dVerse

Misfit

lillian46 Comments

Like a magnificent crystal chandelier
in the wake of a coarse wind.
Swaying erratically. Shards of glass colliding.
Each piece hitting, pinging,
clinking cacophonously.
She felt like this.

Except she was enclosed. Caged.
Stifled in some cold garment.
Arms wrapped around her torso
in comfortless embrace.
And the ceiling was bare.
And the walls were bare.

But she was that fixture,
except without light.
—————————-

Sia – Chandelier (Official Video) – YouTube

Sharing with dVerse for OLN where Bjorn is hosting from Sweden.

THANKS to Bjorn for pointing me to this video after my poem was posted with the photo below.    Bjorn’s poem written on October 2015  was inspired by the video. I wasn’t aware of dVerse at that time and never heard the song or saw the video until Bjorn mentioned it. The video does uncannily fit Misfit which is very eerie!  Stop by dVerse to post your own poem (the more the merrier) or to imbibe/read other posts. Tis an amazing place!

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The Feminist Deconstruction of Humpty Dumpty

lillian30 Comments

I warned you!
and the spiders have taken heed . . .

You cared not to sit with ordinary blokes,
dangled your feet and watched all their woes.
You squirreled me away with Peter’s wife,
stuck in a pumpkin shell for life.

I am not addled nor scrambled in wits.
And so in the evenings of hey diddle diddle
your eyes on the cow and the cat and the fiddle,
I found my way out, maneuvering the vine.

I added more bricks by the light of the moon,
layer by layer, higher it grew.
Til I smiled in the window that final day,
snacking on pumpkin and watching you swoon.

You sat on your wall, looking down upon me
sneering and laughing and kicking in glee.
And then with bravado, a tip of your hat,
you leaned forward and laughed
until . . .

Splat!
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
couldn’t rewrite you together again.

The wall is demolished, Jill’s bucket is full.
I am quite proud and raucously so,
to sit on my tuffet, secure in my ways,
eating, nay feasting, on curds and whey.

Kim is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, a virtual pub for poets. Bar opens at 3 PM. We’re asked to take a character, fictional or non-fictional, and re-write their story from the point of view of their husband or wife. I’ve taken the liberty of assuming Little Miss Muffet was married to Humpty Dumpty 🙂  Photos from Childcraft, Volume One Poems of Early Childhood, copyright 1947.  I may be a tad older than my readers so these photos provide the Mother Goose rhymes alluded to in my poem.

Cherished Memory

lillian51 Comments

He was a quiet man. I don’t remember playing with my father or hearing words of praise or love. I don’t remember hugs. But I do remember a few summer mornings each year when I was young. A silent drive to the lake. A long walk out the pier. He’d take a wriggly worm from an old tin can and put it on the end of my bamboo pole. And we’d sit. Just sit. A skinny little girl with giraffe-knobby knees and her whiskered dad, under the rising sun and ever bluing sky. No need for words. No need to catch a thing.

Steadfast sky and sun,
their promise always fulfilled.
Light shall break through clouds.

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It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Toni asks us to write a haibun about the day sky. Thanks Toni. Your prompt brought back this cherished memory.

Kaleidoscope of Life

lillian6 Comments

youth invincible
quick stepping through raucous times
kaleidoscope shifts
colored prisms less defined
pace slowed coming round the bend

Prism

A second Tanka shared with dVerse — although I’ve broken the rules a bit and added a title for this one. Tanka:  5 lines with syllabic count of 5-7-5-7-7. Third line contains a cutting shift; no punctuation; no capitalization.

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.