dVerse

Azul’s World

lillian7 Comments

I’d like to see the world
through Azul’s eyes.

Where trees are lush green
vibrant with life.

Where every face is smiling,
grinning happily.
Side-by-side neighbors
whether across the globe,
the continent, the island,
the city or neighborhood.
Where there are no others.
Only a world of us and we.

Where all children are kissed by mothers
beneath trees melodious with caroling birds
hidden among their leaves.
Where the rising moon thrives
shining hope and beaming light,
even as the setting sun
paints the sky in waves
of yellow and crimson orange.

May we all see our world
through the eyes of Azul.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and am delighted to post four pieces of artwork created by Azul, an 8-year old boy from the Philippines. I’ve never met Azul, only his wonderful father. I’ve posted four of Azul’s drawings/paintings and asked folks to create a poem inspired by one or more of them. I think he’s a budding artist! In case you’re interested, here’s the fourth piece of Azul’s art that I did not include in my poem. It too is beautiful.

A Time Piece

lillian17 Comments

He stands, shoulders stooped,
face wizened over years,
holding his ancient pocket watch.
Engraved words,
palmed almost to nothingness.
His great-grandfather’s name, birth date,
barely a whisper on gold.
Who to gift with this heirloom?
Unmarried, no heirs.
His to carry to the grave.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “pocket” within our quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words sans title. Image created in Bing.

Pilgrimage Over the Seas

lillian16 Comments

Forty days, forty nights,
escapist pleasure journey.
Biblical allusion not intended.
Worm of guilt
bored occasionally into mind.
Guilt of the privileged sort.

News cycle ignored.
Earth’s scenery, our view of choice.
Oceanic patterns, lulling waves.
Occasional roiling seas
cause drunken-like weaving
walking ship’s corridors.

Icelandic land of fire and ice,
revealed its secrets
in midst of deep rift.
Two tectonic plates still shift.

Greenland’s hospitable coast
contrasted with glaciers and ice sheet.
Cold shoulders in the distance,
flaunt their daunting interior.

Bay of Fundy’s highest tides
reveal Nature’s pummeling forces.
Ocean’s height belligerently batters
river’s flow in opposite direction.

Maine’s light houses,
generational directional beacons.
Nova Scotia’s history laid bare
in Gaelic village of yore.

Forty days and forty nights,
pilgrimage complete.
Domestic work claims attention,
simplistic refreshing of our abode.
More difficult November task,  
refreshing our country as well.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Bjorn asks us to write a poem dealing with a pilgrimage of sorts. Poem and all photos refer to and taken on our recent 40 days and 40 nights trip that included Iceland, Greenland, going above the Arctic Circle, Nova Scotia, New Foundland, Bay of Fundy, Quebec City, and Maine. Incredible scenery….incredible to be away and appreciate the land and so many diverse people.

Poets Imbibing at the Pub Tonight!

lillian9 Comments

Make me some songalicious drinks.
One with a marguerita beat.
Make one classical:
limoncello on ice with
bow plucked sugar on glass brim,
meant to avoid a puckered grin.
Finale me with whiskey sour chants.
Light on the sour mix
to end with humdingers!


Quadrille created for dVerse Poets, a virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, De asks us to include the word “hum” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.

Loved the prompt so much, this is my second poem for it!

A Short Political Ditty for the Times

lillian17 Comments

Hum-diddly-dee
hum-diddly-dum.
Sing out with glee,
beat that drum!

Add words to your tune,
“sycophants be gone”!
Revile the buffoon,
use your brassiest song.

Come November third
rise up, Land of the Brave.
Drown this theater of the absurd
in a tsunami blue wave!



Written for dVerse, the online pub for poets around the globe. Today, De asks us to write a quadrille including the word “hum” or a form of the word.

Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title, that includes a particular word provided in the prompt.

Living in the Wrong Time

lillian15 Comments

She seeks answers in the landscape,
this early nineteenth century woman.

Firmly corseted, demure by training,
constrained by society’s expectations.
She pauses deliberately on crude dirt path,
having followed it through rolling hills
amidst surrounding trees.

Would that she could stretch her limbs,
bloom anew, sway in every fresh breeze.
Remain firmly rooted defying threatening storms.
But she is here. Painted in her times.
Resolutely she turns, walks off canvas,
slowly returns home.

How much joy she would have
if in this moment she could know,
her female counterparts
will change the world.


Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual home for poets around the world. Today Melissa asks us to consider the artist Henri Rousseau and provides us with several of his works to motivate our poetry. I’ve chosen his painting, La Promenade dans la Foret (The Walk in the Forest) c 1886.

Simple Gifts

lillian13 Comments

One must take care
when confronted with fragility.
Gardenia petals bruise easily.
Strong hands support the newborn’s head.
Grief must be consoled,
memories gently relived,
tears allowed to flow.
Mother Earth deserves respect,
her beauty preserved.
Empathic understanding
and quiet listening,
truly divine gifts.


Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Sanaa asks us to write a 44 word poem, sans title, that includes the word “care”. Image from Pixabay.com

Time’s Conundrum

lillian18 Comments

Time is constant. Determined mathematically,
a fundamental dimension.
Time zones and watches set. Seconds tick by.
But can time be relative? Can it have voids?

Does time stop, race ahead, appear, disappear?
Can it be measured differently?
Through distance, visual changes, mental acuity,
ambulatory ability, skin texture, hair color.
Can it be lost in sepia toned photo collections
missing documentation of a generation?
Obituaries, birth announcements
perennial blooms, seasonal shifts.
Age appropriate gifts packed away,
idioms of the day, skirt lengths
and medical advancements –
all measurements of time.

Time gifted me memories.
Stripped me of loved ones and muscle tone.
Encouraged gratitude and forgot rebuffs.
My mind often dreams at night. I am the ingenue
leaping freely across the divide of time.
At sunrise I awaken, stand up, bend down,
groan a bit, shove dry cracking feet
into well worn slippers. Shuffle to the coffee pot.
Time keeps ticking and I’m still in the parade.
Who knows what’s round the next bend?
Time ticks one tock at a time, or does it?
All we can do is lean in.


Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Today Mish asks us to consider the literary devise of juxtaposition. She writes
“the contrast between subjects, settings, ideas or moods not only highlights their differences but can also uncover unexpected similarities or connections.” One example she provides is from Dickens in Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness.”

In addition, Mish provides us with a series of images. We are to choose two (I’ve chosen three) that we “feel could create a contrast” and then “use them as a foundation to build your poem.”

I must add here, lest you wonder. This is not all me in this poem. I’m still kicking up my heels, traveling, enjoying family and life with the love of my life.

Summer Fare

lillian17 Comments

Summer’s peach, sensory delight.
Fingers leave light impressions
on delectably ripe fruit
blushing to the touch.
Peach skin’s palette presents palest reds
blurring into sunset shades of lightest orange,
blending into golden yellow.
All these shades, a gentle swirl of color
so appealing to the eye.

One bite and juice dribbles down the chin.
Moisture stains fruit’s soft velvety surface
where our mouth has been.
Colors remain the same
on dry intact outside of fruit.
Inside colors brighter than outside.
Pinkish bronzed red merges into
lemon and orange sherbet shades,
temptation for another taste.
Summer’s peach,
visual and sustenance delight.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting, asking folks to write a “colorful” poem. No required length, form or rhyme scheme. Only requirement is that it must include colors! Images from Pixabay.com

Icarus Revisited

lillian19 Comments

He feigns strength,
gilds his world golden.
His name. His visage. His way.
Trumpian mythology
built lie by lie, threat by threat.
Its depth unimaginable,
bottomless pit of greed, racism.
So self-consumed is he,
blind to his wax wings melting.
Truth’s flame is invincible


Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “myth” or a form of the word in a poem of exactly 44 words sans title.

Reference is made to mythology’s Icarus whose wings were made of wax…which led to his demise when he flew too close to the sun.