Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious – It’s TIME! 

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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

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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.

Landscape Resolved

lillian39 Comments

Recessed window’s wide ledge
holds spirits for drinker’s escape.
Time out desperately needed
from hatred, tyranny,
spewed vindictiveness,
misogyny, racism, and lies.
Broad brushstrokes have not,
cannot hide, underlying malevolence.

Clean canvass craved,
painted in meaningful hues.
Foundation layer of iridescent justice.
Calm cerulean waters
governed by tides of crimsoned love.
Emerald-kindness speckled shores of honesty.
Sun-flowered happiness rollicking
beneath cobalt cloudless skies.

Is there a bard to create this script?
A Dali, Miro, or Kahlo
to produce this surrealism?
Who among us
will ensure it becomes reality?
Human dignity bathed in light,
tinted with opalescent caring,
glowing in a patina of hope.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting Open Link Night where folks are invited to post any one poem of their choice, no form, rhyme scheme etc. required OR use Van Gogh’s painting, Studio Window, to motivate their creative juices.

AND you are invited to join us LIVE (with audio and video), on Saturday, March 16th from 10 to 11 AM New York time. Simply click here, and then click on the link you’ll find for dVerse LIVE. You’re invited to read a poem of your choosing, or simply come sit in and listen. Drop in for a few minutes or come and stay the hour. Although we’re an international group, all readings and conversations are in English. We’ve had folks from Sweden, the UK, Trinidad Tobago, Finland, Pakistan, the US, Kenya, Australia, and India. I do hope you’ll join us – the more the merrier!

After All These Years . . .

lillian14 Comments

They were so young. Grins on their faces more often than not. Dressed in wool caps, fuzzy mittens, and brightly colored scarves. The backs of their snowsuits still showed evidence of the snow angels they’d just completed. An annual tradition at the first deep snow. Jill’s yard was always the scene. More often than not, they’d be in the midst of a wild dance to the blizzard gods when Mrs. Cranston called out to them, one by one. All of the names swallowed up by the cold, but loud enough so they knew her homemade hot chocolate was ready.

All these years later, Jill looking so beautiful in her wedding gown, they sat looking expectantly at Mrs. Cranston. Snow falling outside the church fellowship hall’s window, she held up her champagne flute: “To lasting friendship, my dears. You will always be my cold-nosed angels!”

It’s Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today Bjorn is hosting from Stockholm, Sweden. He asks us to include the line All of the names swallowed up by the cold in our piece of prose/flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length, sans title. The line is from the poem “After Someone’s Death” by the late Swedish Nobel Laureate, Tomas Tranströmer.

Touching the Moon

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Hours ago, we were walking in Provincetown’s center. Raucous, crowded. Bicyclists weaving through pedestrians on Commercial Street. The Lobster Pot’s neon sign flashing bright. Drag queens in stiletto heels enticing folks to come see their shows. Owners walking with dogs of all sizes, bejeweled in tiaras, on rhinestone leashes; some sitting pertly, watching the crowds from baby strollers.

Now, with skies darkening, we stand alone on our deck. We’ve rented this special place for two weeks every year, for the past twenty-five years. A twenty-minute walk into town, it seems like a world away from all that we were in the midst of, just an hour ago. We listen to the silence around us. We watch with incredulity and awe as the sky darkens and a full orange-red gleaming orb rises. “Hold your hand, just there,” my husband tells me. He takes the photo. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to touching the moon.

civilization
believes itself so clever
full moon knows better

Frank is hosting haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We’re to write about the full moon. According to Frank, in February, the full moon is called the Snow Moon. I’ve taken the liberty of writing about an experience we had one September. I believe the full moon was called the Blood Moon at the time. Photos from two different years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which is at the very tip end of Cape Cod.

A Colony of Ants, a Flamboyant of Flamingos, and a Bloat of Hippopatomous Met One Day

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What names be known, for groups benign
to get, to go; to roam, to grow.

Porcupines in groups are prickles.
Wild geese do gaggle, soar in glee.
The bees all bumble, swarms the buzz,
while murder, mischief crows do make.

(And now excuse my poetic license)

A pile of purses we name a pursuit.
A nosh of neckties, a collar’s noose.
A group of grown-ups, known as grumps,
a trickle of teens, they call a twit.
A poet’s pub is fancied a pword.

*pword – Think of it as a plosive before “word” – not to be mistaken for pee-word!

Written for dVerse, Meet The Bar Thursday. Today, Bjorn asks us to write alliterative verse. He defines the form:
1. The alliterative verse has four stressed syllables per line.
2. The three first syllables alliterate, while the fourth does not.
3. There is a caesura (pause) between the first two stressed syllables and the last two.
4. If you want to, you may put a line break or some punctuation to make the caesura clear.

* I handled the alliteration and the syllables; in a few lines, I did not add the caesura. I did have fun with this….prickles, gaggles, swarms and murders. And then some made up group names: pursuit, noose, grumps, twit, and power! Phots from Pixabay.com

I Should Have Listened

lillian19 Comments

My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me.
Tell me, where did you sleep last night?
Beneath the willow tree?
Its branches so lithe, so low.
Its lance shaped, feather-veined leaves
brushing sensuously across your bloodied mouth?

They warned me:
if she floats then she is not
a witch like we had thought.
But your incandescent eyes beckoned me,
consumed my rationality.
And I learned, you are so much more.

Blackened sky, host to full moon.
I am bereft. Abandoned again.
Shrieking howls from God knows where,
scream the undeniable truth.
How much longer can I endure
these monthly night terrors?

My lust lit afire by your smooth body,
entwined with mine so often at evensong.
But this I fear, left once again.
I am slowly going insane
knowing you have never been,
nor will you ever be, all mine.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
Melissa is hosting and sharing information about the late singer, song-writer, Kurt Cobain. She asks us to consider several of his songs and use one or more lines from them, within a poem we post today. Image generated on Bing Create.

“My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me.
Tell me, where did you sleep last night?”
From Where Did You Sleep Last Night? / Songwriter: Huddie Ledbetter

“If she floats then she is not
A witch like we had thought.”
From Serve the Servants / Songwriter: Kurt Cobain

Glaciers’ Demise

lillian24 Comments

Foggy mist hovers.
Murky white veil,
nature’s hide-and-seek touch.

Glacier calves, cracks sharply.
Blue tinged icebergs
float aimlessly, shrinking in time.

Numbed cold rouged cheeks.
Breath’s visible trail hangs
in cold crisp air.

I am witness.
I understand now.
Warnings of dire disaster.

Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse. Today we are to include the word “touch” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Photos from our cruise some years back to Antarctica.