Bermuda in Style

lillian9 Comments

Rain pelts, lightning tiara,
emerald green limbs
drip gold loquat jewels,
sapphire seas belt her girth.
Bermuda, dark and stormy,
wears her weather well.

Various storm brewing photos and their aftermath in Bermuda over the past two months. Yes: the water is really that colorful!!  No photoshopping done. Poem offered for NaPoWriMo Day 3 (without prompt). The loquat is a delicious fruit that grows on a tree and is ripe when golden. The Dark ‘n Stormy is also the national drink (made with Goslings Black Seal Rum and Ginger Beer).

Mountain Gifts

lillian30 Comments

Back permanently bent from years at task,
large calloused hands firm to grasp,
gently assess tendrils amongst the greens.

Red kerchief upon her head, basket nearby
knapsack slung on hunched shoulders
eyes to ground, the healer gathers.

Moon watcher, earth cycles familiar
as her own once were. Old woman
wise in the land, one of generations.

Young girl, the next, hovers quietly
beside rivers, through brambles,
seeks to learn mountain’s gifts.

Veined hands reach, crack dogwood bark
fingers roll to crumble butterfly weed.
Touch, not eye, decides to take or not.

Blue cohash, huckleberry, lady slippers.
Sun fades. Moccasin flower roots,
tomorrow’s liquid for aching throat.

She walks the mountainside pharmacopeia
long Joe-pye-weed from the shores,
reishi mushrooms tucked below trees.

Purple fox glove for Pauni’s heart,
bee balm and peppermint leaves,
hawthorne twigs for ceremonial wreaths.

Harvest complete, they slowly return,
woman healer and one to be.
Stars orbit, complete the cycle
whilst moon waxes and wanes.

melissa-plants-lemon-balm-1165802
Late for Tuesday Poetics when guest prompter Lynn asked us to write something related to mountains; so posting now at dVerse Open Links Night.  Photo Credit:  Michael and Christa Richert.

All That Jazz

lillian35 Comments

Swingin’, swayin’ to all that jazz
Max drummin’ drums to syncopate
Ella’s scat, can ya dig it mate?

Billie’s sultry voice croons smooth as
liquid gold. Zoot suit struts janglin’
while Louis puffs his cheeks far as

air can go. Cool rhythms gyrate,
swingin’, swayin’, to all that jazz.

Note_lines_horizontal

Great jazz musicians referenced in poem include Max Roach drummer, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, both jazz singers; and Louis Armstrong, trumpeteer extraordinaire. Written for dVerse Poet’s Pub. Victoria asks us to create an Octain Refrain: Poem composed of two tercets and a couplet. Each line must contain 8 syllables. Poem must contain the following rhyme scheme: A b b, a c-c a, bA   Another poetic sudoku! A is the refrain with first and last being the same or close to the same. Second stanza c-c means there should be an internal rhyme within the line. Quite the challenge!  Photo credit: Free-Pik.

Solidarity

lillian32 Comments

Gaggle me group think
wisps of snipers
brooding, hence their evil
festers in murmuration.

Starlings not, cowards yes,
they prey on innocence
maim, murder,
crow hatred as they kill.

Life and exhaltation, a lark to them,
bombs strapped on chests
with heaven their goal,
wing straight to hell.

Let us become congregations
like plovers in flight with doves.
For they are small as one
but pure of heart,

powerful as they soar
symbols, nay beings
of peace and love.

white-dove-spirit-of-peace-1244811

Written for dVerse. De asks us to write a poem using the names given to gatherings of birds. She thoughtfully provided a wonderful list from which I’ve chosen the following: flight of doves, brood of hens, congregation of plovers, exhaltation of larks, gaggle of geese, murmuration of starlings, murder of crows, and wisp of snipe.  Photo credit: Nevit Dilmen.

 

Lovers

lillian33 Comments

Sun slips into sea
tinging waters pink
as first love’s blush.

Their love, sowed and tilled
through leaving tears,
rekindled in this place

where sky melts blue
into waves of aquamarine.
Bodies meld familiar

then spark as old wick
stammers then flames,
passion reborn.

IMG_4059

Quadrille (44 word poem) using the word “melt” as prompted by Grace, tending the bar at dVerse, a poet’s virtual pub.  Photo: sunset from our deck in Bermuda.

Aging in My World

lillian35 Comments

I choose life with mystery. Space.
Question marks, exclamations, ellipses
not brackets or parentheses.

Certainty directs,
connects dots by numbers
like choreographed dance steps.

Give me ad lib, jazz scat
one man band with knees that bang.
Meander, run, or tra-la-la.

Tap shoes. Not silly silk slippers.
Too much between Point A and B
to follow a tutu pink linear path.

sunset-joy-1361279

Photo Credit: Shirley B.  Posted to Poetry Pantry on Poets United.
Thanks, Bjorn, for the introduction!

 

Kilauea

lillian12 Comments

Thick viscous red-orange glows
slowly oozes over blackened fissures,
moonlight its only witness.

Pele’s tresses lengthen in waves
undulate, hiss, bubble heat
flow surely, but slowly, angry not.

Ancestral guardian hesitant to erupt
she lives, breathes forward warning
all shall be buried in quiet wakefulness.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Photo: from our lava walk on the Big Island in Hawaii. We walked on Kilauea — it is still continually and slowly flowing, adding land mass. Pele is the Fire Goddess and considered creater of the Hawaiian Islands. Her flows create her hair, smooth waves of hardened lava. Late to the party — I am postint to Open Link Night at dVerse Poet’s Pub.