slipping from here to there,
drifting toward sleep
my hand reaches for yours.
Fearful still,
I will not let you cross alone
this darkening nocturnal bridge.
Fingers interweave. I wait. I listen.
Soft even breaths become my evensong
and I succumb to dreams.
Hosting the dVerse virtual pub for poets today. I’m asking folks to write a poem that contains the word “bridge.” So many possibilities! Come join us – bar opens at 3 PM Boston time.
Adam and Eve’s tale
created a history.
Two genders. Two roles.
From prehistoric eras
came seminal works,
histrionic characters
assigned to mankind.
Hissy fits to machismo.
Words whimpered wrongly,
like hysterical mis-spelled.
Time now to accept
the herculean tough task.
Too often not heard
unless we are herd, enmasse.
Cherish who we are.
Do not say female or male,
women versus men.
We shall march a million strong,
support each other.
Our bodies, our minds, our love.
Together we can, we will.
Gayle hosts dVerse today and asks us to write a CHOKA: an unrhymed poem with lines that alternate 5 and 7 syllables, ending with two 7 syllable lines. A new form for me…and quite a challenge to make the sense of the poem be the reader’s main focus rather than the framework of the 5-7-5-7-5-etc-7-7 syllable requirement. Bar opens at 3 PM Boston time.
Two explanatory notes for the poem: 1) I’ve always been interested in semantics and the power of language; applauding the movement to more inclusive language as in “fire fighter” rather than “fireman” and “work hours” rather than “man hours.” Many changes like these have concretized in our language over the years and, I believe, affected perception. This poem looks at the place of gender specific words within words. Note the italics. There are many many more one could use. I find it an interesting exercise. 2) Jan 21, 2016 is the Women’s March on Washington with simultaneous similar events around the country. My daughter and I shall attend the one in Boston. Hence the reference at the end of the poem. I should add ,persons of both gender/sex are highly encouraged to attend these events!
curl me softly?
Straight lines do not appeal,
nor pointillist detail.
Giverny blur me
in weeping willow,
mauve wisteria and lupine tendrils.
Soften words with lyrical strokes
lightly touch my lips,
whisper quietly in fading sun.
Hold me,
spoon me
in waning silvered moon.
Welcome back to dVerse! Bjorn opens 2017 with the quadrille prompt to use the word “curl.” dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, opens at 3 PM…come join us…curl up with a cup of coffee or a mimosa, share your take on the word and or read what others have to share in only 44 words (definition of a quadrille)!
In the quiet spaces
my heart awaits a miracle.
A family with no home
carrying a gift within,
sought shelter on the darkest of nights.
Turned away,
their solace lay with stable mates
and a symbol of Love was born.
As the world seethes
a baby in Aleppo writhes with pain,
feels not the love promised to many.
Angels hover,
ethereal wings tattered and torn.
Their yuletide song has but six words.
How has it come to this?
Created for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. dVerse will take a holiday hiatus, but I shall keep posting here. Heads up! Tomorrow’s post is about our recent trip to Australia and includes some amazing photos of a mama wallaby and her joey!
Special thanks to Bjorn, Gail and all my fellow pub tenders. And a very special thanks to all dVerse participants for making 2016 a great year!
elusive time
slips through fingers
like threads of gossamer silk
elusive time
disappears like dew drops
as sun steeps blades of grass
elusive
as sheaves of journal pages
covered in faded ink,
tear drop stains
softened by the years
journal pages
fingered tentatively
as she sits, mind wandering,
wizened body ensconced
in pale grey prayer shawl
I’m hosting the bar at dVerse today, a virtual pub for poets, and asking folks to write a poem with the word “time” in it; or a poem about a particular time etched in their memory. Bar opens at 3 PM Boston time. Stop by and imbibe some poetic words or take up the prompt yourself. We’d love to have you! Photo credit: Kristen Hultzapple.
Proud anthems hide painful histories.
Call them Scar Face, the original mobs.
Maori treaties disemboweled.
Aborigine beliefs purged, land seized,
lives stolen by small pox scourge.
Wounded Knee cut beyond the pale.
Revisionist history.
Frayed band-aids cover festering wounds.
Moans for restitution reverberate.
A Quadrille (poem of 44 words) using the word “scar” for dVerse where De is tending bar at this virtual pub for poets today. Photos are from our recent trip to Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, Europeans came to settle and discovered the Maori people — they were of Polynesian descent. Treaties were signed that ultimately displaced the Maori. However, in recent years New Zealand has done much to rectify the situation including a formal apology, declaring English and Maori as the two official languages of NZ, giving back some key lands, having both languages taught in the first years of school. There are Maori television stations. The video is of a beautiful Maori dance on the land, given back to the Maori’s, where the original treaties were signed. A beautiful museum just opened there this year.
Second set of pictures are from an Aboriginal tour we took of the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. This man is Aboriginal (mixed marriage) and showed us many of the plants and trees used by the Aboriginee for food and shelter, and explained their difficult history. Because Aboriginees no longer have easy access to their natural foods of years ago, they now eat “normal” food and their bodies have never adjusted…the average age of an Aboriginal male is just 65. Kidney disease and diabetes are rampant in the population. The artwork is some from the garden and one bark drawing from a beautiful display at the New South Wales Art Gallery. The Aboriginees have not fared as well as the Maori in New Zealand.
And of course, the wonded knee reference is to the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 when US federal troops killed 150+ native American Indians. In the U.S., the plight of the American Indian, on reservations, high alcoholism, education access etc. In all three countries, we sing our national anthems proudly, but our countries are established on the “original sin” of taking the land away from those who were our countrie’s first inhabitants. It is a fact of our histories. This recent trip gave me much food for thought concerning history and indigenous peoples.
she-devil lived recklessly
among subhuman rats star on knees, alley squatter
throwing die, rolling kraps spark of luck in fingertips
collecting just desserts stressed, on edge
come on baby, deliver reviled by all who play her game
debutante of junkies, she’s lost it all.
Read three ways, always using the “debutante” line as the final line: 1. poem on left; 2. poem on right; 3. from left to right, all the way across as one poem. Also uses semordnilap: one word, when spelled backwards makes a different word: devil is lived; rats is star; kraps is spark; desserts is stressed; and deliver is reviled. Any way you read it, it is a Quadrille (44 words – no more, no less) that includes the word “spark” as asked for in today’s prompt at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. De is opening the pub at 3 pm – come on over and write with us — or just imbibe the words of others!
Photo Credit: Michal Zacharzewski
Threatening clouds blew cross once blue skies.
Dark, sinister, he stood incensed.
White-knuckled fist shoved in her face,
words flew like lightning bolts.
Slut. Idiot. Whore. Landing like blows,
so in sensed by her dulled brain, they chilled her soul,
like hoar frost on some distant trampled land.
But this time, she alone knew the secret she’d hid.
Just three small steps to that small new gun.
Her shaking hand pointed as he turned his head,
and the nightmare was over.
This knight in shining armor crap,
dead.
And so she took his keys.
Rode down back roads, kicking up dust,
never looked back, only forward.
She’d find a place, somewhere,
with hope tinged clouds
in tomorrow’s dawn.
Written for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, a virtual pub for poets where today I’m tending bar, asking people to write a poem with at least two homophones. Homophones: words with same sound but different spelling and different meaning. For example: two/too, and ball/bawl. Homophones in The Escape include blue/blew, incensed/in sensed, whore/hoar frost, new/knew, nightmare/knight, rode/roads. The trick in this prompt is to insure the “sense” of the poem, its flow and meaning are still the focus . The homophones need to fit in, rather than stick out boldly. Pub opens at 3 PM. Photo Credit: Linda Lucerne
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
will we sing, and bless this place.
William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
She fancied herself a fairy at an early age.
Each toddler step produced peels of laughter
from those who regaled in every teetering move.
She gathered smiles and tucked them away
behind sweet curly tendrils,
within folds of chubby knees,
in the sparkly depths of deep blue
behind delicate lashes with flutter dreams.
And as her steps grew wider, longer,
she skipped around the globe
passing out smiles to all she came upon,
turning darkness inside out
to light the path of many.
She was the first within a multitude,
if only we believe.
Feel their touch in sunbeams,
look within darkness and seek their starry light.
Gaze into delicate etchings of frost
upon our windows in the coldest of days,
and understand.
There are fairies and angels among us,
if only we believe.
And we can choose their ways,
light a path through darkness
and create smiles within the world.
Welcome to Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today I’m tending bar and asking writers to kick up their heels a bit…..give me the ole razzle dazzle! Give us some sparkle! Think of the meaning of these words and either use one, two, all or none of the words while creating a poem that evokes their mood. Stop by to read the full prompt and see what others come up with. Come enjoy some razzle dazzle with us!
i.
If you insist, turn a deaf ear.
Tear thread by thread
cherished maxims from the cloak of civility.
Ye shall find a skeleton of pock marked bones
bereft of tear drops, wallowing in dust.
ii.
Some denigrate her promise,
hurl angry words upon that ancient crown.
All who first sailed round her base, forgotten,
as the brazen would douse her torch of hope.
She stands sentinel ‘neath a sliver moon,
solitary tear drop rung from stone
frozen on sculpted cheek.
iii.
Violence rips across city streets
sirens scream and echo through news.
Voices raise, fists raise,
and mothers fall on knees.
Not one tear drop falls,
it is a deluge that turns spilled blood
into rivers of salted red.
iv.
A tear drop
is the same color,
no matter the skin.
Bjorn is hosting dVerse today and uniquely is adapting the cubist movement in art to the art ofpoetry. He asks to to select a simple object, or common concept, and write several poems looking at it from different perpectives. Ultimately, we are to place the poems in an order to create contrasts and, when read together, form one poem. Individual parts – also to be read as a whole.
I’ve chosen to write about the tear drop.
