Relationships

Sarcophagus . . . how has it come to this?

lillian11 Comments

PROMPT FROM TOADS FOR April 30: The final day of National Poetry Month 2020
“A few minutes from now, you will lose all means of communication with humanity.  You will not die, but will no longer be able to interact with the world. Whats the last thing you say?”

Entombed in silence,
solitudinously cocooned
in diaphanous gauze,
but nothing to see.
Nor can I hear.
Senses extraneous
when it is only me.
No exit,
only an aperture to my mind.
And so I choose to hum
not aloud, but in my mind.
Hesitantly, quietly,
internally.
Until my head is screaming
screaming that song.
What the world needs now
is love, sweet love.
But alas.
It is too late.

And shared with dVerse, the virtual put for poets, where it’s OLN Thursday.

Take a moment – the newcaster is on for just a moment…then comes the video at about 26 or 28 seconds in…..it is incredibly uplifting!  I PROMISE you will love it! A wonderful piece to listen to as we end NAPOWRIMO 2020!

…and who are we, if not similar to

lillian9 Comments

. . . those hands, those fingers, that face.
Those eyes,
seeing me as I see you.

Genetic relatives
mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda
lowland gorillas in western Africa

and me. Visiting you.
Those hands, those fingers, that face.
We are so alike. Akin.

And in this new Corona world
I feel more akin,
stumbling in my own shrinking habitat.

Have we plundered too far?
Been too sure of our advanced selves?
Has our arrogance been revealed

by a novel virus
that recognizes humans
only as we truly are?

Too smug beings
who caged others
and now it’s payback time.

Photos taken in Washington DC, May 2019: my husband’s hands (in black and white); and the hands and face of a gorilla at the National Zoo.

Poem written for day 24 in National Poetry Writing Month. Toads  asks us to write about “nature’s wonders . . . how everything is connected.” 

Lest someone be offended by this post, please know I do not take this virus lightly. It is a horrific disease that is affecting so many people globally. My heart goes out to all those affected, including those who work so others might live a daily life. Stay safe everyone. I pray daily for a vaccine that this scourge may never happen again.

From the Bard’s Words

lillian12 Comments

He grew up a laughing stock
across from the river Avon,
son of a poor tailor.

Clothes make the man.
His father coined the phrase
but shared it not with his son.

The lad had but scraps of cloth
ne’er enough for a pound of flesh,
certainly lacking as he grew.

His mother’s eldest child
cold comfort she gave him,
too busy suckling the youngest ones.

His job, to tend the fire
through cold of winter’s nights,
not easy at that bleak stone hearth.

Stolen bits and scraps of wool
cradled beneath his head at night,
such stuff as dreams are made on.

And each night she came to him
he with heart upon his sleeve,
she in garments weaved of gold.

Her plea to him, always the same.
Steal your father’s coins.
Come what may and flee with me.

Weakened by his love for her,
coins in hand, he fled to nearby woods
expecting to meet beneath the stars.

But all that glitters is not gold
and caught was he within her snare
as she revealed her true self. Devil incarnate.

She took his coins and claimed his soul.
Then, after one kiss upon his anxious lips,
struck him dead.

As good luck would have it,
his body never discovered
decayed within the region’s soil.

And thus it is each spring
he lives again within the greening,
all along the Avon’s shores.

william-shakespeare-62936_1920Day 23 in National Poetry Writing month and the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

At Toads today, we are asked to write a poem inspired by the Bard. All of the bold words/phrases in this post, were first coined by Shakespeare and are now in common use. And of course, Stratford-upon-Avon is the town where Shakespeare was born and buried. 

 

Limited Supply . . .

lillian40 Comments

For sale
Rose-colored glasses.
Create order in your world.
Bring happy tunes to mind.
Walking on Sunshine
Don’t Worry
Be Happy.
.
So
be
it.
.
Slip-ons.
See only what is good
All else becomes invisible.
Rids evil from your world
Make happiness live
everywhere.
Buy now.

sunglasses-145359_1280Combining two prompts here….and attempting to shape the poem like a pair of glasses…use your imagination! 

Day 14 in National Poetry Month’s prompt from Toads: write somehow about the idea of the invisible or invisibility; and Poetics Tuesday at dVerse where Laura hosts and asks us to write about the idea of order. Image from Pixabay.com

Done

lillian17 Comments

Thunder raged outside.
Rain battered windows
rattled trees.
She slumped inside.

His words, his memory,
his voice. All hollow now.
Ink blurred by tears,
love’s letters torn to shreds

Ripped asunder.
Bits and pieces of paper
scattered across the floor.
Love spent, annihilated.

Too many bits and pieces,
impossible to reassemble.
She collapsed into the abyss
eye of the storm.

halloween-1720071_1920

Day 13: National Poetry Writing Month. Prompt from Toads was a real challenge today: 1) Write a poem using 3 to 13 words from the following quotation:

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

2) AND the poem must employ a metaphor: a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. In Done, the storm rages outside and inside. Love letters torn into bits and pieces are her life; in her mind, too shredded to reassemble.

FOR A MORE POSITIVE AND FUN POST TODAY, go to my prosery post, for dVerse, The Second Act.

May it be nonfiction . . .

lillian6 Comments

Lady in Red,
Ruler of the University.
Guardian to extraterrestrials,
humans, exactoids
and shape-shifters.

She sets the rules.
Lanes within which to live.
All played nicely
until humans did not.
They selectively listened.

She gave warnings.
Melted ice shelves
raised ocean levels
sent pestilence.
Cried foul many a time.

Still their souls eroded.
While others flourished
humans seemed to rot.
They battered earth,
debased each other.

Lady in Red,
All Seeing One.
What could she do
but plead, cajole?
Demand loudly, STOP.

They did not.

And with breaking heart
she raised her arm,
rescinded humanity.
Flung them from the field
into suffocating darkness.

Earth and all her humans,
banished from the cosmos.
Extraterrestrials, exactoids
and even shape-shifters
watched and learned.

And the Lady in Red wept
for their inhumanity,
for the world.

2020-04-11 (2)

Day 11 of National Poetry Writing Month. Today Toads asks us to choose one of the Russian sci-fi posters provided in the prompt, and write a poem about it. I found this challenging . . . not in my comfort zone.

Flower Child

lillian4 Comments

Bloom wherever you are planted, my dear.
Her mother’s sage advice.
And she did.

She fancied herself an annual,
as her life took many turns.
And always, she bloomed,
but never with perennial roots.

She took odd jobs to secure her keep.
Brought joy and happiness
wherever she landed,
for whatever her growing season.

She took a new name in every town.
Dahlia for Davenport. Pansy in Peoria.
Hitchhiking cross country
she became Zinnia in LA.

Suitors brought her flowers,
obsequiously wooing her.
When they got too close.
she uprooted once again.

She carried one note always
written in careful hand,
folded inside the pocket
of her well-worn floral wrap.

When last I seek the sun
and it rises not on me,
place me ‘neath the fertile ground
with marker at my head.

Etch my epitaph in simple script
that all might finally know.
Here lies Marigold.
Daughter of Chrys Anthemum,
and dweller of the Cosmos.

IMG_4627

Day 10: National Poetry Writing Month, where the challenge is to write a poem every day. Written for Toads where today we are to write an Ekphrasis: a poem that is motivated by a work of art. 

This work of art by Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916) is titled Mystery. He is a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist . “My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”

Metamorphosis-19

lillian26 Comments

We emerged from our cocoons,
beautifully.
Heard laughter again
marveled at smiles
touched outstretched hands
reveled in freedom.
And our spirits soared.

2020-04-09 (2)

Day 9: National Poetry Month where the challenge is to write a poem every day in April.

Written for the prompt at Toads We are to use one of the scientific illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian, artist and naturalist, to motivate our poem. Merian traveled to Suriname in South America in 1699. The trip was sponsored by the city of Amsterdam. Remarkably for the time, Maria traveled with her young daughter, but with no male companion.  In 1705, she published a book about the insect life of Suriname, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.  Maria Sibylla Merian was one of the first naturalists to draw insects from direct study. The poem is also written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today Frank asks us to write a 7 line poem. No other content or form restrictions. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

And to all my readers, stay safe and stay healthy!

Backstage View

lillian14 Comments

Can we pull a rabbit out of the hat?
Where is Tink when we need her magic?
Forever young, forever healthy fairy dust.
Sadly, we see the tied-together scarves
stuffed up the pretender’s sleeve.
Musical chairs it’s not.
The chairs are disappearing too fast.

evil-1299513_1280

Written for Quadrille Monday at dverse, the virtual pub for poets where today the prompt word is “magic.”  Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.