I seek a trip to calm.
A land called Calm
where love abounds
all people are valued
leaders seek to unite
children skip confidently to school.
Where lies are confessed,
not repeated bragadociously on the news.
Who can help me find that land?
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday and we’re asked to write a quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title) that includes the word “trip” within the body of the poem. Image from Pixabay.com
How did we get to this place?
When did ice become so much more
than a cube you put in a glass?
When did it become routine
for a president to continually lie?
For masked agents to roam our streets,
break into homes without a warrant?
I mean, I know people don’t agree on everything.
We’ve had two political parties since the mid-1800s.
But when did the abyss become so long and so deep,
that Congress members no longer work across the aisle?
I don’t have a plan to strengthen immigration policies.
But I do know “strengthen” does not mean
assaulting people based on skin color and accents,
or gassing peaceful protestors.
Close to being an octogenarian,
I’ve held signs aloft at demonstrations.
I often raise my pen to paper,
exercising my poetic “license”
to challenge the status quo.
It’s what I can and must do.
I will not tread water in this whirl pool.
Tell me, what are you doing
to change the tide?
Photo taken at a demonstration in Boston Commons.
Written in the style of Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets. I’ve used the last four lines of her poem, The Summer Day, for inspiration.
“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
I believe Mary Oliver, if she were alive today, would be asking the same question I ask at the end of my poem. In that way, and attempting to employ her style in my poem (although I’m certainly no Mary Oliver!), I try to honor her. Here is her poem:
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Protected life within glass sphere,
clear at times.
Watching my outside world
family and friends doing everyday things.
Hearing laughter, secrets,
television sitcoms and news.
Watching mealtimes, relaxation,
rushings to get out the door.
On display annually,
unwrapped with holiday treasures.
Seasonal awakenings,
year after year.
Douglas, Fraser or Balsam fir
garner most attention.
Delicious scent, sparkling lights.
I sit unobtrusively on the coffee table.
Many times a day
my life tips upside down,
sometimes by gentle hands.
Young children’s eyes
watch my snow fly
as if magic lives within my sphere.
Flakes so gentle,
softly floating all around.
Some hands roughly shake me.
Up and down, sideways back and forth,
and then up and down again.
Blizzard-like conditions their aim.
Snow flies about at a quicker pace,
for a moment view obscured.
Snowflakes however, remain same sized,
soft in weight as they whirl about.
I treasure the holiday season,
my opportunity to offer a magical world.
Obliging those who want to see clearly.
Happily providing a different view,
for those who want a whirling blizzard,
but never cold, never damaging.
Most treasured of all?
Being held in all those loving hands.
Written for dVerse Poets Pub, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Kim is hosting and asks us “to write about snow as you see, feel or imagine it, in any form you wish.”
Image from Bing Create.
Her suppressed feelings:
cacophony of colors
ready to explode.
Written for OLN (Open Link Night) at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, I’m hosting and folks can post any poem of their choosing…no required length, format, theme, etc. OR they can write a poem motivated by the painting above: “Mme Kupka among Verticals” painted by Frantisek Kupka (in public domain). It’s displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
NOTE: come join us Saturday, January 17th for our LIVE session (audio and video) from 10 to 11 AM EST. Go to https://dversepoets.com for the link to join us live.
Come read a poem of your choosing or come to just sit in and enjoy. We usually have folks from across the globe…all in English. We’re a very friendly bunch!
Hope for the wrongly convicted.
False confessions
coerced confessions
eyewitness misidentifications
forensic science errors
public defenders inexperience.
Cell doors clang shut
futures stunted
tears long since evaporated
possibilities suffocated
except
the Innocence Project has my name.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Melissa asks us to consider the song, “Folsum Prison Blues”, written and performed by Johnny Cash. The first four lines of the song are
“I hear the train a-comin’,
it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine
since I don’t know when.”
Melissa asks us to write a poem inspired by the song….and by Johnny Cash actually going to Folsum Prison and singing to the inmates.
The Innocence Project is an organization that works toward the release of prisoners who are wrongly accused and imprisoned for crimes. To date, their organization has succeeded in the release of 250 innocent prisoners. The Exonerated Five (formerly the Central Park Five) are some of the more famous individuals who benefited from their work.
Image by Daniel Vanderkin from Pixabay
It always rises.
In rain or snow,
whether you see it or not.
Hiding behind clouds,
invisible under a putty grey sky.
It’s there
blessing the new day.
Its rays smiling upon you,
gifting hope
even on the stormiest days.
If only we believe.
It’s quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, De asks us to include the word “smile” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Photo by Anandu Vinod on Unsplash
Abracadabra
because I want a magician’s wand to
change what was into what was not and what could be.
Defy divisiveness,
effects of hatred, and speaking of the “us” versus the “other”.
Forge ahead to find new paths.
Gather those who want positive change.
Hand in hand with hope, honesty and just
intentions, may we begin to
just listen. Truly listen
knowing we are all located within the same sea of humanity.
Listen and listen more. Open our ears and hearts.
Make a concerted effort,
not numbing the pain of others into
oblivion.
Prayer is not enough. In the
quest for healing, we must
reflect on what could be and make it so. It may
seem
tenuous
until we verbally and actively
validate the
worth of all God’s people.
Xenophobia is not an option.
You and I, if we’re honest, also have roots in other places.
Zest and good will toward all humanity: may it be our Resolution for 2026.
Written for Meet The Bar night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We’re asked to become Abecarians: Create a poem of 26 lines where each line begins with a letter of the alphabet and the letters are sequential. I’ve written from A to Z. Not the first letter of the first word in each line. Image from Pixabay.com
People are different.
Color, ethnicity, gender,
religious beliefs, language,
citizenship, culture.
Gather them all in one place,
in concentric circles
facing each other, holding hands.
Each circle defined by a trait.
Note: circles have no beginning or end.
He who joined first disappears.
She who joined last disappears.
All are integral to their circle.
Herein lies a truth of geometric principle.
Concentric circles differ in radii
but have the same center point.
And what is that same center point?
As Maya Angelou famously wrote,
“We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.”
The center point is our humanity.
Sadly however,
truth is not constructed reality
when the builder is a demolitionist.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today I am hosting: go to https://dversepoets.com to see the prompt this poem is motivated by.
We were raised in families where the television show “Father Knows Best” was also the way of the household. Travel happened twice a year for me: a visit to my grandparents’ home in Florida and a vacation week in the Wisconsin Dells. I always sent her a postcard. It never dawned on me that I lived in a white privileged world and she did not.
I went to college and she left home. She took jobs where she found them. Eking out a living, then moving on. She sent postcards along the way. In 1963, from DC. She’d heard MLK’s “I Have a Dream”. In 1969, from the Catskill Mountains. She’d found love and acceptance at Woodstock. “The granites and schists of my dark and stubborn country have accepted me. My new partner and I can be ourselves here. Come visit!” I never did.
Image by Karl Egger from Pixabay
Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Prosery Mondays are the only prompts where writers are asked to write prose, not poetry. We’re given a line from a poem and we’re asked to insert it, word for word, within a piece of flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length. Today Merril gives us the line “The granites and schists of my dark and stubborn country” from Nan Shepherd’s poem “The Hill Burns”
The Innocence of Youth Unveiled is fiction. It is not autobiographical.
He or she or it peers out from window’s side.
Black obsidian-like pupil
orange incandescent iris.
Half there, half hidden.
All knowing? Fearful? Oblivious?
Seer by unearned reputation
among feathered fowl.
I arrange alphabetical letters.
Create single words, strung-along thoughts
gibberish with mismatched curves.
Leaked ink stains fingers,
dribbles dots on embossed paper
smears black blotches.
Accidental undefined punctuation blobs.
What seers roost among us?
Spew artificial intelligence scenarios.
Indulge everyman, everywoman,
every androgynous human.
Note the ever present “man” in that word.
Want it? Steal it or create it. At the cost of many
for the pleasure of few.
That all seeing obsidian eye?
Taxidermist’s handiwork unfinished.
Half-body only.
Nothing else behind the window.
What you see? Rancid carnage,
stuffed roadkill. Alternative reality.
This is all we get.
““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting the pub’s Open Link Night today, as well as dVerse LIVE on Saturday from 10 to 11 AM EST. Folks can post any poem of their choosing, no required length, form, or topic OR write an ekphrastic poem, one that is motivated by one of three “window” images I’ve provided, or any “window image” of their choosing. Owl image above from Pixabay.com
Join us LIVE on Saturday, October 25th, between 10 and 11 AM EST!!
Want to see and hear poets from around the globe read their poems (all in English)? We’re a very friendly bunch! Come join us to sit in, read a poem of your choice, and/or join in the conversation. Click here and then click on the Zoom meeting link provided (video and audio). Hope to see you Saturday, October 25th between 10 and 11 AM at our LIVE session!
lillian the home poet 