dVerse

Drum me a Sevenling

lillian35 Comments

Swing it, oh jazz man!
Brush me lazy eights. Swish-arc-swirl, swish-arc-swirl.
Tap-atink rim shots, bass-drum-thuds.

Stick it LOUD, oh ROCK man!
KaBAM a-BANG-BAM. CRASH cymbal SPLASH.
PUMP WHOLE FOOT PEDAL. BASS DRUM BOOMS.

Soothe me melancholy, then BAM ME A BEAT.

psychedelic-drums-eduardo-tavares

To be read aloud. Try it!
Written for dVerse, a poet’s virtual pub, where Grace is tending bar and asks us to write a sevenling related to music. A sevenling is two tercets and a final single line – each tercet includes an element of three — here the sounds of a drummer. Celebrating the 5th anniversary of dVerse with a wonderful interview with Claudia, one of the founders and, I might add, painter extraordinaire!  Painting credit: Psychedelic Drummer by Eduardo Tavares. 

Memoriam

lillian63 Comments

Did you hear the winds rustle that day?
Metaphors soared on the backs of gulls.
Thousands of unused words,
ideas not yet writ,
wended their way into the night sky.
A poet’s earth journey complete,
she lives now, forever beautiful,
among the shimmering stars.

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Quadrille (44 words) written for dVerse as Grace asks us to use the word “journey.” dVerse is celebrating its fifth anniversary this week. Link up to join in the celebration!
Written in memory of poet Viv Blake who died suddenly on July 5, 2016. Photo taken while in Portland, Maine this past June.

Scentalicious

lillian49 Comments

Backyard lilac walk-about
honeysuckle and new cut grass
leaves piled high, burning bright
apple-pie-oven and baking bread
grandma’s wrinkled talcum skin
gingerbread men and cinnamon
outside pine tree brought within
season by season,
scentalicious all

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Written for dVerse Poets’ Pub with Grace tending bar today. Today’s Poetics asks us to write a poem about scent.

Still Life

lillian59 Comments

Paint me a rose garden
petal by petal
thorn by thorn
a microcosm of life.

A primrose kind of gal
petite with pastel temper,
wed to a brooding man,
morose and prickly by nature.
They live in a rosemål house,
flowers etched in love.

Rosemaling+Petersburg+Alaska
It’s quadrille Monday at dVerse Poets’ Pub with Bjorn tending bar. He asks us to write a quadrille (poem of 44 words) using the word rose (primrose, morose, rosemal). Photo is an example of the Norwegian art of rosemal. 

 

Summer Solstice

lillian55 Comments

Who made this day?
This longest day in the journey.
Scarf thrown off, head tilted back,
away from ticking hands.
No clocks in sight.
More time to revel in the sun.
And she shall do a walk about.
About the bird who places one more
blade of new mown grass upon her nest
and then another and another still.
About time that cannot stop,
but will elongate,
prolong the light on this day,
a broader spectrum in which to heal.
She sees you seeing her.
Watch longer. Hold tighter.
Her body whole, a holy place,
where prayers of so many reside
and battles will be won.
Walk about this longest day,
savor life and love.

sunrise

Dedicated to my friend, Louise.
Walter is hosting Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse and asks us to consider the Summer Solstice, perhaps beginning with the idea of another poet. I looked to Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day which begins, “Who made the world?”  Photo from Cape Cod — sun rise — 

Shinotsukame, Iowa Tornado in Japanese Style

lillian48 Comments

Cornfields, stalks of silk-tasselled green planted in marching rows, wave in hot humid breeze. Then slowly stop. Stand tall. Sensing. Waiting. Sky shifts from grey to sickly yellow. As if the early morning sun has returned to sulk and leave its stain. A rushing sound begins to fill the air. Decibels increase as dark clouds coalesce. Meld into a funnel shape and roar across the field. Dust swirls up from roads, their surface shocked as rain explodes from sky.

Field mice hide
‘neath towering stalks of grain and corn
as sky erupts in fury.

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Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Toni tending bar talks about the Japanese culture – in particular, fifty shades of rain. There are 50+ words for rain. She asks us to use one of these words in the title or the body of the haibun (prose followed by a haiku). The Japanese haiku: 3 lines, short, long, short;  always about nature. The Americanization of the haiku has shifted to a strict three line, 5-7-5 syllabic form, about any subject. Shinotsukame means intense rain.

Let Go, My Love

lillian42 Comments

Talk to me not of death and fear
as time stands by and waits for me.
For I must leave you now my dear
these last few steps for me alone.

So as I lie with sleep so near,
harken my dear and you shall hear
celestial song and angels’ wings,
their comfort meant for you they sing.

Let go your hand, let go your tears
and tell me please that I may pass.
Take comfort in our childrens’ care
our love lives on, embodied there.

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Written for dVerse, Victoria minding the bar, asking us to write in meter, creating a particular mood. Very new to me — meter = stressed syllables. Trying to achieve meter without sacrificing the sense and flow of the words. I’ll be honest. I find this very taxing and difficult. But — I’m happy with how this turned out, and I think it’s in trochaic tetrameter: 4 stressed syllables in an 8 syllable line. Always learning with dVerse!

Ode to a Child

lillian33 Comments

Oh my little one, smile and play,
such simplicity and purity of heart.
Would that I could splash you,
bring soft waters of joy
this day and forevermore.

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Hosting dVerse for Tuesday Poetics — a virtual pub for those who enjoy working with words and creating poetry. Today, I’m asking folks to find a sculpture that inspires them — and then to write in the voice of that sculpture — become either the artist who created the piece, or the subject of the sculpture. Don’t tell us about the sculpture, rather take on its voice. Come on over and see what others do — or how about joining us and lending your voice too?  Photo from Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, Akron, Ohio.

Cruelty

lillian60 Comments

you loved me
as I was you said
then dismembered me
your hands, your will
debased my sense of self
erased my core
left me sightless
looking for me

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Hosting dVerse for Tuesday Poetics — a virtual pub for those who enjoy working with words and creating poetry. Today, I’m asking folks to find a sculpture that inspires them — and then to write in the voice of that sculpture — become either the artist who created the piece, or the subject of the sculpture. Don’t tell us about the sculpture, rather take on its voice.  Come on over and see what others do — or how about joining us and lending your voice too?

Difference Defined

lillian50 Comments

bambambambambambambambambambambam
swing it round, this way, now that
bambambambambambambambambambambam

walk quietly in forest glen
seek movement in grasses tall
watch, scope, carefully

bambambambambambambambambambambam
blood spills, rounds and rounds
one load’s cacophony of death

deer and pheasant, field to table
smiling faces, club to grave

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Quadrille using word “spill” written for today’s dVerse. Also written in response to the Pulse Club Massacre. Fact: same type of semi-automatic weapon used in the Sandy Hook shooting. There are reasonable steps that can be taken that do not dismantle the 2nd amendment.