glee in splashy yellow dresses.
All sunshine and skipping through fields!
But old age they say can be grizzly.
Those cubs, born hairless and toothless.
Grizzly cubs but not grizzly at first.
No pacifiers. Mother’s nuzzling enough.
Then playful to rambling to belly fat acquired
and hibernation needed. I always liked naps.
Or acorn me. Digging into soil, finding my own way.
Gangly seedling teenage years with
autumnal outbreaks. Cacophony of colorful
fashion fad flairs. To sentinel oak standing
with quiet grace. Am I there yet?
I still feel dandy and fierce. Dandy lioness am I.
Elderly dandelions’ delicate translucent skin
fades slowly until a passing by small child delights
in one puff from chubby cheeks. Giggles as seeds
soar on spring’s born-again breezes.
Dandelionalicious me with walks, hand in hand.
Stops along the way to collect bouquets of flowers
and skip rocks across the pond. With many smiles.
All the while acknowledging life’s delights.

NAPOWRIMO Day 25. Prompt: Write your own poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line(s) to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.

DEDICATED to my dear friend, Lindsey. Wishing her well.

Metaphors used: comparing my life (anyone’s life) to a dandelion, a grizzly bear, and an acorn growing into an oak tree. Within the grizzly bear section, I ruminate on the meaning of old age. Had fun with this one once I decided how to approach it!

Photo taken many many years ago. And yes, it’s a dandelion in its old age!

Garden’s Dilemma

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In his dodder of thyme,
the current head DC gardener
continues to uproot and rip out
Justicia, Honesty, and roses of all kind.
As if they were the weeds.
In their place he sows and propagates
Crown Imperial, Wormswood, Snakesfoot,
King-cups and Creeping Cereus.

This prickly pear of a man
is in no way a humble plant.
More like a mouse-eared-chickweed
forever noshing on Fool’s Parsley,
basking under the shade
of his pruned Judas Trees.

Outside his sphere, weeping willows
flail in dire need of gentle balm.
They must find a new sage, soon.
Both Burpee and the
Farmer’s Almanac warn
the upcoming planting season
will be a crucial one.

NAPOWRIMO Day 19. Today’s prompt: Using Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers, write a poem in which you muse on your selections of flowers names and meanings from her extensive list.

*** All of the flowers and plants I’ve used from her book, are italicized in the poem. I’ve kept the capitalization only on those that are actually used in the poem as the plant/flower itself. Reference is paid to the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Burpee Seed Catalogue.

IMAGE of the Jacqueline Kennedy Rose Garden at the White House, courtesy of the National Park Service website.

Damsel of the Night

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Into the night she fled
nerves awry, feelings dead.
Tricked by his deceitful lies
no one had listened to her cries.

Castle and dreams now miles away
heart faltering, heavy as clay.
Past the forest deep and dank
she came upon a riverbank.

Exhausted, she gave in to pain
collapsed as thunder struck with rain.
Hands to breast, as breath grew short,
she smiled as Death offered his support.


NAPOWRIMO Day 18. Prompt: Today we don’t challenge you to write all of a long, dramatic, narrative poem, but we invite you to try your hand at writing a poem that could be a section or piece of one. Include rhyme, include unlikely and dramatic scenes…basically a poem with the plot of an opera!

AI image generated on Bing Create.

In the imperative way . . .

lillian12 Comments

directions to self, and you, if you wish.
Stop imbibing Trumpian news.
Take only one small sip per day.
Think revel instead of wallow.
Revel in sunshine, a best seller book.
Walk outside breathing in fresh air,
plan for someone’s birthday surprise.
Arrange day trips away from news.
If you ruminate, Trump wins.
Do your small part pf course.
One political post per day.
Donate to a cause.
But do not allow him to fester in your brain,
to loose fistulas of lies that chafe,
clouding your eyes to the joys nearby.
Take care of your mental health.
That is of prime importance in these days of . . .
well, I don’t know what they are of.
But that’s the point.
It’s our task to define them.
To decide how we change them.
How we live and love in them.
And God knows, we must.


Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe! Today Dora asks us to write a poem using an imperative….a demand of sorts.

Photo from a spring walk last year along the Charles River. A habitual dog walker often takes a rest at this bench….always makes me smile. We need more smiles these days.

Jump Roping Rhymes for the Times

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One, two,
what can we do?
Three, four,
can’t bear any more.
Five, six,
need a fix.
Seven, eight,
it’s not too late.
Jump ahead to twenty-five,
that amendment’s power drive.
Then go back to the standard rhyme,
he exits out in rhythmic time.
Nine, ten,
a thankful amen.


NAPOWRIMO Day 7. Prompt for the day: Write a poem that can be a “song: something to clap, snap or jump around to.” I’ve changed the words here to the childhood rhyme, “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. etc”

If you don’t want to read a political statement in explanation of the poem above, stop reading here.

Today, the President of the United States is playing the “proverbial game of chicken” with an unstable and violent regime. “A whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 PM EST. Note: the Strait of Hormuz was open until the US and Israel bombed Iran. Listen to President Trump’s recent public appearances: IE standing beside the giant Easter Bunny at the annual Easter Egg Roll, talking about Iran, how great his military is; telling children they can sell the pictures he colors with them because he’s signing them and his autograph is worth a lot of money. But they couldn’t sell anything from President Biden because he had people follow him around with an autopen. Look at his Truth Social posts in the last few days: laced with expletives. The man is more than unhinged. He is seriously mentally ill. He is not competent or fit to be in the office of the Presidency.

It is time to evoke the 25th amendement and remove him from office. At the very least, his family should stage a serious intervention meeting with him; as should members of Congress. Handle it discreetly and quietly if they wish. If he won’t resign, invoke the 25th amendement. We can not allow this man to continue in this powerful position.

Dizzy’s Spot

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Smoke filled jazz club.
Those in tune tap fingers on sticky table tops,
keep time while rhythmic brushes
swish on snare drum tops.
Others slump in chairs,
empty shot glass littered tables.
I lean forward, waiting . . .
for Sandburg’s oozing saxophones.

Escapists. Jazz aficionados.
Musician wannabes.
Tourists like me.
We all sit while tired bouncer
stands outside struggling to hear riffs
between terse turndowns of fake IDs.
Another night. Another dollar.
A job’s a job. Music or not.


Written for Day 1 of NAPOWRIMO. April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write one poem, every day in April. Prompts are given daily at  https://www.napowrimo.net

I’m joining my Australian friends and writing to the early bird prompt for those “whose geographic relationship with the international date line means that April 1 arrives a bit earlier than it does at National Global Poetry Writing Month HQ.” Here in Boston, it’s 9 AM on March 31 but it’s the start of April 1 in Sydney.

The early bird prompt? “Write your own poem in which you refer to a specific writer or artist (or work of literature/art) and make a declarative statement about want or desire. Set the poem in a particular, people-filled place, like a restaurant, bus station, museum, school, etc.”

NOTES: References to Dizzy Gillespie, famous jazz musician; and Carl Sandburg’s iconic poem, Jazz Fantasia. Image from Bing Create.

Silence on the Page

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A mistake above?
Delete that empty space.
Backspace until it disappears.
Or fill it up with words.
Add words.
Lots of words.

Or recognize its value.
Listen to its open silence.
Spend time there,
relax in empty space.
No judgement.
No expectations.

Just be.


Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and asking folks to include the word “silence” or a form of the word (not a synonym) in the body of their 44 word poem.

Quadrille: a form created by dVerse. The poem is composed of 44 words, sans title. Within the 44 words, one word given by the pub tender, must be included.

Photo from Pixabay.com

Plethora of Lightness

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Sun shimmers through forest’s canopy.
Moon cuts path across ocean’s abyss.
Infant’s mouth opens to circle small,
pink tongue slides in and out and in again.

Girl grins, pumping swing as pigtails fly.
Puddles appear inviting all to splash.
Child’s momentary shock as bat hits ball,
then small feet fly to first.

Thick carpet of pristine snow
invites children of all ages
to lie down, swooping arms.
Create guardian angels among us.

Folks sway in jazz club,
hear saxophones mellow out.
Watch nimble fingers create piano riffs,
brushes rhythmically swish on snares.

In the midst of ever present news,
cacophonies of catastrophes.
Find space to feel lightness,
safe harbors for hope.