Nantucket Magic

lillian10 Comments

Jane Montgomery sat on the wicker chair. What a wonderful day she’d had! The beginning of her summer retreat on Nantucket, away from hectic city life, publisher’s demands, her acrimonious divorce settlement. She chose this out-of-the-way cottage deliberately. Walking to the secluded beach this morning, was like salve on her bruised psyche.  

He was sitting on the sand, nuzzling his border collie, staring out at the waves. She tentatively stopped to say hello. Maybe it was the magic of this island, or the romance novels she’d read in her 20s about this place, but they ended up spending the day together. He was here for the summer too.

She picked up her journal, pen in hand, and thoughtfully began writing her first Nantucket entry. The seed of a poem lay dormant in my heart, . . . She stopped, sipped her cold chardonnay, smiled, and continued writing.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. It’s Prosery Monday – a unique form of writing developed here at dVerse. Writers are given one line from a poem to include in a piece of prose exactly 144 words in length. The line must be used word for word, exactly as given. To be clear, we are not to write a poem. We are to write prose, generally flash fiction.

Today Mish is hosting and gives us the line “The seed of a poem lay dormant in my heart.” The line is from the poem Winged Words by Valsa George.

Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

Forward/Backward: Message Still Resonates

lillian22 Comments

There is good in the world,
I remind myself
collecting my thoughts.
In morgues across this country
body bags, small and large.
In churches and theaters,
in schools and grocery stores,
automatic military assault weapons kill.
To concentrate on the good,
sometimes difficult.
Scattered thoughts.

Scattered thoughts.
Sometimes difficult
to concentrate on the good.
Automatic military assault weapons kill
in schools and grocery stores,
in churches and theaters.
Body bags, small and large,
in morgues across this country.
Collecting my thoughts
I remind myself,
there is good in the world.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Laura asks us to consider “cleaving to antonyms”. One method she suggests is to write a Reverso poem: same words read backwards and forwards, making poetic sense. She also asks us to choose a pair of antonyms from a list she provides, to include in our poem(s). I chose scatter and collect.

Today, in 2023, politicians and the NRA use the 2nd amendment, ratified in 1791, to justify private citizens owning military assault weapons. Do you think our founding fathers could even fathom the power of an AK 47? Or want Mr. Joe Blow living in the cabin down the lane to own one? And Mr. Smith, three cabins away? And Mr. Jones, across the lily pad pond?

In the Newtown slaying at Sandy Hook Elementary School, twenty children were slaughtered in a matter of minutes. Bodies were so obliterated, in some cases shoes were used for early identification. Three nine-year olds were recently killed in Nashville. The state legislature in Tennessee will vote today to expel three Democrat representatives because they joined more than one thousand of their constituents, the people who elected them, on the statehouse grounds in a demonstration for gun control.

Yes, somedays, it’s hard to concentrate on the good. And there is a lot of it. But some days, with 24/7 news, it’s difficult. Politicians are concerned about taking race out of books about Rosa Parks; banning books in schools and in town libraries; forbidding girls in schools (or anyone in schools) to talk about menstruation/periods until sixth grade; want to deny children, until they are eighteen, any kind of counseling or medical help for gender issues; remove gender studies as a major in colleges and universities; outlaw drag shows; deny women any rights to their reproductive health including in some states, denial of abortions under any circumstances or, in the news yesterday, after six weeks of pregnancy.

And we have mass shootings every week it seems.

So there you have it: a message read forwards or backwards. Anyway you look at it, it gets more and more difficult these days to concentrate on the good.

Apologies for the rant today – dear Glenn would understand. I miss him.

A haiku for this historic day . . .

lillian32 Comments

Coral flamboyance,
long legs and necks, all squawking.
Flamingo mosh pit.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa provides a choice of three specific prompts, all with reference to animals. I chose the option to write about an animal, considering its nature.

A group of flamingoes is called a flamboyance. There is a metaphorical allusion here….might be more clear if flamingoes were orange….or if while madly cackling and squawking they wore red baseball hats.

On the occasion of a slowly arriving spring . . .

lillian15 Comments

grey skies droop,
shroud skyscrapers
and urban neighborhoods.
Red breasted robin
pecks through dirty pebbled remains
of once tall snow piles.
Crocus greenery marks the shift,
competes for first-sign-of-spring prize.
Less competitive blooms
await winter’s total demise.
Flannel clad, I snooze,
book close by.

Written for dVerse, the virutal pub for poets around the globe. Today, Mish asks us to use the word “shift” or a form of the word within the body of our quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words sans title.

You Became My Constant

lillian7 Comments

I was not there, the day everything changed.
When was that? When World War II ended?
When Einstein discovered relativity?
When nine-eleven crashed into infamy?

Or when Harry really met Sally?
Or when you simply ate a peach that summer day,
juice deliciously dripping down your tanned wrist.
Somewhere at that moment, I suppose a child was born.

Truth is, everything changes
with every breath we take.
Every pivot, every spin, every loping run,
something new becomes.

Nothing stands still. Except perhaps
sentinel mountains in the Norwegian fjords.
Yet even they are marred by subtle granular shifts
as we gaze up at their rugged rockface surface.

Like when we turned around
and our children became adults.
We noticed when their braces came off that summer,
but we didn’t register the daily shifts.

I don’t understand my image in the mirror.
I know it’s me. But how did it become . . . that?
Wasn’t it just yesterday, I was a brunette
and you introduced yourself to me?

Fifty-seven years later, we walk more slowly,
still hand in hand more often than not.
We’ve passed through so many seasons together,
the path is now longer behind than in front.

And so my love, in this moment
that shall also pass by all too quickly,
I simply must tell you.
I am thankful for every day.
I am thankful for you.

Written to share with dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Saturday, March 18, dVerse will go LIVE with audio and video from 10 to 11 AM EST.

Folks from across the globe will meet face-to-face via Google Meet to read a poem of their choosing, and to visit across the miles.

Click here between 10 and 11 AM Boston time on Saturday, March 18th to join us — you’ll find an easy link that will open in your browser so you can meet everyone. Be sure to click on the SATURDAY link. Come and read a poem of your own OR just watch and listen. We’re a friendly goup and the more the merrier!

Photos: That’s George, the love of my life, and I our freshman year in college – many many years ago. Second photo is of us this past summer.

Friendly Warning

lillian14 Comments

Steeped in amniotic fluids,
ejected from maternal womb –
dropped into parents’ environment.

Simmered in their care, their beliefs,
their modeling behaviors and aspirations.
Children grow roots where they are planted.
Tend your garden wisely.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Today Bjorn hosts OLN LIVE from Sweden, from 3 to 4 PM Boston time. Click here between 3 and 4 PM EST for the link to join us live with audio and video. Come read a poem of your own or come just to listen. The more the merrier!

Seaside Frolic

lillian10 Comments

Sun beams broadly,
watches innocence frolic
on Cape Cod shores.

Arms akimbo,
children leap
through shallow waves.

Water splashes,
tickles skipping, kicking feet.
Laughter punctuates the scene.

If I could, I would capture this joy.
Carry it in a bottle with perforated lid
and sprinkle it on the world at will.


Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa tells us it’s time to play at dVerse!

Photo at Provincetown; our grandchildren many years ago.

A Lesson in French

lillian18 Comments

She did WHAT????
That’s gasporrific!
With the gardener?

On the curb,
outside the pub????
When was that?

Did he know?
Rumors.
Gossip.

The honey
on bland porridge.
But beware.

Gaspalicious can turn into
stabinthebackmeanness
far too quickly.

Sometimes,
it’s best to
fermer la bouche!

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. De asks us to include the word “gasp” or a form of the word in our quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words sans title. I had a bit of fun with the word. Image by Sam Williams from Pixabay

At 76 years of age, the phrase, “fermer la bouche” is one of the few phrases/words I remember from my three years of high school French. It means “shut-up” or more politely, “close your mouth”. Other phrases I can still say in French are
Where is the library?
Please pass the butter.
My name is Lillian.
and
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose.
Hmmmm…..don’t think I should depend on my French if we travel to Paris!

Haiku for Glenn

lillian43 Comments

You’re skywriting now,
in stardust and bright moonbeams.
Still, we’ll miss you here.

Glenn Buttkus. Jun 14, 1944 – February 17, 2023.

Born in Seattle, Washington in 1944, he was a movie buff and an amateur thespian through high school, community theater, and college productions. He was accepted into the U of W’s BFA Professional Actor’s Training Program in 1970, then in its third year of existence. He worked in Regional Theatre in the Northwest for a few years, and then relocated to Los Angeles. In 1977, he took a job at an agency for the blind that was located near Hollywood, and he found a new love: special education. He returned to college, getting his MA in Education and worked with blind people for thirty years. (from m.imdb.com)

Glenn was a frequent contributor to dVerse and other online venues. His was a powerful voice at our OLN LIVE sessions. He is already missed.

Image clipped from his last appearance at OLN LIVE.

A Sorry Tale

lillian19 Comments

Occasionally,
I think back to those times.
Friendship spoiled like aged milk.
Curdled putrid,
far beyond its best-used-by date.

I was impressed at first,
by your confidence, laughter,
your louder-than-life self.
We became best friends,
roommates two years in school.

Slowly I realized
you craved attention.
Demanded the spotlight.
Used people
to make yourself the star.

Life’s circumstances
sent us to different cities.
We married, had children,
successful careers. And then,
we were thrown together again.

You relocated to where we were.
Kids in the same school, same grades,
same interests. Old times linked us
in others’ minds,
at church and kids’ events.

But you lived in the Heights,
we lived in the Flats.
You paraded that, flaunted it.
I was okay with that,
merely irritated.

Your husband
exhausted by your demands,
your goal to shine,
became more than irritated.
Driven to depression and anger,
he fled to the arms of another.

So you, ever the diva, consumed by ego,
picked up a knife, stabbed him.
Just once.
He gave you the spotlight.
He died.

On parole, you called me.
Went on and on
about his indiscretion.
Claimed it was self-defense.
Practiced your defense on me.

I hung up that day. Done.
You went to prison.
I went on living,
loving my husband, my family,
and our life.

Just shows you I supppose,
some friendships
were never meant to be.

Written for dVerse where today we’re asked to a) write about friendship and b) begin our poem with the first line of another poet’s poem posted on dVerse. My first line, “Occasionally” is from Christine Bolton’s Senryu. Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay