Deal the cards,
jokers are wild and ante is high.
Life’s tough
with card sharks at every turn.
Bluffing is no longer an option.
Sharing for Open Link Night at dVerse, the Poets’ Virtual Pub.
Life
Takotsubo
It was a day like any other day – until it wasn’t.
Rocking the elliptical to A Hard Day’s Night, I suddenly stopped. Did some invisible vice just clamp on to my chest? The Beatles still blared in my headset, I started to pump again . . . nope . . . can’t breathe. Off the machine . . . slowly out the club door into the sweltering day. I watched my feet in slow motion as the sun magnified everything. Sweat dripped through my pores. The elephant sitting on my chest was an unbelievable load. Takotsubo? The heart blows out in the shape of a Japanese octopus trap. Really? And everything slowed down to match the thick soup of summer’s oppressive heat. If you’re a woman who lives with stress, or has lived through stress, you should know the word: Takotsubo. I didn’t. Until I did.
octopus seeks its prey
eight suctioned tentacles grab and twist
latch on to suck out life
It’s haibun Monday at dVerse Poet’s Pub where Toni is tending bar. She asks us to write a haibun (one paragraph of prose followed by a haiku) that relates to hot hot hot — perhaps a memory from a hot summer day. This is my memory. My experience. I urge all readers to read about Takotsubo, sometimes called Broken Heart Syndrome. It is real and frightening. In most cases, women completely recover with no lasting damage to the heart. I am, fortunately, one of those women, although it took three months. We must all learn to handle stress in our lives. It is a matter of life and death. Photo on left is a Japanese octopus catcher. Xray on right shows the left portion of the heart blown out like a takotsubo….the heart does not pump efficiently. Take care of yourself out there!
Urban Scene
jazz in the city
cello, saxophone, paper cone
playin’ for tips and the city dawgs
makin’ music
strummin’, blowin’, puffin’ too
flyin’ high with life
city nomad, gigs of the soul
WONDERFUL art by Claudia Schoenfeld, also one of the founders of dVerse, a poets’ pub. Could not resist writing a second sevenling to conincide with this great piece of art, Urbanity. A sevenling is composed of two tercets and one final line — and includes somehow an element of three in each of the tercets.
Drum me a Sevenling
Swing it, oh jazz man!
Brush me lazy eights. Swish-arc-swirl, swish-arc-swirl.
Tap-atink rim shots, bass-drum-thuds.
Stick it LOUD, oh ROCK man!
KaBAM a-BANG-BAM. CRASH cymbal SPLASH.
PUMP WHOLE FOOT PEDAL. BASS DRUM BOOMS.
Soothe me melancholy, then BAM ME A BEAT.
To be read aloud. Try it!
Written for dVerse, a poet’s virtual pub, where Grace is tending bar and asks us to write a sevenling related to music. A sevenling is two tercets and a final single line – each tercet includes an element of three — here the sounds of a drummer. Celebrating the 5th anniversary of dVerse with a wonderful interview with Claudia, one of the founders and, I might add, painter extraordinaire! Painting credit: Psychedelic Drummer by Eduardo Tavares.
news not new
city in repose
a mirage these days
can we turn back the clock
i don’t understand
when calm and love
made their exit from the scene
or were they a mirage too
Photo of Boston taken July 4, 2016, looking down the Charles River at sunset.
i am…a frog?
like a pollywog
but continual
constant metamorphosis
life’s playpen journey
never habitual
every step negates that
sister, wife, mother,
teacher, painter, dancer,
sometime-poet
daughter
daughter is missing
from the list
pollywog always
pollyanna mostly
metamorphopolly
named wrong
should be polly
could be…
because
i am…
we are…
you are…
a becomer
photo credit: Hyunhee Park
City Life
Steaming, sassy, sultry,
she rules the hood.
Stares defiantly.
No mercy.
Sidewalks, front stoops
hallways and flats
simmer under her glare.
She dares you to be cool.
That sweltering summer sun.
Scentalicious
Backyard lilac walk-about
honeysuckle and new cut grass
leaves piled high, burning bright
apple-pie-oven and baking bread
grandma’s wrinkled talcum skin
gingerbread men and cinnamon
outside pine tree brought within
season by season,
scentalicious all
Written for dVerse Poets’ Pub with Grace tending bar today. Today’s Poetics asks us to write a poem about scent.
New Day
Reminded not too long ago that life is transitory, I begin each day in a slow deliberate way. After padding into our galley kitchen in slippers and robe, a morning ritual begins. Paper cone unfolded, fits inside the top half of a glass carafe. Five carefully measured tablespoons of fresh ground beans are placed inside. Two and one-third cups of boiling water held aloft, I pour just enough to saturate the grounds. And then I count. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three. Moist grounds aerate thirty seconds as I lean in to inhale. Water held aloft again, ever so slowly poured, counterclockwise. Dark liquid foams and slowly seeps into the glass carafe. Filter empties, save wet brown clinging to its sides. Paper sieve discarded, I pour steaming hot elixir into a white ceramic mug. Anticipation rising, I pad my way to the study and sit for that first sip. Eyes closed, savoring the taste and scent. And now, journal and pen in hand, I write. Thankful for this new day.
Coffee beans grown in hot sun
roasted to robust, slowly brewed,
nature’s wake-up call.
It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse! Today Toni asks us to write a Quotidian. Quotidian means daily — refers to something that happens daily or that we use daily.
Stuck
Some days
are like spinning tires on gravel.
The doing is there,
but the moving is not.
Photo credit: Nick Cowie.
lillian the home poet 