Life

Quit Complaining!

lillian56 Comments

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!

Photo from Pixabay.com

Twelve lines do make a poem . . .

lillian24 Comments

May you burn in hell,
I truly hope so.

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.

A Park Bench Tale

lillian21 Comments

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



I am many hued . . .

lillian25 Comments

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 glasses about two months ago.

Ruminating

lillian21 Comments

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.

Character Sketch

lillian17 Comments

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!

Photo by Erriko Boccia on Unsplash

In the Midst of a Current . . .

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time ebbs and flows
like sand sifting through a sieve
like advancing waves crashing,
rushing furiously to shore.

Emotions ebb and flow
as we journey through later years,
stopping to dally at sweet spots,
speeding through dangerous curves.

Humanity ebbs and flows around us.
People progressing forward,
while others try desperately to stall
and others slip backward to the way it was.

Much as we’d like to take control,
place wooden rulers across our lives
draw straight lines from point A to point B,
we all remain in a fluid path
as our lives continue to ebb and flow.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 22. Today we’re asked to write a poem that includes repetition.
Photo take some years ago when in Bermuda.

How Long is a Blue Moon?

lillian13 Comments

Do not concern yourself.
Only twice in a Blue Moon:
that’s what the sages say,
the peacekeepers, historians,
the literati and oracles too.

Only the Harbinger keeps watch,
collects viable bodies of evidence.
Tracks events pointing backwards
to repetition of historical eras,
measuring time needed for a Blue Moon.

Adolph Hitler’s evil ran rampant,
stacked skeletal remains in godless towers
as ashen clouds floated to the skies.
It was during the time of the Blood Moon,
a horrific sliver of time gone by.

Only the Harbinger understands
the Blood Moon is but the crescent stage
in the life time of a Blue Moon.
It is the beginning soon buried within the tides,
too often forgotten in the ebb and flow of time.

Completion of a Blue Moon is near.
The Harbinger has placed its warning voice
in the human of its choosing.
As sunflowers wilt and blood is spilled
that chosen voice bids you listen now.

The innocents lie dead in our streets
and still this evil invades our land.
A different man, but mark my word,
he is the evil we face today,
many of our people, fighting to their death.

Can you not hear me?
How can you not understand?
Twice in a Blue Moon is now.

Writing for two prompts today:

It’s Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Merril is hosting. She’s created a list of names of actual English country garden roses and asks us to use one or more of them either in the body of our poem or in its title. “Twice in a Blue Moon” is actually the name of an English country garden rose!

NAPOWRIMO, Day 19, asks us to write a poem that begins with a command.
Photo is from Pixabay.com

Choices

lillian15 Comments

I choose flat dress shoes instead of stiletto heels.
My balance isn’t what it used to be.
I choose a romance novel or best seller.
Headlines raise my blood pressure
and I don’t want to take another pill.
I choose strolling the well-worn path.
Young people can push the boulders up hill.
I choose biting into a blushing velvet peach,
sectioning an orange takes too long.
I choose creating my own sunshine
on a cloudy rainy day.
I choose to be me.
My age, right here, right now,
with you by my side.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Sarah asks us to consider anaphora: a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending emphasis. She gives us a list of verbs to choose from for the word we’d like to repeat. I selected the word choose.

Also posted, off prompt, to NAPOWRIMO, Day 5.

Photo from Pixabay.com