Relationships

Words Have Consequences

lillian36 Comments

He sits. Drained. Alone.
Above his head, a framed drawing
of straight parallel lines
that never meet, meld, or blend.
Like no one cares.

To his left, folded jeans
stacked on a three-legged stool.
Three-legged for stability, balance.
A cairn he has created to say
I was here. I lived here. I worked here.

They turned their backs on me.
No one sees me.
Instead they listen to his lies.
I try to hold my head up.
But I’m tired. I’m so tired.

I see their belief in his lies,
the belief in their eyes.
The mistrust. The fear.
I sit numbed by hate.
I can no longer take deep breaths.

I felt hope in this country
I worked hard. I tried to ignore his lies.
But others believed.
Lies eroded trust until all around me,
hope turned to dust.

He sits. Drained. Alone.
Waiting.
For who? For what?
For you to make a difference.
It’s your choice.


It’s Poetics Tuesday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Mish is hosting with a fun prompt! We’re asked to go to one of two websites she provides that feature record album covers. We’re then to choose one cover to inspire our poetry writing for today. I’ve selected the album cover for RM, ‘Indigo’ 2022. The poem is inspired by the photo album cover, and sadly, by the lies about immigrants told by Donald Trump and JD Vance – most recently, the lies told about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

Color Me Dead

lillian29 Comments

Psyche jarred by uninvited suitors
lips forced upon hers.
Anger fired pistons,
burned her soul.
Robot hand slaps on lipstick.
Innocent coral-pink and sweet rose swipes
turned crude in thick crimson slashes.
Dead autumn brown beside and above
brackish burgundy smears.
She mouths defeat.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday and De asks us to use the word (or a form of the word) “jar” within our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.

I’m delighted to be back, writing again, after taking a month+ hiatus when we were traveling. Somehow I ended up writing a rather maudlin poem for today.

Today’s quadrille is motivated by Irving Penn’s photo entitled Mouth, taken/produced in New York in 1986. It’s one photo of many that we saw in the exhibit, Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Consumed by Gaze

lillian39 Comments

Beautiful but
eyes were always upon her.
Expectations lofty, demanding,
be they spoken or not.

To be plain
was her dream.
To walk in the everyday world
unnoticed, unknown.

She did not understand
fame’s fortune was its curse.
She never was on the inside
what the outside came to expect.

Demanding eyes
claimed rights to her body,
feasted on the outside
as her soul withered within.


Beautiful image/art created by Catrin Welz-Stein.

Created for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today I’m tending the pub – meaning I’m the host for today’s prompt. I’ve provided folks with four beautiful images created by artist Catrin Welz-Stein and asked them to choose one for inspiration. They are to write an ekphrastic poem in the purest sense, describing the image OR use the image as motivation to create a poem somehow connected to the image. They are, of course, required to give credit to the artist. Go to dVerse, to see the four images available.

If you’d like to learn more about artist Catrin Welz-Stein and/or see more of her incredible artwork, go to https://catrinwelzstein.com

Black Woman with Peonies

lillian35 Comments

Fresh peonies, sir? For the lady in your life?
Bouquet of crimson and gold tulips
for your table, ma’am?
She walks the market every morning,
flower basket in hand .

Cotton sweater wards off cool breeze.
Delicately notched white linen collar,
embroidered in tiny stitches,
frames her stoic sable face.
Modest madras head scarf
reveals pomegranate-red earrings
hanging below her earlobes.

She approaches early shoppers,
queries softly. Hides her anxiety.
These beautiful blooms
her livelihood.


Written for OLN at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. OLN is Open Link Night when writers can post any one poem of their choosing OR use the optional prompt given.

As host for OLN today, I’ve provided an optional ekphrastic prompt. An ekphrastic poem is one that is inspired by a piece of art so today, I’ve provided the painting, Black Woman with Peonies by French Impressionist painter, Frederic Bazille. Born in 1841, he created this beautiful painting in 1870, the last year of his life.

Consider this an INVITATION!
I’m also hosting dVerse LIVE on Saturday, May 11th from 10 to 11 AM Boston time.
Folks from across the globe participate as we meet with audio and video for an hour. Each attendee is welcome to read a poem of their choice OR they can simply come by to watch and listen. We’re a very friendly bunch! One of the last sessions I hosted had folks from across the US, Pakistan, the UK, Sweden, Kenya, Australia, Trinidad Tobago, India, and Finland! If you’d like to join us click on the link below on Saturday, May 11th – beginning at 10 AM.

https://meet.google.com/pxr-nobe-oir

Hope to see you Saturday morning!

PS: if the link above doesn’t work, click here which will take you directly to the dVerse page that includes a direct link to the LIVE session!

Pollyanna . . .

lillian14 Comments

. . . that’s not my name,
but it could be.
A Pollyanna is defined
as one who is optimistic,
always cheerful.
Looking toward the sun,
even in the rain.
For me, a rainy day is a
make-your-own-sunshine
kind of day.
In today’s divisive political climate,
our world fraught with horrific wars,
our earth struggling
as humans threaten its survival,
all the more important to remember
the sun is always there.
Even behind the darkest overcast skies.
I call it hope.


Lisa is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She asks us to consider the words pilgrimage, walkabout, and wandering, providing a poem for each of the words. One option within her prompt is to “take a line from one of the poems and expand on it.” I’ve used the line “looking toward the sun, even in the rain” from the poem Walkabout by Caren Krutsinger.

AND, consider this an INVITATION to all who read my poem to join us at dVerse LIVE on Saturday, May 11th from 10 to 11 AM New York time. A link will be provided at the dVerse site on Thursday, May 9th that will take you to the LIVE site, with audio and visual. You’re welcome to join us just to sit in and watch and listen; and/or to read aloud a poem of your choice. Last time I hosted our LIVE session we had folks from the US, UK, Sweden, Kenya, Finland, Trinidad Tobago, India, Pakistan, Australia and Israel! All participation is in English. Hope you drop by!

Pinocchio Lives: an exercise in comparison. Fact or fiction.

lillian2 Comments

Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?
The boy cried wolf over and over again.

Lance Armstrong, Tour aficionado, stripped of medals.
Trump University. Defunct. $25 million settlement.

President Clinton: I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Karen and Stormy who? E. Jean Carroll  –  she’s not my type.

Heard on a playground on any given day: Liar, liar, pants on fire.
As millions died of Covid he said, It’s totally under control.

Richard Nixon’s famous words: I am not a crook.
The orange guy racks up ninety-one felony counts.

The Big Lie. We won. We won in a landslide.
And Dorothy was sure
she’d meet the all-powerful Oz.

Today, NaPoWriMo ends for 2024
but before we close that door ~
note the words of Samuel Arnold,
written in 1797:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horse and all the King’s men,
couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Let it be so.


Final prompt for NaPoWriMo 2024. Apologies to my readers who do not like politically bent posts.

The prompt for today is to “write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.”

Each stanza compares Mr. Trump to a person, character, or well-known story or rhyme. For example, the first stanza compares his stoking of the birther conspiracy regarding President Obama to Aesop’s Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Image created in Bing Create AI.

An Impossible Disheartening Task

lillian4 Comments

I want to write an American sonnet today
without writing the orange guy’s name.
The pathological liar who mocked a disabled reporter,
bragged he could grab a woman’s pussy at will,
enabled and brags about the end of Roe vs Wade.
The one who was impeached and is an accused felon.
The guy who wants to axe the Affordable Care Act,
ending health care coverage for 45 million people;
hawks bibles and tee shirts and golden sneakers.
The self-serving bastard who denigrates Gold Star families,
and the war record of John McCain. Silences a porn star
and makes deals with the tabloid press.
The narcissist who incited an insurrection
and turned the once proud GOP into a cult.

I want to write an American sonnet today
but I can’t – because it’s too depressing.
I want this orange man to rot, collapse,
be tossed from the public’s eye.
I want sanity and real truth and empathy.
This is my addendum to the prompt,
I want hope to prevail.


Written for NaPoWriMo, day 27 where the prompt is
“to write an “American sonnet.…an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter. “ Image is from Pixabay.com at least six years ago.

A Surreal Prose Poem

lillian12 Comments

Her iridescent spirit carries her through the golden dust swirls of the Orion nebula. Fourteen hundred light years away from earth, she awaits the right moment. She is the Unique One. A star whose heart pulses in time with the ebb and flow of ocean tides. She is composed of compassion and love. Once a nova who flashed too close to the moon, she witnessed the inhumanity of humanity. She must find her way through constellations and galaxies, to find one human creature she can claim. And in that claiming will come illumination. A flame. Kindling for a paradigm shift. The only hope for earth to survive.


Photo image from the telescope of John McKaveney: The Orion Nebula.

Written in response to NaPoWriMo, prompt for day three: to write a surreal prose poem.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious – It’s TIME! 

lillian8 Comments

Réne Margitte’s canvas, perhaps unwittingly,
illustrates the patriarchal paradigm in 1953.
He paints more than one-hundred men
floating down from the sky.
Every one the same staid figure.
Black topcoats, black bowler hats
atop staid unfeeling faces.
It’s a dull world of sameness
that lulls the joy out of life.

1964, a new canvas came to light
danced and sung on the silver screen.
All those dull men replaced
by one Mary Poppins floating in,
seemingly from the same sky.
Bert, the chimney sweeper,
may have been her pal,
but she was the change agent,
intelligent, talented, and kind.

One woman’s abilities, her smile,
her laughter, and creativity
reached thousands that year,
and still today, brings joy.
Time to repaint Margitte’s canvas,
create a paradigm shift.
Time to take up our own brush,
claim our rights, our bodies,
say enough is enough.

Golconda by Réne Margitte. Oil on canvas: 1953.

Poem created for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Melissa is host and introduces us to the surrealist painter, Margitte. She asks us to consider one of several paintings she provides, and write about what we see and what we don’t see…to use the image as inspiration. I must admit, as soon as I saw this painting, I thought of Mary Poppins! And then, the poem wrote itself.

War of Words, by Lindsey Ein

lillian3 Comments


Words burst like cannon shots
swift, sharp darts to hearts
breaking into shards of glass
no longer able to hold
love.
Bullets of bravado
bully brave souls
who face blistering barrage
with shields strengthened
by past assaults.

Words with no fire or smoke
but haze of hatred make it hard
to catch a breath, a sliver of life
before when air was fresh and
hope was alive with promise;
before words exploded in heads
like bullets seeking bullseyes
in hearts once filled with love.

Words pile up like smoky ashes
burying dreams, lives imagined
before the vitriol rose up
to tear down expectations
leaving debris, devastation.
War of words leaves victims
with wounds unseen
hurting on the inside
no blood just torrents of tears.

Sharing this poem written by Lindsey Ein. She read it aloud for us at dVerse LIVE on Saturday. I thought it quite powerful. I’ve taken the liberty of creating an image to accompany her poem….created in Bing Create.