Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Puss in Boots Fans!

lillian26 Comments

That nine lives saying?
A reincarnation tale.

Rowan, Puss’ cousin, was the original one.
He died on a cold winter’s night
giving rise to number two, Tabby Tat.
Nearsighted, she met her demise
squinting down a busy street.
Number three was Kit the Kat,
catapulted to fame by a candy bar.
Sugar highs and alley fights
finally did him in.
Mouser came next, not very smart,
he followed a mouse into a trap
and was last heard to say, oh crap!
The next reincarnation came in a far away land.
Penelope the Puma,
sadly and cruelly killed by a hunter’s hand.
Her ghost became the charming Ms. Cheetah,
seduced to her death by a devilish Tom.
Lorna the Lynx was up next.
She lolled through life until her untimely death.
And now if you’ve been counting with me
we’ve come to the ninth penultimate life.
That final reiteration,
none other than Felicity Feline,
intensely happy, true to her name.
I am delighted to report, she found a happy home
with the prolific painter, Mr. Louis Wain.
Her portrait, painted in joyous colors,
stands out in his collection.
And so, while all those other eight are forgotten
Felicity lives on in perpetuity,
frozen in time, displayed on an easel,
for generations to visit and see.


Screenshot

Written for NaPoWriMo day 23, off prompt.

Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics on prompt where Melissa is introducing us to the English artist Louis Wain. He is “best known for his drawings of anthropomorphised cats. Born in Londin in 1860…he attended the West London School of Art, where he would go on to teach for a time….In 1884…The Illustrated London News was first to publish Wain’s art. It wasn’t until 1886 that he received more widespread recognition….he was elected president of the National Cat Club….he was a prolific artist. During his lifetime, he drew thousands of cats (it is estimated that the number exceeds 150,000.” Melissa asks us to choose one of his paintings/drawings she includes in her prompt, and to “write a poem inspired by the artwork. Simple enough, right? There’s just one catch – you may not use the word cat anywhere in your poem, including the title.”

I selected Wain’s painting, Untitled.

I had some fun with this….using many different words that refer to cats: puss, tabby, kit, mouser, puma, cheetah, tom, lynx, and feline. I also had some fun with wordplay, without using the word “cat” as in the Kit Kat candy bar, and catapulted.

Hey Diddle Diddle – the Real Story

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Yes, the dish ran away with the spoon,
but Mother Goose got it wrong.
She laid an egg with this one.
It was not a happily-ever-after tale.

Turns out the dish was a cad.
A saucer with sterling designs,
and always a cups man.

Young utensil that she was,
she never guessed his real intention
to tarnish her reputation.

He led her past the infamous cow
the one who jumped over the moon.
Romancing her under cover of night,
surely, he thought, she’d swoon.

But alas, there were too many stars that night,
revealing what he truly was really made of.
Just cheap melamine, not Royal Doulton or Spode.

Avoiding every advance he dished out,
she ran back to the cat and the fiddle.
She maintained her sterling reputation,
after all,
she was always a respectable ladle!


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe where today is Open Link Night and poets may post any one poem of their choosing.

This little diddle is an edited version of NaPoWriMo’s day 22 prompt: “to write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips. Or perhaps your two things could be linked somehow – like a rock and a hard place – and be utterly sick of being so joined. The possibilities are endless!”

For those of you not familiar with this Mother Goose nursery rhyme, it goes like this:
Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Image is from Bing Create.

Miss Violet

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Violet took quickly to her namesake.
Childhood imp and very active child,
she continually sang, half-shouted

I’m a one-eyed, one-horned,
flyin’ purple people eater
zooming round the house.

Cape billowing behind her,
gramma’s purple organza apron
pilfered for special effects.

Decades later, Miss Violet,
now the town’s eccentric spinster,
specialized in all things purple.

Her garden, replete with verbena,
bearded iris, campanula,
and sweetly scented lilac bushes.

Regular church goer she was.
Doused in lavender eau de cologne,
her scent preceded her down the aisle.

Her orchid shaped brooch
sparkled with amethyst gem stones
upon her heliotrope cloche hat.

She hugged parishioners and priest alike
saying her goodbyes.
Shedding from her feather boa
gifting them all a bit of her purple.


Written for NaPoWriMo day 21. Today we’re to explore a color in a poem. Image from Bing Create.

Lillian as Lily?

lillian9 Comments

Living my life as a perennial?
Lily of the valley, that would be me.
Closest to forever
I ever would be.

Lily of the valley, that would be me,
planted beneath our family tree.
I ever would be
blooming and seeing generations to come.

Planted beneath our family tree.
Closest to forever,
blooming and seeing generations to come,
living my life as a perennial.


Written to fulfill the prompts for for day 18 of NaPoWriMo and for Meet the Bar Thursday at dVerse the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a poem where “the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else and explains why.”

Prompt for dVerse today is to write a Pantoum: a poem of any length written in quatrains and using the prescribed line directions below:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8

Last stanza:
Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza

Time in a Bottle

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When I was very young
time meant having fun.
The road ahead of me . . .
well I couldn’t see the end
much less fathom the turns,
detours, or optional routes
in the long journey to come.

A septuagenarian now,
closer to eighty than seventy,
my memories are glued in scrapbooks.
From early marriage days
to birthdays and holidays,
newspaper clippings,
and recital programs.

Wedding albums,
birth announcements.
Photo albums filled with
tent-camping vacations,
early grandparenting days,
family reunions,
scenery shots from cruising days.

There is no doubt about it, time is a glutton.
It eats up seconds, months,
and precious years. But if we could stop it,
collect special events,
and put them in a bottle,
the question is,
at what point would we do that?

What would be the ripple effect?
Which moments might be lost,
what aspects of human development
might be missed in that stutter moment
between stopping the clock and starting it again?
Can we really judge what is significant enough
to stop everyone’s else’s world to save our own?

And just as important to consider,
how many bottles would we need?


Written for NaPoWriMo day 17 where the prompt today is to choose a song, and write a poem whose title is the name of the song. Time in a Bottle was made popular by Jim Croce.

Oh Magnificent One!

lillian13 Comments

Ah, I understand now.
You never cared for the name Mount McKinley.
In your earliest years, and many years after,
native peoples addressed you as Denali.
Translation: the tall one, the great one.
They recognized your power and majesty.

How difficult for you to share a name
with an American President who never
set foot in the shadow of your magnificence.
After all,
you rule over six million acres of wild land
intersected by one road, ninety-two miles long.

You watch over taiga forest,
high alpine tundra, amazing wild life,
beautiful fauna.
You are the highest peak
in North America,
towering over magnificent landscape.

In 2016,
on the eve of its 100th anniversary,
the  National Park Service righted a wrong.
Your name was officially changed
to what it should have been all the years before.
Denali. For you are the mighty one.

William Shakespeare,
you had it all wrong in Romeo and Juliet!


Written for both Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe and for Day 16 of NaPoWriMo.

The Prompts: At dVerse, Sanaa asks us to write a poem in a conversational mode of address. In my post, I’m having a conversation with Denali. The NaPoWriMo prompt is to “write a poem in which we clearly describe an object or place and then end with a more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.“

The great mountain Denali would disagree with William Shakespeare’s line in Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”

Photo is from our trip to Alaska some years ago when we did indeed travel through Denali National Park and see this magnificent mountain!

In a Peanuts World

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In Lucy’s words:
Snoopy’s on a stamp?
What is wrong with philatelists?
Are they all dog lovers?
Do they all have beagles?
I’ll bet they all have
at least one girl in their family!
A mother, a sister, an aunt.
When you look at it that way,
they probably have more!
I’m smart.
I give sound advice for five cents a pop.
I’m confident and strong.
You’ll be calling me
Madame President some day!
So WAKE UP!
It’s Lucy for the WIN!!!

Screenshot


Written for day 15 at NaPoWriMo where we’re directed to a site that includes postage stamps from many countries and asked to pick one and write about it. Not one of my better poems…..but for day 15, it’ll have to suffice.

An Anaphora

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What if every dawn illuminated hope?
What if every house was a home?
What if words had only positive meanings?
What if gross only meant twelve dozen?
What if thirst only happened to plants?
What if everyone holding hands produced a circle of love?
What if politicians had no power over a woman’s womb?
What if simple soap and water could eliminate prejudice?
What if war was only a card game?
What if every dawn illuminated peace?

Written for NaPoWriMo day 14. The prompt is to write an anaphora: a poem of 10 lines where each line begins with the same word. Photo is from Cape Cod some years ago.

A Silly Tale

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Mr. and Mrs. Tabby Cat
sat down to have a very long chat.
They’d just returned from quite a sail
that really produced quite a tale.

They bravely decided to set afloat
in what they thought was a sturdy boat.
They left at night under a harvest moon
only to be met by a horrific typhoon.

The seas roiled and got very rough,
they soon decided they’d had enough.
Now back home, they sat in a puddle
whiskers rattled, feelings a muddle.

Boots came off, dropped with a plop.
“What can we do so our spirits don’t flop?”
“I’ll bake a pie,” said Mrs. Cat. “We’ll savor its scent
then eat, until we’re quite content.”

Tummies full, their dreams so sweet
and now this prompt is finally complete!

Image created in Bing Create.

This was quite a prompt for day 13 at NaPoWriMo! Yes, April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write a poem every day.

Today’s involved prompt: create a word list that includes 5 words related to the senses, two concrete nouns, and two verbs. Then come up with a rhyming word for each of those 7 words! See my list below. And then, of course, write a poem using all those words, trying to include the rhyme in the poem! It’s what I call a sudoku prompt!

5 sense words chosen with they rhyming word
sweet : complete         for taste
scent : content             something you smell
rough : enough           for touch
plop : flop                   a sound you can hear
puddle : muddle         something you can see

Two concrete nouns and their rhyming words
cat : chat
moon: typhoon

Two verbs and their rhyming word
sail : tale
float : boat

Namrah

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Namrah soared through night skies,
finding his way back to the Pepperdine home.
He’d not returned for many years.
He’d spent that time in Europe,
delighting so many children,
guiding them through star dust fields
until they grew beyond what adults called
their pretend years.

Namrah is not an imagined creature.
He appears at night, silver wings softly flapping,
golden beak tapping upon a child’s window.
He hums softly, the reverse of a lullaby tune,
waking them from the deepest of sleeps.
They climb upon his back, fingers entwined in crimson feathers,
flying past Venus into the glorious galaxy.
Namrah tells them wondrous tales and listens to their dreams.

Once the elders agreed Namrah was ready to join the fleet,
Jarrad Pepperdine had been his first assignment.
He remembered Jarrad’s soft brown eyes, opened wide as they flew.
The whispered secrets he’d shared and how carefully he listened.
His job was to instill everlasting wonder and hope in children,
understanding that far too soon, they would inevitably part.
Tonight, Namrah breaks every rule he agreed to long ago,
returning to the Pepperdine’s street,
hoping for a glimpse, if not a visit, with Jarrad, the adult.



Written for Day 12 of NaPoWriMo where the prompt today is to “write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.” American tall tales feature larger-than-life characters like Paul Bunyan (who is literally larger than life), Bulltop Stormalong (also gigantic), and Pecos Bill (apparently normal-sized, but he doesn’t let it slow him down). If you’d like to see a modern poetic take on the tall tale, try Jennifer L. Knox’s hilarious poem, “Burt Reynolds FAQ.” Your poem can revolve around a mythical character, one you make up entirely, or add fantastical elements into a real person’s biography.”

Namrah is a wonderful creature I wrote about frequently in the early days of this blog. Go to the search function on this page and plug in the word Namrah and you’ll find some very early poems about this wonderful imaginary friend. Have not written about him in many years so very fun to revisit him.

Image created in Bing Create.