Brightness fades. Sooty clouds slowly shove aside light-weight cumulus puffs. Birds disappear. Eerie stillness descends. Suddenly winds whip tall grasses. Leaves whimper as trees bend. Branches snap. Forecasters definitely wrong. Mother Nature no longer subtle. Hints replaced by blatant bombastic warning. Take shelter. Now.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday and Mish asks us to use the word “hint” (or a form of the word) in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Image from Bing Create.
. . . powerful winter weather, bone-chilling wind. Don coats, hats and gloves. Outdoors . . . sleet, freezing rain. Polar vortex beginning, remaining. Ensure anyone in need shelter.
Image created on Bing Create.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Punam has us thinking about newspapers. “You can write a newspaper blackout poem. You can use the headline from your local newspaper as a springboard and write a poem on it, or you can simply write why you love or hate reading the newspaper. Your poem should have some link with the newspaper.”
I’ve done a “blackout poem” from an article about the weather in the San Diego Union Tribune, Sunday January 19th edition. See photo below …circled words are the ones I’ve used to create the poem….using them in the order in which they appeared in the article.
Herd-like, glistening wet black bodies lift, hover low then soar. Migration has begun.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De is hosting Quadrille Monday, asking us to include the word “lift” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Video filmed several years ago from the deck of our annual rental in Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod. Amazing to see….many more and much louder ruckus than you hear and see with the video!
Listen carefully, my love as we walk on cool stone slabs curving through the woods. Naturalists laid this path so others could forest bathe, basking in its mesmerizing calm.
Leaves rustle in cooling breeze. Spring waters gurgle somewhere beyond the trees. Yesterday’s rains still moisten fern fronds, brightening their myriad shades of green.
White-breasted nuthatches flit between branches. Their low-whistled notes accompany our slow meandering pace. Hand in hand we walk through serenity, our hearts, our spirits, melding into one.
Written for OLN Thursday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, I’m hosting the pub and folks are free to post any poem of their choosing OR write a poem inspired by one of two photos I’ve provided, the above being one.
NOTE: and if you’d like to see many of our poets in action, come join us LIVE on Saturday morning, August 17th from 10 to 11 AM New York time.Click HERE,and then click on the link given for Saturday’s session. You’ll be connected to audio and video for our live session. Feel free to stop by, just to watch and listen, OR, if you’re so inclined, to read aloud any poem of your choosing. We’re a very friendly bunch. The more the merrier!
Place me amongst the flowers, in the midst of petals glorious.
In my next life I shall be a bumble bee, the queen, of course.
I shall meander regally from one beautiful blossom to another –
savoring nature’s sweet nectar, buzzing to my heart’s content.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “place” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Photos taken on Saturday, just outside the high-rise building we live in, in the heart of Boston.
Rainy season’s nourishment for the earth cleanses my soul. Wet moisture brings life to spring flowers, relieves summer heat. Cherry blossoms succumb to spring breeze. Rain gently on me.
Day 28, NaPoWriMo. We’re asked to to try our hand “at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.”
Photo taken some years ago on a cruise to Japan. Cherry blossom season was beautiful….
Rising sun creates shimmering shine on the ocean’s surface. A lone gull floats illuminated in sun’s path, as waves softly lap the shore.
I sit alone during dawn’s arrival, in awe of what is unfolding. Above me, the sky’s bluing gains brightness. I smile and sigh in contentment, thankful for another day.
Written for NaPoWriMo day 26. The the prompt is to “write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.”
Photo from some years back at our beloved Provincetown, on the very tip of Cape Cod. View as seen from our deck on the unit we rent every year for two glorious weeks in September.
She prefers the zone of morning twilight. Eyes sensitive to cruelty ears offended by malice, she avoids humans. Shoreline creatures know her well. Gulls flock to her side. Cormorants swim nearby. Black and sleek they duck beneath waves, pop up farther down shore.
Her dune shack stands alone away from prying eyes, her choice since long ago. She collects sea glass, gems given up by the sea. Handmade dream catchers flutter in the breeze. High tides, low tides, her only sense of time. Solitude gleaned at ocean’s shore, the gift she treasures daily.
Written for day 4, NaPoWriMo. April is National Poetry Writing Month.The challenge is to write a poem every day in the month of April.
The prompt for today is to “write a poem in which you take your title or some language/ideas from The Strangest Things in the World.” I’ve chosen the line “the zone of morning twilight” which appears in the Introduction of the book. Photo was taken a number of years ago: a dune shack on Cape Cod’s National Seashore.
What tree is this that stands so tall, so broad? More than one century in age, I’m told. It creeps, tangles thick across the earth like some heathen’s diabolical tentacles. If these be strangler roots then what poor enraptured creatures lie beneath, choked by weight and lack of light. Fenced off as if to warn, do not climb or come near. Beware of danger, capture or consumption by multiple orgasmic trunks. Solitary owl sits sentry, hidden within its leaves, guarding who from what we do not know. Gawk and wonder, but this be all, lest you learn its secrets or become one.
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today/tonight Bjorn is hosting from Stockholm Sweden and invites us to post a poem of our choice, or a poem responding to an optional prompt he provides.
Photos are from yesterday’s walking tour of Balboa Park in San Diego. This tree is the largest tree in California. It’s a strangler fig, one of 900 species in the genus Ficus. It has a complex root system which includes large sculptural buttress roots growing above ground for support; smaller roots growing near the soil, providing oxygen and nutrients; and aerial roots which hang down from branches. I was just mesmerized by this tree and most especially its roots which really look like snakes or tentacles of living creatures… to me they could be something out of a horror show and seemed life-like!And yes, there was a solitary owl hiding within the leaves.
lillian the home poet 