Life

Big City Haibun

lillian23 Comments

She returned to her new home, a big city after Iowa. Good day at new job, alone with glass of wine in hand, the familiar chair feels comfortable. Staring at unpacked boxes, lacking energy, two unfamiliar items come into view. Walking closer, she eyes them more intently.

Two dirty, half coiled, frayed bungee cords sit atop an unopened box. Bungee cords? Metal steel curved hooks on dirty elastic cords. Quietly she hurried out the door.

partridge returns to nest
canine impressions mar one egg
nervous feathers flair

Haibun written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today we’re asked to write about an emotion without naming it — evoking it by the use of objects and imagery.  Haibun: prose that cannot be fiction, followed by a haiku. The prose describes what happened, before my husband joined me in Boston, on my second or third day in our new condo.  We moved here from Iowa. Turns out, some workers had entered our unit, without permission, to do some work….and realized they were in the wrong unit. I got security to do a thorough walk-through with me and then found out what happened. Needless to say, I received many apologies from management and I’m happy to say, we’ve lived safely and happily ever since. 

Elixir

lillian7 Comments

Can you recall her?
Elfin sprite, youthful innocence.

Sipped happiness
from rose petals tipped toward sun.
Turned acorn crowns upside down
savoring drops of morning dew.
Danced with snowflakes
tasting cold on outstretched tongue.

Cup your wizened hands
‘neath steady drizzling rain.
Raise them to cracked lips
eyes closed, sip deeply.
Recapture hope.

white-rose-2907862_1920

Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics where Paul asks us to pen a poem about “drinking”; being as creative as we wish with the word.

tanka – a study in brevity

lillian51 Comments

childhood innocence
blushing cheeks and pudgy knees
jump-rope and hopscotch ~
photos keep her company
brittle memories thick with dust

album-2974646_1920

Frank is our Thursday host at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. He asks us to consider brevity in our writing…and talks about the Japanese poetic forms of haiku and tanka as examples of brevity. Tanka is 5 lines with the syllabic content 5-7-5-7-7 and should contain a “pivot” at or after the third line. Here, there is a change of perspective: lines 1 – 3 describe childhood for the reader. There’s a sense of liveliness and action. Lines 4 and 5 shift the reader’s view to an elderly person looking at the photos of childhood and hopscotch. The liveliness is gone, replaced by that last line. The person seems alone….left to finger and think about these images, these brittle memories. Perhaps the photos and her memory are “thick with dust?”

Harlequin

lillian57 Comments

Medieval court’s poetic jester
leaps cross marble floor,
bells on cap and toes.
Sings boldly eyeing men,
their indiscretions
bared aloud.

Sag-faced courtiers
murmur hoarsely, choking coarsely,
cannot silence tales.
Red-faced king sits in midst
as women waggle fingers,
his scepter turned to stone.

bells-1295520_1280

Quadrille (44 words, sans title) written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today De asks us to include the word “murmur”. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time — come on over and quaff some poems! 

Best Wishes and Thank You, Toni

lillian49 Comments

I rejuvenated (never say “retired”) exactly five years ago this Friday. From a stress-filled dean’s job at a university including solo global travel to doing . . . what? Talk about transition! I decided to reverse roles and became a student in an online poetry class. The pen hit the paper every morning as if a dam had been breached. Then I found WordPress and this untechie created a website. I was thrilled when I reached ten followers – all relatives. And then I found dVerse.

For me, writing is a space in and of itself, unlike any physical space. There’s a part of my mind that seems to have a conversation with my pen. dVerse introduced me to new forms and meters, and forced me to sometimes include that bug-a-boo-for-me, rhyme. I write for myself. Because of dVerse, I also edit and rewrite for my readers. Rejuvenatement brought a huge change to my biorhythms and my frequent-flyer status. dVerse made me a Samurai of words – gave me the courage to “put-it-out-there.” It’s introduced me to folks around the world who, like me, enjoy the power and creativity of words. Today, for the very first time, my computer’s auto-correct didn’t automatically change haibun to habit. How fitting is that???  Aren’t you proud of me, Toni? 🙂

migrating geese
arrow formation in cold crisp air
transition flies forward

grey-geese-2112216_1920

Post is “double-duty” for dVerse, the online pub for poets. Today, Paul hosts Tuesday Poetics and asks us to write about a change in our lives. Yesterday was Haibun Monday where, for the last time, Toni hosted and asked us to write about how we write/our plans for our writing. She is retiring from the dVerse board, although we’ll continue to see her poetry posts. For me, Toni is inspirational….she’s patiently taught me how to write a haibun (tight, nonfiction prose followed by a haiku).  She personifies the haibun’s Japanese spirit. Thank you, Toni. This one’s for you! 🙂

Street Muse

lillian26 Comments

Her name was Passion.
Artist’s muse
she lived on the palette.
Primary colors
nostalgic pastels
essence of blended oils.
Brushed with arrogance
sometimes haphazardly,
a thin veneer.
Other times,
piled thick with exacto knife
layer upon layer
covering pain.
Stared at by street lovers
dog catchers
and people pissers,
sometimes the canvas bled
as her tears disrupted the guise.

street-art-2779341_1920

Created for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today I’m hosting and asking folks to use one of five pieces of street art (illustrated in the prompt) as motivation for a poem. All five images are in public domain at Pixabay.com  This is my second post for the prompt. See also Magic Awaits You .

Thank You, Elizabeth

lillian18 Comments

I recognized it.
A little pocket of silence.
I was hiding,
feeling sad and brittle
and about seven thousand years old.

A cause for revolution,
all this swinging.
You wanna see pretty colors?
More razzle dazzle?
Be happy?

Just sit down,
find the balance.
Shut the door.
Cease your relentless participation.
Accept the best I can do.

Just
be.

FullSizeRender

Victoria is tending bar at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to do some Erasure Poetry. A new form for me. We choose a book or text and by “erasing words” from it (or an alternative way to say it is by choosing words from it), make up a poem of our own. We cannot add our own words…all words must be from the book or text. Each line in Thank You, Elizabeth is an exact phrase from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Punctuation is mine. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

My Pen and I

lillian28 Comments

My writing spills out from a deep cistern of life’s experience. Sometimes a bit dank and dark as the pen dips deeper. But never from the despair of a void.

I am a doer. A make-your-own-sunshine-on-a-grey-soupy-day kind of gal. Cheerleader-tap-dance vigor still runs through my veins. Lean machine, gone somewhat dumpy with the addition of an old age belly, I choose to look up and out, not down. My daughter once said to me, “Mom, every movie can’t be the Sound of Music!” But I do choose the channel, right? Write.

sunflowers smile at me
sheets flap and furl on clothes line
summer of my mind

 

 

It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Toni, our haibun queen, asks us to write about why we write the way we do. Who are we and how does that come out in our writing? My readers will have to decide if they think I’ve nailed this assignment. 🙂

These are two of my all-time favorite photos from Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We’re in the second week of our annual two weeks here. Even on grey and foggy days, there is a soft beauty to this place! Hmmmm sounds like my haibun! Haibun: a paragraph or two of tightly written prose (cannot be fiction) followed by a haiku. A haiku true to Japanese form, always includes a seasonal word. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Driven

lillian48 Comments

He lost his head that day.
Disappeared into green lush woods,
the gardens of his mind.
Some nurturing space of his own design
between the borders of insanity and reason.

City engineer.
Day in and day out
he plotted and planned.
Highways, byways
throughways and roundabouts.
Traffic control,
exit ramps and entry lanes.
Cement road-snakes for autopilot mannequins.
Metal caskets on wheels,
rushing here and there and everywhere.

Head full, he just stopped.
Could not cope.
Could not recognize
patterns, directions,
escape routes from today
into the morrows.

And so he stared,
that morning at his desk.
Never moved.
Retreated into a nowhere,
his forest of nothingness.

IMG_6094

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today, Grace is hosting and asks us to use the word “border” within the poem or in the title. And, extra credit if we write somehow about a mental state.
Sculptur is in the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln Massachusetts. Eternal Presence by John Wilson, 1987; a study for the full size, seven-foot tall sculpture which stands outside the National Center for Afro-American Artists in Boston.