Tanka Tatting

lillian48 Comments

nature’s lace makers
shadows made by rustling leaves
spider’s silken web
once empty spaces glisten ~
like memories easing pain

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Gayle is hosting Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets and we’re invited to post a poem of our choice. I’ve been lace-knitting a shawl lately and have become obsessed with the way making lace is all about creating empty spaces and joining them together. Making emptiness beautiful. Hence this tanka today!  A Tanka is a 7 line poem with the following syllabic form: 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. There is supposed to be a shift from the natural in their first 4 lines…to something personal / human in the last line.

Driven

lillian48 Comments

He lost his head that day.
Disappeared into green lush woods,
the gardens of his mind.
Some nurturing space of his own design
between the borders of insanity and reason.

City engineer.
Day in and day out
he plotted and planned.
Highways, byways
throughways and roundabouts.
Traffic control,
exit ramps and entry lanes.
Cement road-snakes for autopilot mannequins.
Metal caskets on wheels,
rushing here and there and everywhere.

Head full, he just stopped.
Could not cope.
Could not recognize
patterns, directions,
escape routes from today
into the morrows.

And so he stared,
that morning at his desk.
Never moved.
Retreated into a nowhere,
his forest of nothingness.

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Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today, Grace is hosting and asks us to use the word “border” within the poem or in the title. And, extra credit if we write somehow about a mental state.
Sculptur is in the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln Massachusetts. Eternal Presence by John Wilson, 1987; a study for the full size, seven-foot tall sculpture which stands outside the National Center for Afro-American Artists in Boston.

 

Vacation Haibun

lillian33 Comments

Our long planned summer holiday became a retreat from the turmoil of hatred and anger flooding the news. In five days we traveled to six art galleries in Western Massachusetts. We deliberately drove the back roads, immersing ourselves in rolling hills, farmsteads, streams and wildflowers. We noted “Thickly Populated” signs announcing upcoming small towns.

Our first stop was the Mass MOCA located in rehabbed 19th century factory buildings. Football field-sized Building 5 houses Nick Cave’s Until installation. 16,000 spinners hang from ceiling to floor. Walking through them was magical. Sol Lewitt’s colorful graphic walls made us smile. Most fun, was the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Art. Squealing children were right at home in this cheerful place. We laughed in delight to see The Very Hungry Caterpillar original art work. We walked in quiet contemplation through the Museum of Russian Icons.  Beautiful paintings from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. In hushed amazement we realized, none of this exquisite art is signed – the anonymity of artists intent on reverence rather than aggrandizement of self. Our last day, we wandered the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, enjoying the juxtaposition of natural beauty and the possibilities of humankind’s creative genius.

waters glisten, shine
fish flicker at the surface
nature’s palette divine

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It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Toni asks us to write about a summer vacation, either recent or past. Haibun: 2 or 3 tight paragraphs that cannot be fiction, followed by a haiku that must have a nature theme. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time.

We visited Western Mass. last week. Origins of the artwork pictured above are all mentioned in the haibun except for the last photo which is the sculpture Humming by Jaume Plensa. Locations: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is in North Adams; Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is in Amherst; Museum of Russian Icons is in Clinton; deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park is in Lincoln. We also visited the Clark Art Institute and Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown — both were exceptional as well.

 

Film Noir, Take 38

lillian14 Comments

Graveyard journey.
Ghosts whisper, dance,
twist, shimmer.
Breeze skips through leaves.
Clouds balloon, curl,
storm drizzles, bubbles open.
Lightning sparks, sounds echo.

Dawn spills, melts rose-red.
Peppered blood-shadows
scar green spring grass.
Fearful giggle jars grin,
breath flickers.
Cue still lull.
Dream sequence fades.

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[INCLUDES ALL THE WORDS THUS FAR]
A second quadrille (see below for explanation) Missing You also posted today, uses only today’s prompt word “dream.”  Hope you’ll click on the title and read it also!

De hosts Quadrille Monday today at dVerse,  Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Each time a word prompt is given: week #1 = Quadrille #1 and 1 word; Week #2 = Quadrille #2 and a new word; etc.  We build to Quadrille # 44 in week 44 with still another word. We’re on Week #38  and the prompt word is “dream.”  Past words this series have included 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!

Missing You

lillian35 Comments

Would that I could call you back
take up seeds and sow them deep
roots so strongly based on earth
even angels could not
would not
escape with you enfolded in their wings.
This is my dreamscape.
You, alive with hope,
for many tomorrows.

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For dVerse, the virtual pub for poets.  It’s Quadrille Monday and we’re asked to use the word “dream” or some form of it, in a 44 word poem.Also published today, Film Noir, Take 38 which uses all 38 words given as prompts thus far in our current quadrille cycle. Hope you’ll click on the title and read it too!  Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Photo: This is my dear friend, Louise. She died in February 2017, after battling ovarian cancer for two years.

Haibun of Bygones

lillian32 Comments

In the neighborhood where we raised our children, there was a beautiful weeping willow in the front yard next door. Our children loved to have picnic lunches beneath its low bowing branches. Other times, all the children in the area gathered and played tag, running in and out of the green lacey-leafed cascading curtains, sometimes tripping on the roots that made the ground lumpy beneath its shade. Laughter abounded around the tree.

The only day it earned its name was the day the arborists came. They sawed it into pieces. Drilled out its heart-stump, and carted it all away. My children watched the scene in horror and cried their hurt that night as we sat at the dinner table. Mother nature wept her disappointment in a summer evening storm. Strands of weeping branches littered our street, until the street cleaner arrived early one morning and swept all evidence away.

birds sing sweet sorrow
weeping willow cracks in grief
earth disrobed by man

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Thursday is Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Gail is hosting and asks us to come imbibe some words and post one poem of our choice – no prompt given. We’re a friendly bunch. Come enjoy!

Inspired by a Visit to Matisse

lillian50 Comments

Shadow lady,
from wherever-you-prefer
cash-only for hire,
she an artist’s muse.
Name-her-as-you-wish
pose her as you will.
Her rule, never touch,
sparks a masterful brush.

Face concealed,
enveloped in a penumbra of voile
anonymity always required.
Pastels, oil, charcoal, or clay
shades of black, white or grey.
Bright hues perhaps?
Your choice.
Clothing optional, save the veil.

Perched upon a chair,
garters hold stockings taut
bare breasts paint themselves.
Curses fall upon that masked face,
as she survives within the pale.

Fee collected, she hurries home.
Scarf thrown upon the chair
no mirrors with which to see
that face so hidden then,
now sipping cup of tea.

Years later,
accompanied by her spouse
she visits galleries,
genteel pastime of the upper class.

Smiling ever so slightly
she spies her former self,
framed in golden gilt
hanging upon the wall.

She, an artists’ muse,
their anonymous visage.
Paid a pittance then
worth a fortune now.

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Written for today’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. I’m delighted to be hosting so step right up to the bar. The prompt word for today is “shade.”  Use the word itself or any derivation of the word in the body of your poem. My poem today is inspired by a recent visit to Boston’s MFA to see the Matisse Studio exhibit. I was enamored with this painting, Seated Figure with Violet Stockings, oil on canvas, painted by Matisse in 1914. My imagination took a leap from the painting to this musing. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us in the shade!

Appreciating Differences

lillian52 Comments

My mother and father were very different from each other. She was volatile and outgoing. He was quiet and non-demonstrative. A draftsman by trade, he had neat block printing. His basement workshop shelves contained Skippy jars of nails, nuts and bolts, each with its content duly noted on labels, printed in his steady hand. My mother was brought up in the Catholic Church in the days of “sister school.” I was told that at a young age, the nuns wrapped her knuckles with a ruler when she tried to write with her left hand. Consequently she became a right-hander with almost illegible script.

Our Christmas tree is a memory tree. On the bottom branches, I hang gift tags from years gone by. “To Lillian, Love Mom” written in her horrific handwriting. I also hang wooden ornaments made on my dad’s jigsaw, inscribed on the backs in perfect block letters, “Love Dad.” Nostalgic during the holidays, I occasionally peruse my 1947 baby book, not so much to look at the old black and white photos, but to see my mother’s script which fills the pages. The ramblings of a young harried woman, writing about daily life with me. It takes time to decipher, but I feel her presence more if I can make out the words.

My dad’s perfect printing. My mom’s wild scribbling. They fought, they loved, they played pinochle together. I treasure each for who they were and who together, made me. And I wonder, when I’m gone, will anyone keep these mementos? Or will the ink be so faded, they will be lost to time.

wildflowers constrained,
exhuberant colors vased
bonsai, controlled art

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday. Today Victoria is hosting and asks us to explore the Japanese art of Wabi Sabi – the art of revering authenticity, appreciating imperfections, slowing down to appreciate rather than perfect. The haibun form begins with non-fiction prose and concludes with a haiku. The haiku must deal with nature.