Velveteen Love

lillian16 Comments

Magic is very strange and wonderful.
The moon had risen,
the fronds of the bracken
shone like frosted silver.

The windows stood wide open.
The loveliest fairy
went swooping about like a great wind
amongst the flowers and the butterflies.

At Last! At Last!
When all the house was silent,
love stirred.
To be loved
forever and ever.

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Victoria is tending bar at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to do some Erasure Poetry. A new form for me. We choose a book or text and by “erasing words” from it (or an alternative way to say it is by choosing words from it), make up a poem of our own. We may only use words as they appear in the book/text. We cannot add any of our own words.  Each line in Velveteen Love is an exact phrase from Margery Williams The Velveteen Rabbit. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Thank You, Elizabeth

lillian18 Comments

I recognized it.
A little pocket of silence.
I was hiding,
feeling sad and brittle
and about seven thousand years old.

A cause for revolution,
all this swinging.
You wanna see pretty colors?
More razzle dazzle?
Be happy?

Just sit down,
find the balance.
Shut the door.
Cease your relentless participation.
Accept the best I can do.

Just
be.

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Victoria is tending bar at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to do some Erasure Poetry. A new form for me. We choose a book or text and by “erasing words” from it (or an alternative way to say it is by choosing words from it), make up a poem of our own. We cannot add our own words…all words must be from the book or text. Each line in Thank You, Elizabeth is an exact phrase from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Punctuation is mine. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Lost

lillian38 Comments

She lurched through life
masked as some kind of bandit
hoping to steal affection,

waiting impatiently
for the mardi gras of life
to throw beads her way.

She stumbled on embankments
peripheral vision hampered,
mask drawn too close to her soul.

Glancing downward,
sun blinding, glare too harsh,
she saw the rat staring from gutter’s grate.

Tomorrow would be yesterday.
No map to guide her.
she finally gave up hope.

wanderratte, rattus norvegicus, common rat, brown rat, norway rat

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Mish is asking us to write a poem that somehow deals with the word “mask.”

Film Noir, Take 43

lillian46 Comments

Blissful dream deteriorates.
Breeze flickers, curls, skips, dances.
Spice jar creaks, spills open.
Greenish ghosts spring free,
grinning, shimmering, twisting.
Breathless whisper sounds echo.
Clouds balloon, bubble, spark storm.
Drizzled rose-red blood-shadows
pepper dawn. Hope melts.
Journeyman giggling fearfully,
leaves scarred.
Cue still lull.

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Grace hosts dVerse today. We must include the word “creak” in a Quadrille: poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.  Quadrille Mondays occur every other week. Each quadrille series includes 44 Mondays: a different prompt each time. We need only include that week’s prompt in our poem. This post includes all 43 words given in the series thus far: creak, hope, spice, free, bliss, dream, fear, flicker, pepper, dance, bubble, grin, lull, melt, shimmer, twist, skip, green, breeze, spill, rose, journey, jar, leaves, open, shadow, cloud, spark, cue, breath, scar, curl, whisper, dawn, ghost, giggle, drizzle, still, echo, sound, storm, spring, and balloon.  Bar opens at 3 PM Boston time.  Come join us!

Haibun for Geiranger

lillian46 Comments

Floating on a massive cruise ship, some days with ocean on every side as far as the eye can see, I am reminded that about seventy-one percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered. The ocean makes up about ninety-six percent of that. I am one person among two-thousand-plus, traversing just a portion of these waters on this day, in this place.

Docked in Geiranger, Norway, the fjord rises up around us. We rest at the feet of Mother Earth. Her shawl of earthen tones and greenery spills out from the sea. Her pearlescent snow capped peaks rise far into the sky. Off ship, we feel very very small. A motor coach takes us up a winding road; so steep the bus seems angled in a partial recline position. We stop where snow makes further progress impossible. Spring melt has just begun. Stepping out into fresh, clear, crisp air, we look out and down. Our ship is dwarfed by the mountains. While the ocean occupies more surface space, landmass leads in terms of relief, colors, and grandeur. I stand, a speck amongst generations who have lived before me and those who will live after me, absolutely mesmerized.

winter’s snow-capped peaks
deter footsteps upon the pristine
Seven Sisters wait patiently

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Bjorn hosts Haibun Monday at dVerse today, asking us to write about water. In homage to Bjorn’s Scandinavian roots,  I’m writing about our cruise through the Norwegian fjords. The Seven Sisters are magnificent famous falls in the UNESCO-protected Geiranger fjord. Alas, since the spring melt was just beginning when we were there, five were dry and two were quite small in output. They need the full spring melt to achieve their grandeur.  Photos taken in this magnificent place. The sun was shifting as we were there. Just a gorgeous day!

Tap Dancer’s Advice

lillian2 Comments

Shuffle your troubles away.
Skip through leaves
listen to their rustle.

Hum three songs –
oldies-but-goodies
from your teen-age days.

Or shuffle off to Buffalo.
That’s a tap dance step
or a change in view.

Shuffle you happy,
shuffle me too.
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I figures these days, we can all use a little humor and something to smile at! 🙂  Photo: a number of years ago, the grandkids hiding then popping out in a pile of autumn’s leaves.

Limited Shelf-Life

lillian15 Comments

Glass blown unicorn
stored on dusty shelf,
grimy and forlorn.
Mocked by pewter elf,
steals its love of self.
Always within sight,
craving touch its plight.

Hear my cries, it warns.
Save me, save yourself.
Magic turns to mocking scorn,
powers drained from self
locked upon on a shelf.
Give me freedom’s light
for only then shall I have might.

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Written for dVerse where Frank hosts today, asking us to write a Chaucerian Stanza / Rhyme Royal poem. 7 metrical lines per stanza with ababbcc rhyme scheme . . . can be up to 3 stanzas. I attempted Trochee Meter: first syllable accented, second syllable not, with 5 syllables per line (well, a couple lines have more than 5).  I am ALWAYS challenged by anything with rhyme and anything with meter. For me, it’s very hard to have the sense/meaning of the poem front and center when I’m consumed with trying to get the rhyme and rhythm right. Always learning at dVerse!  Muse here is a glass menagerie collection my mother used to have on a glassed-in knick-knack shelf.