dVerse

A Crayola History

lillian18 Comments

Where have all the colors gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the colors gone?
Long time ago.

Prussian Blue and Indian Red,
Blue Gray, Maize, and Green Blue.
Orange Red, Orange Yellow,
Flesh and Violet Blue,
Raw Umber and Mulberry too.
Long time passing. Long time ago.

Crayola’s first eight cost but a nickel,
presented in 1905.
Children were thrilled and color they did,
using Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue,
Black, Brown, Violet and Orange
Kids today need more to be tempted.

Enter Cerulean, Dandelion,
Fuschia and Bluetiful too.
Most clever and tastiest yet?
Yummy Jazzberry Jam.
My rose-colored glasses enjoy these hues
but one new color does confuse.

Ready for it? You’ll never guess.
It’s a bit strange, I do confess,
guaranteed to make you squirm.
The newest? And I do confirm,
it really, unbelievably is Inch Worm!

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets from around the globe where today Mish asks us to write from the perspective of colors. I’ve kind of gone off the beaten track with this…..but here’s some added history:
Cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith introduced the first box of Crayolas in 1905 and yes, they did cost a nickel. Over the years color names have come and gone….some in relation to societal attitudes. The color Flesh became Peach in 1962. Prussian Blue was introduced in 1949 but, figuring young children didn’t know anything about Prussia, it was changed to Midnight Blue in 1958. Indian Red was introduced in 1958 and it actually referred to a pigment that originated in India. The color’s name was changed to Chestnut in 1999….but soon after, a disclaimer was made warning children not to try to roast the color or any crayons over an open fire because they would melt and children could be burned. I suppose this warning was in reference to Nat King Cole’s popular The Christmas Song which opened with the line “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” And yes, Inch Worm is a real Crayola color!
I should also add, apologies to Peter, Paul and Mary for changing the words of their popular song, Where Have all the Flowers Gone. Image from Pixabay.com Information on the history of Crayolas mainly from the article “5 Times Crayola Retired Its Crayons” by Paul Davidson and from Wikipedia.

Horror in the Hazel Woods

lillian26 Comments

I met her most nights – somewhere between  succumbing to sleep and waking fever-drenched at dawn. Unable to meet the woman of my dreams in reality, I’d created her in my mind. But she was not the image that came to me night after night. This was a half-woman, half-monster, chasing me through horror. There was always a knife. Next morning my bedding was always bloodstained from the self-inflicted scratching of old wounds.  

This night, whiskey drunk, I avoided my bed. Stumbled  instead into the moonless night. I went out to the hazel wood. Because a fire was in my head, I tripped over  roots, crazed to find this she-devil. I wanted to kill her. End these nightmares. Instead, I died that night, victim of her crazed claws  They found me in light snow, hazel tree branches clicking in winter’s wind.

Note: Hazel trees are noted for often having protruding roots. They can be either trees or shrubs.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today is Prosery Monday where we’re given a specific line from a poem, and we must insert it, word for word (although the punctuation may be changed) into a piece of flash fiction. We must have a beginning, middle and end to our story. It can be no more than 144 words sans title.

Kim is hosting today and asks us to include this line from Yeats’ The Song of Wandering Aengus: “I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head.”

Ode to the Aperture

lillian27 Comments

Aperture, open-shut
time frozen in space,
minute details embraced.
Butter-colored flower filaments
crowned by mustard-yellow pollen.
Violas waving in purple-lemony shades.
Mother smiling back at me,
weeks before she died.
Father sits, infant twin
one-hundred years ago.
All long gone, but with me still.

Written for Quadrill Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Merril asks us to use the word “embrace” (or a form of the word) in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Pub opens at 3:00 Boston time. Drop by! All are welcome.

Aperture refers to the opening of a camera lens’s diaphragm through which light passes. Around 1880 photographers realized that aperture size affected depth of field.

I have old black and white framed photographs on our living room shelf (some of them shown above). They are family treasures.

We take photography for granted these days….clicking away with our iPhone, deleting what we don’t want. Storing the rest in cyberspace. I remember when I had to take a roll of film to the drug store; wait a week or two to pick up my photos; and then be so disappointed in the quality of so many. What a world of convenience we live in! And thank goodness for the photographers of olden days!

Just sitting here thinking . . .

lillian71 Comments

Reflecting today – don’t know why exactly.
Just am.
Wondering . . .
who has known me my entire life?
Requires they be older than me.
Parents, brother, grandparents,
aunts, uncles, five cousins.
But all departed from this earth.
Have I known me all my life?
Earliest memories,
not gleaned from photographs?
Me at age five.
So no,
I haven’t known me all my life.
Turns out, no one on this earth has.
Odd.
Life is just odd.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting OLN today. That means folks can post any one poem of their choosing: no prompt, form or topic requirements. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come on over and imbibe some words!

Photos in collage: Left to right top row – me with mom and dad; my folks and my brother Chuckie (I called him that all his life) in summer; me and my brother before his high school graduation.
Left to right middle row: mom and dad; my gramma the year before she died; me as an infant.
Left to right bottom row: my brother and I not too many years before he died suddenly at age 51; my brother and I with our grandparents; me, mom, dad and Chuckie at my baptism. He was nine years older than me.

The ravages of war are sometimes steeped in silence . . .

lillian36 Comments

Orderly spaced headstones
gleam pristine in morning sun.
Blood stains and broken bodies,
beneath the verdant green.

Stilled smile in photo frame
clutched to breast each night.
Bereft widow lies in bed,
his voice only within her head.

Stanley, called to World War II,
assigned to stressful desk job.
Safe, his thankful family thought,
gentle soul far from battle.

But war destroys in different ways.
Pressure built. Commands grew harsh.
Time, country, lives at stake.
Stanley broke . . . mind imploded.

Other soldiers moved forward,
Stanley retreated inward.
Into the mind’s maze.
once in – no way out.

His world, one room. His eyes vacant.
No words. Only rare mutterings.
His way lost in the war,
once a brilliant mind, is where?

Weekly family visits
in his once was home.
Devoted family tried
tried to talk, to share.

You bring me to be with you
but Iamnot here
I amnotanywhere
Iwillneverbeeagain

The cacophony of war –
sometimes evident
in the silence we see.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Bjorn asks us to consider the poetry of war.
My first thought when I read this prompt, was of Arlington Cemetery. And I thought of the hushed silence in that sacred space. And then I thought of my husband’s Uncle Stanley who came back from World War II a different person. I am of the mind that war is hell . . . no matter one’s role in it.
Image from Pixabay.com

Survival Tale

lillian21 Comments

In 1978, US law declared the bald eagle a protected species and the results have been phenomenal. Between 1963 and 2006, the number of nesting pairs increased from 417 to 9,000. These magnificent birds live from twenty to thirty years and tend to mate for life. Their nests can be from seven to ten feet wide, ten feet deep, and weigh as much as two tons.

Winters are an important season for eagles. They must consume enough food and expend as little energy as possible to maintain their body heat. January brings scores of eagles to Iowa for winter nesting. When our children were young, if the weather was good, we’d take a January Saturday and travel to the quad cities area. We’d drive along the Mississippi in hopes of spying eagles soaring above their nesting areas. Bird watchers were indeed fortunate if they could spy an eagle through their binoculars, legs extended with talons ready to land upon a winter bared tree.

snow drifts impede path
human footsteps nowhere seen –
eagle’s glory reigns  

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today Frank is hosting. He asks us to write a haibun that is somehow related to eagles. Factual information in the first paragraph of my haibun is gleaned from a pamphlet by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Haibun: two to three paragraphs of prose followed by a haiku. The haiku must be traditional in terms of including a seasonal reference.

As We Dream . . .

lillian46 Comments

Call me to lie down in the fragrance.
         – D. Margoshes, Seasons of Lilac

Bare brittle branches and snowless grey pallor,
this winter’s reality.
Night dawns starless as we slip into dreams.
Our bed afloat in riotous blossoms,
spring collaged in wildflowers
cacophony of colors and scents.
There is but one season with you by my side.
Calendared through so many years,
this season of love.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Laura asks us to write a poem inspired by a final line from a poem. She provides us with a number of lines and we are to choose one. We may use that line as an epigraph, but are not required to do so. The line can not be in the body of the poem; nor can it be the title of the poem.
Epigraph: a line from another source, inserted between the title and content of one’s poem. It should somehow complement the poem.
Photo: from a visit to Ireland’s Blarney Castle a number of years ago.

Inebriated on Words

lillian49 Comments

Point the way through wild thyme,
curling seductive fiddleheads.
Engulf me in hyacinth scented air.
I crave to satisfy my senses.

Perhaps words can fulfill this lust?
Become the enticement I desire?
Smooth curved letters
connecting script to feelings . . .

. . . forgive me while I imbibe.

It’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today Lisa is tending the pub and asks us to use the word “way” in our quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title). Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come imbibe! Image from Pixabay.com

Six Characters to a Page

lillian31 Comments

i.
Acrobat by trade,
she tumbled her way
through the three-ringed circus
everyone else called life.

ii.
She was not a cook,
the Cuisinart soufflé pan
Calphalon pots and
ten-speed blender,
simply signs of her optimistic soul.

iii.
Potter by trade
she worked the wheel.
Hands wet, shaping clay –
wishing her life was as easy to mold. 

iv.
He lives his life as a barnacle would,
clinging tenaciously to faith
in an eroding world.

v.
Architect by trade
he drew blueprints for his life.
Meticulous plans.
Until she walked in one sultry night,
right angles upset by curves.

vi.
Waste not, want not.
She’d heard that all her life,
lived by it too.
Christmas wreath upon her head,
ready for the Easter parade.

Written for dVerse, Open Link Night.

The Power of Words

lillian39 Comments

We are a patriarchal society,
our language too often is male dominant.
Male designations within professions:
fireman, policeman, chairman.
Finally adjusted over recent years,
fire fighter, police officer, chair person.

But the very basic words to describe me,
to describe those of you like me,
remain, however subtly, patriarchal.
They contain the male
as if we cannot stand alone,
be independent as ourselves.

We are a woMAN, a sHE.
We are woMEN, feMALES.
And even as we age,
we face MENopause.
Are we not important
unto ourselves?

As long as our bodies exist,
all huMANs bear testament
to the power of their mother,
the ultimate her.
Not MANifest in huMANity,
but etched upon us as we entered the world,
our most basic connection to her.

That impression upon our belly
evidence of her supreme power,
the miracle of birthing.
Place your hand upon your belly.
Do it now as you read. Do it.
Do you understand?

You are forever connected to her.
This connection, too miraculous
to be mundanely called a navel,
worse yet, a belly button.
Scientifically it is the umbilicus,
but that term bears no reference to her.

Long after she passes to another place
her presence remains with us.
Umbilicus or mumbilicus?
Place your hand upon your belly and you decide.
And when you miss her most,
know she is always there with you.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Merril asks us to write a poem about connections. Image: Pregnant Woman by Edgar Degas, cast in 1920, on display at the Met on Fifth Avenue, in gallery 814. Image is in public domain.

** I’ve been interested in the herstory of language and its power to affect change for many years.