Picasso’s blue period. Shades of cobalt, streaks of cerulean, periwinkle pops. Hues of humanity brushed on canvas. New Orleans blues strut the streets. Brassy sounds. Bourbon crowds. Indigo girl hopscotches hair flying, double-dutches. Skip-to-my-lou my darling denim clad child. Love you always, true blue.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting today and asking folks to include the word “indigo” in their poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Image made on Bing Create.
ME: Well, they can do it now. They watch the gulf-stream pattern, from the Gulf of America and the blow-hard-wind data from Mount McKinley. They even have access to X-rated data.
YOU: So what’s their prediction?
ME: A four year blizzard! Be prepared!
YOU: How?
ME: Just head to a fabric store.
YOU: Do those exist anymore?
ME: Go to the one on Blue Avenue and head to the left side of the store. They have a good supply of outerwear patterns. Get plenty of heavy fabric. Take it to a seamstress and tell her to make of it a parka. For your soul then, wear it outside every day and resist the storm!
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Prosery Monday and Lisa is our pubtender. She provides us with the lines “Make of it a parka For your soul.” from Before you know you owned it by Alice Walker. We are to include these exact words, in this exact order, in a 144 word piece of prose/flash fiction. We are however, allowed to add punctuation or change the punctuation. Image made on Bing Create.
Carousel? Too genteel. Merry go-round? Definitely not.
Music profoundly distorted. Charged, dissonant, cacophonous. Maniac spraypainted stallion, nostrils flared, madly races. Those in front? He pushes on. Crazed, dazed followers? Cold steel pole spines pierce once-feeling hearts. They gallop blindly in his tracks. Up. Down. Up. Down. Round and round. Reality beyond ignored, blurred by gullibility and greed. Hands reach out to slow the pace. Severed bloody limbs litter ground.
Where is the carousel beloved by all, once built by craftsmen’s hands? What happened to the rules? Timed tickets. All can ride. Adults protect the way for young. Old-timer carnival buskers grow hoarse. Clown make-up drips real tears. And here we are.
Written for Open Link Night (OLN) at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Bjorn in Stockholm, Sweden is hosting, inviting folks to post one poem of their choosing. He also provides an optional prompt. Photo from Pixabay.com
Eros lives among us. Sweet crushes blush teenage acnied cheeks, struck by arrows dipped in cotton candy.
Arrow tips plunged in passion fruit aim at fertile hearts. Friendships turn to lust.
Ancient arrows, patina dulled potency still strong, add zing to elders’ love affairs.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De is hosting Quadrille Monday and asks us to use the word “zing” in a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Image created on Bing Create. In Greek mythology Eros is the offspring of Aphrodite, and is the god of love, passion, and fertility.
Brightness fades. Sooty clouds slowly shove aside light-weight cumulus puffs. Birds disappear. Eerie stillness descends. Suddenly winds whip tall grasses. Leaves whimper as trees bend. Branches snap. Forecasters definitely wrong. Mother Nature no longer subtle. Hints replaced by blatant bombastic warning. Take shelter. Now.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday and Mish asks us to use the word “hint” (or a form of the word) in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Image from Bing Create.
. . . powerful winter weather, bone-chilling wind. Don coats, hats and gloves. Outdoors . . . sleet, freezing rain. Polar vortex beginning, remaining. Ensure anyone in need shelter.
Image created on Bing Create.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Punam has us thinking about newspapers. “You can write a newspaper blackout poem. You can use the headline from your local newspaper as a springboard and write a poem on it, or you can simply write why you love or hate reading the newspaper. Your poem should have some link with the newspaper.”
I’ve done a “blackout poem” from an article about the weather in the San Diego Union Tribune, Sunday January 19th edition. See photo below …circled words are the ones I’ve used to create the poem….using them in the order in which they appeared in the article.
We proved ourselves using their prescribed survivor skills. Four days required with no outside contact. We foraged, used water purifier tablets, huddled together sharing body heat when temperatures dropped unexpectedly.
The accident was no one’s fault. His leg was most likely broken and I hoped my make-shift splint eased the pain. I had no choice but to carry him out on my back. The skies that looked threatening when we began the trek, turned black at midday. No signs of wildlife. They sensed the hell about to break loose. No sounds. No movement.
Keep moving. Just keep moving. The still air suddenly turned into howling winds. Rain pelted us sideways. We were in abject darkness. Where can we find light? In the never-ending shade of trees bent in terror? Just keep moving. Hold on, James. Hold tighter round my neck. It’s not far now . . .
Written for dVerse, the virtual blog for poets (and writers) around the globe. Today is Prosery Monday. Merril explains what prosery is:
“For this form, we take a line of poetry and place it into a prose piece. The prose can be fiction or non-fiction, but it must be a piece of prose, not poetry. You are not permitted to insert words into the given line, but you may punctuate it. This is sort of a slippery slope, using someone else’s words in your own work. Please acknowledge the line, the work, and the poet. The piece you write can be no longer than 144 words.”
The line Merril asks us to include is “Where can we find light in the never-ending shade?” from Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb” which she read at President Joe Biden’s Inaugural in January 2021.
Teaching skills. Helping. Watching. Too soon the dividing line appeared, between the now and what was coming.
Responsibilities increased. Yours not ours. Your departures, more frequent, measured at first in hours, not miles.
Your wings. Expected, prepared for. We marveled and smiled. Waved at you . . . and then you were gone.
Distance multiplied. Time stretched separations. Hairline fractures of the heart, smiling our love through goodbyes.
Parenting children to adulthood. Learning to live through changing times, adjusting to the moving margins.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Dora asks us to write about a poem that somehow talks about margins. She gives many examples of margins. As a septuagenarian with two happily married children and five grandchildren, I thought about living through moving margins as a parent and thus, this poem.
Herd-like, glistening wet black bodies lift, hover low then soar. Migration has begun.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De is hosting Quadrille Monday, asking us to include the word “lift” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Video filmed several years ago from the deck of our annual rental in Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod. Amazing to see….many more and much louder ruckus than you hear and see with the video!
. . . ‘tis a holiday when spring rains refresh the fields when a babe is born into a family of love when a home is infused with the aroma of freshly baked bread when a child chalks a sidewalk hopscotch when peach nectar dribbles down your chin when calloused hands are clasped in repose while the body sits relaxed, belly full, mind at ease. There is a positive sense to the word, most especially when you believe one moment in time can be a holiday if we make it so.
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting the pub today. Folks are free to post any one poem of their choosing, OR write to the optional prompt: create a poem that includes the word “holiday” in the body of the poem. Image from Pixabay.com
NOTE: dVerse will be LIVE on Saturday, December 14, from 10 to 11 AM New York time.Click here to find the embedded link that will take you to the LIVE session (audio and video). You’re invited to read a poem of your choosing or just sit in and listen. The more the merrier!
lillian the home poet