Annie Boaden

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As a little girl, she often escaped the city’s bustle by visiting the public library. She’d sit quietly reading Betsy, Tacy and Tib stories and smile with Winnie the Pooh. Sometimes she’d spin the large globe with eyes closed, stop it, and imagine moving where her finger landed.

Years passed until she was alone, eyes clouded by cataracts, still living in the same small house. She adored its flower garden, tending it so carefully. Hollyhocks, primroses, lilacs grown tall over the years. Today, it rained so she sat beside her kitchen window gazing out. Screen door open, she could hear the rain patter, smell her city lilacs release their sweet, wild perfume, then bow down, heavy with rain. The teapot would soon whistle, and she’d pour herself a cup to share with Jane Austen, escaping into the world of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.


Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. In Prosery, we’re given a line from a poem and must include it, word for word, within a piece of flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length. Today we’re asked to include the following lines from British writer, Helen Dunmore’s poem City Lilacs:
“. . . city lilacs
release their sweet, wild perfume
then bow down, heavy with rain.”

Photo taken some years ago on Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston.

Can you picture it?

lillian32 Comments

Boxes full of joy and laughter.
Clouds ready to burst,
rain happiness upon the earth.
See-through containers
brimming with peace.
Seed catalogues with special sales:
flowers that bloom understanding,
guaranteed to produce gargantuous yields.
Imagine with me, all these possibilities.
Which would you choose?


Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting, asking folks to include the word “imagine” in their poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Image created at Bing Create.

Stormy Night

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Clouds meld as sun disappears in night,
form thick starless low-lying scrim.
Thor, maestro of storms, hurls bolt.
Rain streams sidewise,
wind powered slant.

Lonely man on street leans in,
challenged by elements, struggles forward.

She waits impatiently.
Nine o’clock draws near,
time agreed upon, one tryst past.
He plods on,
tears mixed with rain.

Thor’s Opus intensifies.
Relentless time moves moments on.

Clocktower strikes nine times,
signifies his doom.
He stumbles, staggers, stops.
Bereft, done, hopeless.
She’s forever gone.

Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We are free to post any poem of our choosing. Image created on Bing Create.

About to Celebrate 54 years . . .

lillian21 Comments

Dance with me
through these elder years.
New rhythms. Calmer,
slower yet upbeat,
even when adagio.
In sync still,
thankful for every day.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Mish asks us to write a poem that has something to do with dance. Video taken on our last cruise by a passenger who saw us dancing. About to celebrate 54 years on February 7th with the love of my life – my dancing partner through so many years.

A Prequel Tale

lillian44 Comments

Daedalus, inventor by trade,
created many a plaything for his young son.

Two wooden disks, string wound between them,
meant to be manipulated for fun.
“Like this,” Daedalus said.
The device rose up and down.
“Is that all it can do?” Icarus demanded.
“Give it to me and I shall see.”

Icarus strode to the woods
new toy in hand,
determined to test its true worth.
Hours later he returned,
blood, feathers and flesh
enmeshed in the now tangled string.

“Son, you must listen to me.
The new can be useful, but dangerous too.
Curb your recklessness
or one day I fear,
your fate will be similar
to the creature you’ve killed.”

Icarus dropped the now useless device,
picked up a stick and swaggered away.
Daedalus found him later that day,
bear grease covered his hands.
“Icarus my son,
what have you done?”

“Father, oh father, my fault it was not,
the stick too short, the fire too hot.”

“When will you learn, my darling son?
You are not an all powerful one.”
Icarus hung his head and quietly replied,
“I love you father. I promise you now,
I shall tether myself close to your side
never again, will I give way to my pride.”

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and asking folks to write a prequel for a famous character from a nursery rhyme, Aesop’s Fables, a famous book, or perhaps mythology. Writers should imagine a previous life for their chosen character. They should tell us about the character before they became famous. For example, what was King Cole like before he was a king? What about Alice as a toddler, encouraged her to fall down a rabbit hole and ultimately meet the Mad Hatter? What hints were there to her personality when she was very young? How or why did Peter Pan learn to fly? How did Hercules develop his muscles, and/or why? Writers should think about a famous character or mythological figure and write a poem showing a different side to them. It must however, be a prequel and their identity should be clear within the poem.

In terms of my prequel: Daedulus, a mythical inventor, created wings made of feathers and wax to escape from Crete where he and his son, Icarus, were held captive by King Minos. Icarus ignored his father’s warnings and flew too close to the sun. His wings melted and he fell to his death into the sea. Image created in Bing Create.

Provincetown Decor

lillian24 Comments

Dahlias dazzle,
lemon yellows, sherbet orange,
cranberry reds tipped in white.
Clematis clings to trellis,
bees climb petals, pinch membranes
slurping nectar as they hover.
Towering sunflowers turn their heads
to always face the sun.
Honeysuckle scent delights.
Provincetown gardens
garnish our daily walks.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to use the word “pinch” or a form of the word, in our quadrille (poem of exactly 44 words sans title). Photos were all taken in Provincetown, located at the very tip of Cape Cod. As many of you know, we spend two weeks there every year and one of its great delights is walking in to town from where we stay, looking at all the wonderful gardens on the way.

Explore with Care

lillian15 Comments

What tree is this
that stands so tall, so broad?
More than one century in age, I’m told.
It creeps, tangles thick across the earth
like some heathen’s diabolical tentacles.
If these be strangler roots
then what poor enraptured creatures lie beneath,
choked by weight and lack of light.
Fenced off as if to warn,
do not climb or come near.
Beware of danger,
capture or consumption
by multiple orgasmic trunks.
Solitary owl sits sentry, hidden within its leaves,
guarding who from what we do not know.
Gawk and wonder, but this be all,
lest you learn its secrets
or become one.

Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today/tonight Bjorn is hosting from Stockholm Sweden and invites us to post a poem of our choice, or a poem responding to an optional prompt he provides.

Photos are from yesterday’s walking tour of Balboa Park in San Diego. This tree is the largest tree in California. It’s a strangler fig, one of 900 species in the genus Ficus. It has a complex root system which includes large sculptural buttress roots growing above ground for support; smaller roots growing near the soil, providing oxygen and nutrients; and aerial roots which hang down from branches. I was just mesmerized by this tree and most especially its roots which really look like snakes or tentacles of living creatures… to me they could be something out of a horror show and seemed life-like! And yes, there was a solitary owl hiding within the leaves.

Prosery for today . . .

lillian20 Comments

One of four children, her parents died before the age of sixty from massive heart attacks. Her two sisters did the same; as did her brother. She buried her youngest sister on her own birthday and did the same with her only son, who died at fifty-one, also from a heart attack. Her husband died at seventy-three, from complications following open heart surgery. She defied familial medical history and lived to eighty-one, her own heart having been broken many times. She was my mother.

When they called, I rushed to her side. Congestive heart failure finally took its toll. “We’d like to operate,” the doctor said. She quietly shook her head. “I’m so tired, Lillian.” I held her hand and she smiled. But that smile was the last smile to come upon her face. I whispered, “Go and find dad, mom.” And she did.

Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa asks us to use the line, “But that smile was the last smile to come upon her face” in a piece of prose, no more than 144 words in length, sans title. The line is from the poem Ballad of Birmingham, written in 1968 by Dudley Randall. My mother, Helen Cecile Petitclair Gruenwald died in 1998. I had the privilege of being at her side as she transitioned to another world. I remember it clearly.

As the Sun Sets on this Day

lillian22 Comments

On craggy cliff I stand,
do not come round me.
Life spins round and round until
I sit in darkness.
So many footlights burned out.
I was never there, the day everything changed.
My kaleidoscope memories,
image blurs reality.
I’m skywriting now,
while Mother sings about the man in the moon.
Cold creeps up.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Laura presents a truly challenging prompt.

We are to look back at all our poems posted in the months of January through November 2023, and write a “found poem”. Where do we find it? From the first lines of the first verses, of all the poems from 2023! BUT, we must use one poem’s first line from each month – January, February, March, etc, through November – hence an 11 line poem! The lines can be used in any order. They don’t have to be January, February, March, April, etc. Mine ended up October, April, August, June, February, January, September, May, March, November, November. I was allowed to use two from one month because I didn’t post any poems in July as we were travelling. The title must be the first line of the first verse from a poem in December 2023, or from any other month in 2023. Since I only posted twice in December, I again used a line from a November poem. So this is what I ended up with! Image created in Bing Create. 

PS: it was fun to go back and see all the poems I wrote in 2023! I usually write such positive poems…this one surprised me.

Lassie I’m Not.

lillian18 Comments

I am but a home poet.
Prompts dog me,
thrown out as commands with treats.
Sit. Roll over. Shake.
Go fetch.
Bring it to Mr. Linky.
Drop it. Drop it.

Heel. Heel. Find the rhythm,
don’t jerk the leash.
Words come to mind with expectations,
arrange them in a meaningful way.
Pen pants, drools,
runs left to right,
left to right . . .

. . . circles round and round,
this way, that way.
Veterinarians call it the zoomies.
Poets call it frustration.
Suddenly it’s done.
And me?
I’m doggone exhausted.



APOLOGIES to those of you who read this post earlier, when for some reason, WordPress deleted all the line formatting and it came across as prose.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Dora asks us to use an animal of our choice (real or imaginary) as a metaphor for how ideas and words take shape for us on the blank page. I had a bit of fun with this one, after having recently spent four days with my daughter’s family, including their almost two year old rambunctious dog! Image created on Bing Create.