dVerse

Be Ye Not Desolate

lillian59 Comments

White curtains flutter.
Breeze billows through fabric,
createing long cloth ripples
filled and unfilled by unseen wind.

Door left ajar.
The void space within its frame,
a vacancy that waits
filled with hope.

The null set.
Emptiness that knows,
change by one
changes everything.

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Written for dVerse, a virtual poets’ pub, where Bjorn is tending bar today and asks us to write a quadrille (44 words, not including title) that makes use of the word jar. A bit of poetic license: did include a jar (ajar).

 

Green Lake Visit

lillian59 Comments

I sit
splayed on Adirondack chair,
porched on rustic cabin,
built on rustic site.

Vista before me,
cropped not by gilded frame
nor dimmed by darkened glass
or visor’s cap.

Sentinel woods stand tall,
surround calm rippled waters,
beckon bare feet to rough hewn dock
and yet I sit.

Adirondack sky stretches above me,
bluing clouds to their brightest white.
And I breathe, deeply,
deep green forest scent.

I sit quietly content,
imagine myself
as notes within the loons’ song.
Eyes closed, I drift within this space
and imagine myself to stay.

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Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse where De asks us to write a poem that has to do with “blue.”
Photo taken this past week at Green Lake in the Adirondacks. I was indeed sitting on the porch of a rustic cabin at this beautiful remote site when I took this photo.
In the poem “blue” is used in the sense of “bluing.” According to  Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing site, there are 300 shades of white; the most intense includes a slight hue of blue. Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing is a laundry aid used to “brighten whites.” Hence the idea of the blue sky making the clouds appear even more white!

Dance with Me

lillian30 Comments

Hand in hand, we explored the ports of call: Cartagena, Puntarenas, Puerto Quetzal, Puerta Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas. The cruise of a life-time through the Panama Canal in its 100th anniversary year.

We extended our trip by two days in the final port, San Diego. Our last dinner began at dusk and ended in the dark. Sitting in a pedicab with tiny white lights round its surrey, we wended our way down the esplanade, beside city trolley tracks. Music from the driver’s battered boom box played romantic songs. And then my husband’s voice surprised me: An extra twenty bucks if you play The Time of My Life! And so the surrey stopped and we danced in the night. One year after almost losing the love of my life, I was dipping, swaying, laughing and twirling in his arms. Two lovers having the time of their lives. Thankful for every day.

ebony still night
interrupted by joyful shimmer
two shooting stars

Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse where we’re asked to write about a romantic moment. Prose should not be fiction (it’s not), followed by a traditional haiku (nature based with a cutting pivot in the second line). Video was taken by our driver – you can see the train/trolley go by near the end.  Photo below is earlier that day, The Kiss — statue of the famous photo taken at the close of World War II.  That’s us at the bottom of the statue 🙂  Statue is near the USS Midway — which you can tour in San Diego.

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Glisten

lillian25 Comments

Footprints disappear
in cool damp sand ridges
as low tide changes course.

Sun light
does a glisten dance,
as waters disappear in clouds.

We share our solitude,
grateful for the off-season
to rediscover love.

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Written for dVerse where Victoria asks us to rewrite an older poem and add some imagery. The original Glisten is the first poem I posted when I began this blog in March 2015.  Photo:  Provincetown, on Cape Cod.

joyfulJOYFUL

lillian62 Comments

One dot from a pointillists’s brush,
starts the ripple in a river’s sheen.

Grab the energy of love,
fling it long and fling it wide.
Build positives and can-do-its
into mountains of hope.
Add a life-time partner
and work together
to pass it on.

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Tending the bar today at dVerse, asking everyone to write a self portrait quadrille: 44 words – no more, no less; not including title. Stop by and see how folks paint themselves with words rather than a brush!  Photo Credit: Pointillism by NikkiNavaille. 

Takotsubo

lillian46 Comments

It was a day like any other day – until it wasn’t.

Rocking the elliptical to A Hard Day’s Night, I suddenly stopped. Did some invisible vice just clamp on to my chest? The Beatles still blared in my headset, I started to pump again . . . nope . . . can’t breathe. Off the machine . . . slowly out the club door into the sweltering day. I watched my feet in slow motion as the sun magnified everything. Sweat dripped through my pores. The elephant sitting on my chest was an unbelievable load. Takotsubo? The heart blows out in the shape of a Japanese octopus trap. Really? And everything slowed down to match the thick soup of summer’s oppressive heat. If you’re a woman who lives with stress, or has lived through stress, you should know the word: Takotsubo. I didn’t. Until I did.

octopus seeks its prey
eight suctioned tentacles grab and twist
latch on to suck out life

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It’s haibun Monday at dVerse Poet’s Pub where Toni is tending bar. She asks us to write a haibun (one paragraph of prose followed by a haiku) that relates to hot hot hot — perhaps a memory from a hot summer day. This is my memory. My experience. I urge all readers to read about Takotsubo, sometimes called Broken Heart Syndrome. It is real and frightening. In most cases, women completely recover with no lasting damage to the heart. I am, fortunately, one of those women, although it took three months. We must all learn to handle stress in our lives. It is a matter of life and death. Photo on left is a Japanese octopus catcher. Xray on right  shows the left portion of the heart blown out like a takotsubo….the heart does not pump efficiently. Take care of yourself out there!

Joie de Vivre

lillian33 Comments

Effervescent, she shook up life
until it bubbled delicious.
Wore glitter star barrettes
high-kicking through life
like a sequined Rockette.

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Bjorn is tending the bar today at dVerse and asks us to write a Twitter poem:
exactly 140 characters. A character is defined as a letter, space, hyphen, or punctuation mark.
Yep, that’s me. About 10 years ago, celebrating with the Boston Pops on the 4th of July on the esplanade. This shot made the jumbotron that night! I always wanted to be a Rockette! 🙂

 

I am cold

lillian27 Comments

Ice cube pressed to lips,
nostrils flare at exhales
as shoulders heave.

Ignore the oppressive humidity.
Ignore salt tears and warm blood.

Let ice cold droplets dilute the red,
drip to chin, to chest
stain rug.

He seemed different,
until he did not.

Studio shooting - copyspace

Walt is tending bar today, this third day of dVerse’s fifth anniversary. He asks us to write a poem that reacts to this quotation by Sebastian Barry from his novel A Long, Long Way:  “I am cold, even though the heat of early summer is adequate. I am cold becasue I cannot find my heart.”

Urban Scene

lillian17 Comments

jazz in the city
cello, saxophone, paper cone
playin’ for tips and the city dawgs

makin’ music
strummin’, blowin’, puffin’ too
flyin’ high with life

city nomad, gigs of the soul

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WONDERFUL art by Claudia Schoenfeld, also one of the founders of dVerse, a poets’ pub. Could not resist writing a second sevenling to conincide with this great piece of art, Urbanity. A sevenling is composed of two tercets and one final line — and includes somehow an element of three in each of the tercets.