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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Create barrier islands to keep out hatred, people who lack empathy.
Envelop me in sea breezes that waft smiles.
Let a gentle sun warm and fan kindness among all.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday! Melissa asks us to include the word “lagoon” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I chose to verbify the word. Photo take in Bermuda in 2018.
Discover with me your family tree. Ignore online apps promising filigree.
Instead, help me decorate my Christmas tree. String tiny lights round and round with glee. Stand on tip toe to place Grampa’s ribbon rose at the very top, where it always goes.
Hang wooden orange giraffe beside spunky little brown horse. Decades ago they made you laugh, hanging above your crib, of course.
Be extra gentle with the pink glass bell, fragile as a thin egg shell. Your grandmother’s as a small child, looking at it, she always smiled.
Add red ornament with letters painted white, Lillian spelled out, still brings delight. Made by my teacher in first grade, her love for students proudly displayed.
Treasure these ornaments year after year so many belonged to family so dear. Behold this memory filled Christmas tree, see and touch your ancestry.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Grace provides us with the last prompt for 2023 as we will now be on hiatus until January 1. She asks us to write a culinary rhyming recipe poem.
While we do indeed have a number of recipes handed down from generation to generation in my family, I’ve taken a bit of poetic license and written a poem with a “recipe” for my adult children (now 47 and 49; I’m 76) to discover their ancestry/family tree by looking at the ornaments on my Christmas tree. Just a few are mentioned in the poem. There many more including a fragile airplane that was on my father’s tree when he was a little boy. You can see it in the photo, next to my mother’s pink bell. There are ornaments made by my children’s babysitters; two painted by my father; some made by neighbors from the house where we raised our children; some made or given to us by aunts and uncles; sadly some given to us by relatives now gone from this earth. There are ornaments made by our kids when they were 4 and some when they were in grade school. There are ornaments collected from family vacations. It is what I often call a memory tree. Almost every ornament has its own story. In a way, they are the ingredients, melded together and on display, that enable us to reconnect with our family every year, no matter the distance or time that separates us; no matter if they have left this earth and only reside in our hearts.
Whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope they are joyful and shared with loved ones. I also wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year.
Love. Snow mist nature kissed. Evening stroll through quiet street. Bells chime afar. Carolers’ voices carry through neighborhood. Candles glimmer, lights shine. Thoughts turn to memories. Eyes tear from cold or yearning. Family members gone still cherished, warm my spirit this time of year.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Bjorn asks us to use the word “snow” in our quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Image created on Bing Create.
I was where I am when the snow began: back row in the corps de ballet. My first professional performance with a prestigious company. My first performance in The Nutcracker.
We’d practiced Act I’s ending snow scene many times. Dress rehearsal was a joy as soft snow fell all around us. As a newbie, nobody warned me about the two three-hundred pound fabric bags of confetti snow in the rafters. Nor did they tell me in the real performance, the snow would increase in intensity until we ended up in a veritable blizzard!
I was afraid I’d fall. It stuck to my eyelashes. I warned myself: don’t breathe through your mouth! But I did. With my back to the audience, I coughed like a cat hurling a furball. The curtain dropped to tumultuous applause and I’d survived. “Welcome to the real world of ballet!”
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I didn’t have time to write to Merril’s Prosery prompt for Monday, so did it late and am posting here. The prompt was to use the line “I was where I am when the snow began” from the poem The Dead of Winter by Samuel Menashe. Prosery is a piece of prose that is 144 words or less in length and includes a specific line of poetry given in a prompt.
A Dancer’s Tale was motivated by an article in the December 5th, Boston Globe, “The Snow Must Go On.” It actually quotes ballerina, Seo Hye Han who plays the Snow Queen in the Nutcracker about how the snow sticks to everything and tastes terrible because of the flame retardant on it. Boston Ballet actually does have two 300-pound fabric bags of confetti snow in the rafters for each performance of the Nutcracker. The bags are rotated and the snow slowly falls at first and does indeed, end up in a blizzard at the end of the scene. After the curtain comes down, stage hands immediately use machines similar to leaf blowers to clear the stage and save all the snow. They put the used snow through a machine to “sift out” false eyelashes, feathers, sequins etc. so there is just “pure” confetti snow left to reuse. According to the article, Boston Ballet goes through over 2,000 pounds of confetti snow in each season’s performances of the Nutcracker. Fascinating article to read! A Dancer’s Tale is purely fictional.
Image was created by me in Bing Creative! Thank you Bjorn for showing us how to use this AI!
some days it seems a stick figure world sketched in lines only charcoal lines no curves no tints of color no punctuation negation no positivity stuck motionless mural of ethnocentrism narcissistic me-ism artists and poets needed to add crimson hearts splashes of love everywhere
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Mish asks us to include the word “sketch” or a form of the word, in our Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words sans title).
lillian the home poet