. . . put on roller skates and careen down the esplanade along the Charles River. Grinning, looking straight ahead. Faster, faster, and faster still. Wind blowing back my hair, tearing my eyes until the real world blurs and I am flying with wheels as my wings.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the vitual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting today, asking folks to use the word “careen” within their poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
The esplanade is a wonderful green space in Boston that in part, runs along the Charles River. It has a very long walking/bicycling/rollerskating path along the river itself and is only about 2 city blocks from where we live. It goes for miles and we often take walks there. For those of you who watch the Boston Pops 4th of July concert on television, the hatch where they perform is on the esplanade itself, just off the river. Photo from Pixabay.com
Mother Nature chagrined, shrouded in grey low-slung sky. Rains gush, pummel sideways as she weeps beyond control. Strong oaks uprooted, her scalp bared in raw splotches.
Gales punish the unrepentant. We the offenders struggle bending at right angles from the waist, plodding toward imagined escape. Our feeble umbrellas abandoned, their broken ribs litter the sodden path.
Has her sun forsaken us, our sins too great? Depression’s black hole inverted, is this vortex our fate? It drowns even the most optimistic, hope abandoned in storming grief. We fear the apocalypse has begun.
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Idea for poem came from yesterday — waking up at 6 AM and finding trees outside our windows blowing like crazy in the midst of a Nor’easter that lasted for almost 12 hours. It downed many trees across the area. Many acrossBoston and surrounding area lost power from pummeling rain and wind gusts up to 80 mph. We remained safely indoors. Photo is in public domain in Pixabay.com and is not from Boston.
**I am a positive person – really I am! Sometimes I have no idea why the pen turns to the dark side.
Tituba, ‘tis time to rise. Come thee from thy grave. Tis one year since last we caroused ‘mongst these Salem fools. Help me tip the stone o’er my pet, Peeves. Though his skeleton be small, his rattling shall join ours this night. His, the only kindness in that cellar, waiting for the gallows to call. No human came to visit that dank hole. No other animal dared approach. Feared the noose be looped round their scrawny neck as well. Only Peeves, my dearest black cat, came and stayed, curled atop my feet to the last. Come Tituba, our metatarsals brittle though they be, shall haunt this town tonight. Plod these desecrated streets once again reminding all, we were unequivocally wronged.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa asks us to consider our pet peeves, some human characteristic that irritates us and then somehow connect that in a poem with a Halloween or Samhain theme. I admit. I struggled with this prompt and so took a bit of poetic license here. This poem is in reference to Salem, Massachusetts’ infamous witch trials and the scores of people who descend on Salem over Halloween night.
Tituba was the first girl to be accused of practicing witchcraft during the 1692 witch trials.
For those of you who’ve never been to Salem, it is replete with witch museums, wicca stores, and even a sculpture of Elizabeth Montgomery as her character in the television sitcom Bewitched. Lest one think that is the totality of Salem, it is also home to the amazing Peabody Essex Museum, PEM for short. For over 200 years it has been dedicated to collecting, preserving and showcasing compelling artwork throughout history and from around the world.
She becomes the sun in his world. Dazed, stunned, smitten. Emotions whirled. Fierce sunbeam.
Parhelion in mocking sky, her beauty shines to mystify. Burned. Sunstruck.
Moist tempting lips smile to ensnare. Hips beckon, sway in daylight’s glare. Felled. Sunstroke.
Obsessed he beds her day and night primal, neurotic appetite. Sunscalded.
His money spent, he’d been cajoled. Drugged. Job over, she leaves him cold. Done. Sunset.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Grace hosts today and introduces us to the Compound Word Verse:
This complex form was created by Margaret R. Smith: Five 3-line stanzas. Fifteen lines total. Last line of each stanza must be a compound word. The compound words must share a common stem: IE sun, sunbeam, sunstruck, sunstroke, sunbathing, sunset. Rhyme scheme must be aab. Syllable count must be 8, 8, 3.
Parhelion: a sun dog or mock sun called a parhelion in meteorology, is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the sun.
Hanged in 1692, they haunt the streets of Salem still. Blood-drained ashen apparitions unabashedly bitter, they wander far beyond their graveyard. October tourists beware. They seek revenge from you who gawk, bring money to town’s coffers. Fury unleashed, ashcans ready to harvest your souls.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sarah asks us to use the word “ash” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I’ve used the word “ashen” and the word “ash” is hidden within three other words – can you find them?
Salem, Massachusetts is the home of the infamous Salem witch trials. Begun in the spring of 1692, Bridget Bishop was the first to be hung in June at Salem’s Gallows Hills. Nineteen more were hung that month. Some 150 were ultimately accused. There were other means of execution. Today, almost a half-million tourists flock to Salem in the month of October, frequenting the various witch museums, related shops, and of course, the graveyards.
Escape from blaring horns, nights filled with tossing, project expectations and stress. Been on two lane roads for quite a while.
Wayside diner beckons me. Apple tree shaded walk, bees buzz round fallen overripe fruit. I don’t even lock the car doors.
Inside, vases with brightly colored zinnias, oilcloth covered tables and comfy booths. Sheila sashays over with a pleasant smile. Nametag printed in thick magic marker.
She sets down a chipped porcelain mug, pours in dark rich coffee right to the brim. “What’ll ya have? Got fresh melon off the vine. Pies are apple and blueberry today.”
“Just the coffee for now.” She saunters back to the kitchen. I just sit. Between sips I run my finger slowly round the coffee mug’s lip.
I stare out the window. No deadlines hurtling at me. No internet connection. I may just sit here forever.
Coffee drips create brown splotches on my paper placemat menu. Chalkboard over the counter lists supper specials.
Pot roast with Betty’s gravy. Sounds good to me.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Tonight is Open Link Night and we are LIVE for the first hour, from 3 to 4 PM Boston time. That means you can link in, see friendly faces, listen to folks read their poems and, if the spirit so moves you, join in with a poem of your own. No prompt; no required form. Come join us! Image from Pixabay.com
There is a pain too raw. Too personal to write down. Wrapped in the shrouds of death it came too near, but for angels along the way.
Pain of illness, threat of death, most astute tutors of life. Love every mundane moment, cherish them as a gift. Celebrate every dawn.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Ingrid asks us to consider pain and how we can come out on the other side of it stronger. Photo of dawn from one of our many trips.
Namrah soared high. Twenty years after the Peabody children wished him live, he decided to return. Would they want to travel on his golden wings again? He’d taken so many children across the globe on secret midnight rides. Sometimes circling the full moon, chasing shooting stars across the skies. He’d not been above American shores in all these years. Would Allen and Susan consider themselves too old to climb aboard his teal feathered back?
Closer to their city now, but why so dark? Hovering over their yard, he stared in disbelief. Piles of bricks, uprooted trees, scattered roof tiles, shattered glass. Fear seized his heart. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this rubbish? A solitary tear escaped one azure sequined eye. Has time destroyed the home, the town of his origins? Are Allen and Susan alive?
Written for prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Mish is pub tender and asks us to include the line “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this rubbish?” from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in our flash fiction of 144 words or less, sans title. I’ve written of imaginary friend Namrah in years past. Here we visit him twenty years after he was wished alive.
Prosery is a genre created by dVerse. Pub tenders choose one line of poetry and writers must use that exact line (only the punctuation may be changed; word order must be the same) in a piece of prose, 144 words or less in length, sans title.
Cleaning out her grandmother’s home she found only one mirror. Hidden in the back of a drawer buried under delicate handkerchiefs. Some with embroidered flowers, others with faded tatted edging. It had multiple cracks but the maple handle’s patina still glowed.
The bouquet began drooping days ago. Calla lily bodies downed, long stems succumbed to gravity. Sunflower heads ruffled edges turning brown, faces no longer meet the eye. Nearby, on oak sidebar, shriveled pink-veined orchid petals ready to fall.
Retreated to their tents they sleep encased in sleeping bags. Bought on sale, blue cloth on the outside. Inside, cowboys ride horses, stand with guns holstered by cacti. Childlike Western print on bright yellow flannel. Embers pale in campfire ash.
Gathered for their fiftieth they take the tour, campus now lush with trees. Three-story new student center sports three dining options, baristas in the Coffee Corner. Library tables barren, minus green Readers’ Guides to Periodical Literature. Fossils still displayed in the Geology Museum.
Scientist by training, environmentalist by trade, he took over cooking after retirement. Meticulous shopping lists. Weekly menu spreadsheets. One recipe covers two nights. Red aproned in black and white tiled galley kitchen. Meal cooked, served, eaten. Leftovers stored for another day.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Bjorn asks us to write a Cadralor. This is a relatively new poetry form. It is comprised of five unrelated, highly-visual stanzas. Each stanza must stand alone as a poem. Stanzas should be fewer than ten lines and usually each stanza has the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial – each stanza should be like a scene or a photograph. The fifth stanza is the crucible and should answer the question “For what do you yearn?” In the case of Remainders, I’m emphasizing that the leftovers, in each of the stanzas, has or has had value. In the last stanza, leftovers is taken literally.
Her mother was a stoner, flowerchild of the sixties. Braless, barefoot, oblivious. She copulated in a purple haze.
Love child born in a stream, drifted from womb to surface floated in sun’s glistened path. Named according to her origins.
Forever asked, why Mica Shist?
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, De would like us to use the word “stone” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. When I saw the word stone, immediately thought of rocks, then different types of rocks as in metamorphic, granite, and mica schist. Mica schist is a metamorphic rock that includes the mineral schist. When on the surface, schist gives a sparkle to the rock. Some say mica is nature’s glitter. So I decided to have a little fun with the prompt! Image from Pixabay.com
lillian the home poet 