fire suddenly flares up
in our new frying pan.
Must everything in this
country be so combustible?
Just put a lid on the rhetoric
and smother the heat.
NAPOWRIMO Day 28. Prompt: write a poem that follows this pattern: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion.
AI image made on Bing Create.
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.
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.
Family of four,
both mother, father gone now.
Their love still lives on
in the way their children love.
Circle of love unending.
A Tanka written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Kim asks us to write a poem using the title Where Does Love Go and answer the question within the poem.
Go to https://lillianthehomepoet.com/2026/03/24/a-haibun-family-tradition/ to understand my personal meaning for the Circle of Love. Image from Pixabay.com
Tanka: a Japanese poetic form of 5 lines with the syllabic count of 5-7-5-7-7 Some say it’s a haiku that keeps on going!
I believe this is us forever dear,
painted image on a neighbor’s wall.
We hold hands in permanence,
street artist’s portrait of love.
His rendition, always young.
No furrowed brows from worries,
no age spots upon our arms.
He sees us somewhat oddly though,
large heads upon small bodies.
But we do lean in, faces touching,
projecting forever togetherness.
Feet dangle above his painted ground,
hovering above reality’s sidewalk.
He’s placed us in suspension here. . .
and I can imagine, my love,
this was us so many years ago.
How did he know?
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting today, and folks are invited to post one poem of their choosing, no required format, topic, or length. OR they may post to the optional prompt I provide which includes three photos of street art I saw in Valparaiso, Chile some years ago. The one above was one of my favorites.
AN INVITATION TO YOU: I’m also hosting our LIVE session (audio and video) on Saturday, April 11, from 10 to 11 AM EST. Please consider joining us! You may read aloud a poem of your choosing, or just come to sit in and listen! We are indeed a global group with folks from Australia, Trinidad Tobago, Kenya, the UK, Pakistan, Sweden, and across the US often in attendance. The more the merrier! If you’d like to join us, go to https://dversepoets.com on Saturday a few minutes before 10 AM EST, and click on the link provided there.
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.
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.
Summer of letters.
Days of thinking slowly,
rolling words around
until they landed just right.
Days of ink to vellum,
sometimes blurred by tears.
Hidden away for so many years.
Flowers beneath ribbon ties,
now brittle and dry.
Love never consummated,
memories still blush.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. It’s Quadrille Monday and De asks us to include the word “flower” or a form of the word, within the body of our poem of just 44 words, sans title. Image created on Bing Create.
I seek a trip to calm.
A land called Calm
where love abounds
all people are valued
leaders seek to unite
children skip confidently to school.
Where lies are confessed,
not repeated bragadociously on the news.
Who can help me find that land?
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday and we’re asked to write a quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title) that includes the word “trip” within the body of the poem. Image from Pixabay.com
How did we get to this place?
When did ice become so much more
than a cube you put in a glass?
When did it become routine
for a president to continually lie?
For masked agents to roam our streets,
break into homes without a warrant?
I mean, I know people don’t agree on everything.
We’ve had two political parties since the mid-1800s.
But when did the abyss become so long and so deep,
that Congress members no longer work across the aisle?
I don’t have a plan to strengthen immigration policies.
But I do know “strengthen” does not mean
assaulting people based on skin color and accents,
or gassing peaceful protestors.
Close to being an octogenarian,
I’ve held signs aloft at demonstrations.
I often raise my pen to paper,
exercising my poetic “license”
to challenge the status quo.
It’s what I can and must do.
I will not tread water in this whirl pool.
Tell me, what are you doing
to change the tide?
Photo taken at a demonstration in Boston Commons.
Written in the style of Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets. I’ve used the last four lines of her poem, The Summer Day, for inspiration.
“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
I believe Mary Oliver, if she were alive today, would be asking the same question I ask at the end of my poem. In that way, and attempting to employ her style in my poem (although I’m certainly no Mary Oliver!), I try to honor her. Here is her poem:
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
lillian the home poet 