dVerse – Page 9 – lillian the home poet

Oh Magnificent One!

April 16, 2024April 16, 2024lillian13 Comments

Ah, I understand now.
You never cared for the name Mount McKinley.
In your earliest years, and many years after,
native peoples addressed you as Denali.
Translation: the tall one, the great one.
They recognized your power and majesty.

How difficult for you to share a name
with an American President who never
set foot in the shadow of your magnificence.
After all,
you rule over six million acres of wild land
intersected by one road, ninety-two miles long.

You watch over taiga forest,
high alpine tundra, amazing wild life,
beautiful fauna.
You are the highest peak
in North America,
towering over magnificent landscape.

In 2016,
on the eve of its 100^th anniversary,
the National Park Service righted a wrong.
Your name was officially changed
to what it should have been all the years before.
Denali. For you are the mighty one.

William Shakespeare,
you had it all wrong in Romeo and Juliet!

Written for both Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe and for Day 16 of NaPoWriMo.

The Prompts: At dVerse, Sanaa asks us to write a poem in a conversational mode of address. In my post, I’m having a conversation with Denali. The NaPoWriMo prompt is to “write a poem in which we clearly describe an object or place and then end with a more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.“

The great mountain Denali would disagree with William Shakespeare’s line in Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”

Photo is from our trip to Alaska some years ago when we did indeed travel through Denali National Park and see this magnificent mountain!

What’s the Real Story Behind that Image?

April 10, 2024April 11, 2024lillian27 Comments

Sporting a Gibson girl hairstyle,
always the first to beguile.
She artfully arched her eyebrows,
never intended for marriage vows.

Expelled from finishing school
because she’d broken many a rule.
Back at home with daddy dear,
all his money was temptingly near.

She arose very early that particular day,
absolutely not allowing any kind of delay.
Murder weighed heavily on her crafty mind,
the perfect crime, she’d cleverly designed.

Poison added to daddy’s cornflakes,
doused all over his yummy pancakes.
And wouldn’t you know, one glorious week later
she was named the estate’s sole curator.

Grinning, she thought, no need for a suitor,
and there’s no one that would possibly suit her.
Now she’s contentedly ensconced, happily rich,
fully independent and a liberated bitch.

Written for Day 10 of NaPoWriMo. Also using at OLN Thursday at dVerse.

I had so much fun with this one!

The challenge today was to “write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic tidbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing.” The image above is from The Buffalo Times, New York, June 12, 1910. I think it might be an ad for breakfast cereal?

Birthday Week with Gramps

April 8, 2024lillian13 Comments

She’d lived with her widowed grandfather since she was orphaned at twelve. He proudly walked her down the aisle when she married. Every year since, she’d returned to the cabin to spend his birthday week with him. They watched movies on VHS tapes. His favorites were the old ones starring Cary Grant, Spencer Tracey, or John Wayne.

This year, she’d brought the Harry Potter series on VHS tapes. They were twenty minutes into the first one when he complained loudly. “Wizards? This is ridiculous!”

She started to ask, “What does it matter that . . .”

“The stars we see are already dead. The ones we always watch. They’re in plots you can understand,” he harrumphed. “I’m gettin’ a beer and goin’ out to watch the moon. Seein’ a man up there is more real than this!”

She smiled, “Okay, Gramps. You win. I’m coming too.”

Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Dora is hosting and introduces us to Amy Woolard. She asks us to include the line “What does it matter that the stars we see are already dead” from Woolard’s poem, Laura Palmer Graduates, in our post.

Prosery was invented by dVerse: one line of poetry is provided and we must include that line, word for word, within a piece of prose/flash fiction that is 144 words or less (sans title). It’s the one type of prompt on dVesre, that does not involve writing poetry.

Image created in Bing Create.

A Poem and its Palinode

April 4, 2024April 4, 2024lillian10 Comments

….the poem, written on July 6 2021…

In the Good Ole Summertime . . .
corn-on-the-cobify me . . .
tomatocize me.
Plop raspberries on my fingertips
only to pop them one by one
into my eager mouth.
It’s garden fresh
summerliciousness time!

——————————————————————-

…and the palinode, written today…..

In the Crappy Fickle Spring . . .
frozen dinner me or . . .
chilly me with stewed tomatoes
and black beans poured from tin cans.
I love eating yet another chili supper,
spoon by spoon,
dripping on my well worn flannel shirt.
I’d much rather nosh on
bruised banana slices than fresh raspberries,
tastebuds screaming their disappointment.
Longing for summerlicious times?
Not me.
I absolutely adore this crappy fickle spring.

Written for dVerse today, where today, in the spirit of April 4th being National Tell a Lie Day, we’re to write a Palinode: a poem that contradicts or retracts something the poet has previously written. Today, in Boston, we’ve had snow, hail, and/or cold sleety rain all day. I imagine the daffodils are frozen in shock. And I for one, am tired of this year’s fickle spring!

Gazing at the Universe

April 2, 2024lillian15 Comments

Look upward with me,
magnify the solar system.
Marvel at what is light years away.

Now stand in still of night,
look up with naked eye.
Millions of tiny shining lights,
star specks in ebony sky.

No matter our egos,
we are simply small creatures
alive for a millisecond of time.

All the more reason
to be humbled by the universe,
to live and love,
thankful for every day.

Posting to dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe, and noting it is day 2 of NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month.

I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics, introducing folks to John McKaveney. John is a friend from San Diego who has an undergraduate degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics, is a lawyer, and has an amazing telescope! For today’s prompt, I’ve provided four of John’s amazing photos and asked folks to use at least one as inspiration for their poem today. See information below, about the photo I’ve used here.

Photo by John McKaveney. The Orion Nebula: “This is an active star forming region about 1400 light years away, of condensing gas and dust, illuminated by newly forming stars. Our solar system formed in a region much like this about 5 billion years ago. The photons that were observed when this picture was taken, left the nebula in 624 AD. At that time, Mohamed had just won the Battle of Badr, in Saudi Arabia, the classical period in Europe was ending and the middle ages beginning, the Mayas were just beginning to build their largest pyramids, and Europeans had not yet set foot in North America. Throughout this entire time, those photons of light were traveling through space to be captured to form this photograph, where their journey finally ended.”

It’s a Craggy Life We Live

April 1, 2024April 1, 2024lillian14 Comments

From this vantage point,
looking up, like looking back.
Contours evident.
Cracks, crevices, smooth edges,
veins streak across surface.
Planar sedimentary laminations
mark periods of sustained times.
Strength, resilience,
past layered upon past,
weathered but still tall.
Pulpit Rock in Norway
metaphor for life.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today we’re asked to write a Quadrille (poem of exactly 44 words, sans title) that includes the word “contour.” Will also use this poem for the first day of NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, where the challenge is to post a poem every day in April!

Photo taken two years ago, on a Celebrity cruise where we visited Norway and took a boat trip down the Lysefjord and saw Pulpit Rock.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious – It’s TIME!

March 20, 2024lillian8 Comments

Réne Margitte’s canvas, perhaps unwittingly,
illustrates the patriarchal paradigm in 1953.
He paints more than one-hundred men
floating down from the sky.
Every one the same staid figure.
Black topcoats, black bowler hats
atop staid unfeeling faces.
It’s a dull world of sameness
that lulls the joy out of life.

1964, a new canvas came to light
danced and sung on the silver screen.
All those dull men replaced
by one Mary Poppins floating in,
seemingly from the same sky.
Bert, the chimney sweeper,
may have been her pal,
but she was the change agent,
intelligent, talented, and kind.

One woman’s abilities, her smile,
her laughter, and creativity
reached thousands that year,
and still today, brings joy.
Time to repaint Margitte’s canvas,
create a paradigm shift.
Time to take up our own brush,
claim our rights, our bodies,
say enough is enough.

Golconda by Réne Margitte. Oil on canvas: 1953.

Poem created for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Melissa is host and introduces us to the surrealist painter, Margitte. She asks us to consider one of several paintings she provides, and write about what we see and what we don’t see…to use the image as inspiration. I must admit, as soon as I saw this painting, I thought of Mary Poppins! And then, the poem wrote itself.

War of Words, by Lindsey Ein

March 17, 2024lillian3 Comments

Words burst like cannon shots
swift, sharp darts to hearts
breaking into shards of glass
no longer able to hold
love.
Bullets of bravado
bully brave souls
who face blistering barrage
with shields strengthened
by past assaults.

Words with no fire or smoke
but haze of hatred make it hard
to catch a breath, a sliver of life
before when air was fresh and
hope was alive with promise;
before words exploded in heads
like bullets seeking bullseyes
in hearts once filled with love.

Words pile up like smoky ashes
burying dreams, lives imagined
before the vitriol rose up
to tear down expectations
leaving debris, devastation.
War of words leaves victims
with wounds unseen
hurting on the inside
no blood just torrents of tears.

Sharing this poem written by Lindsey Ein. She read it aloud for us at dVerse LIVE on Saturday. I thought it quite powerful. I’ve taken the liberty of creating an image to accompany her poem….created in Bing Create.

Landscape Resolved

March 14, 2024lillian39 Comments

Recessed window’s wide ledge
holds spirits for drinker’s escape.
Time out desperately needed
from hatred, tyranny,
spewed vindictiveness,
misogyny, racism, and lies.
Broad brushstrokes have not,
cannot hide, underlying malevolence.

Clean canvass craved,
painted in meaningful hues.
Foundation layer of iridescent justice.
Calm cerulean waters
governed by tides of crimsoned love.
Emerald-kindness speckled shores of honesty.
Sun-flowered happiness rollicking
beneath cobalt cloudless skies.

Is there a bard to create this script?
A Dali, Miro, or Kahlo
to produce this surrealism?
Who among us
will ensure it becomes reality?
Human dignity bathed in light,
tinted with opalescent caring,
glowing in a patina of hope.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting Open Link Night where folks are invited to post any one poem of their choice, no form, rhyme scheme etc. required OR use Van Gogh’s painting, Studio Window, to motivate their creative juices.

AND you are invited to join us LIVE (with audio and video), on Saturday, March 16th from 10 to 11 AM New York time. Simply click here, and then click on the link you’ll find for dVerse LIVE. You’re invited to read a poem of your choosing, or simply come sit in and listen. Drop in for a few minutes or come and stay the hour. Although we’re an international group, all readings and conversations are in English. We’ve had folks from Sweden, the UK, Trinidad Tobago, Finland, Pakistan, the US, Kenya, Australia, and India. I do hope you’ll join us – the more the merrier!

After All These Years . . .

March 11, 2024lillian14 Comments

They were so young. Grins on their faces more often than not. Dressed in wool caps, fuzzy mittens, and brightly colored scarves. The backs of their snowsuits still showed evidence of the snow angels they’d just completed. An annual tradition at the first deep snow. Jill’s yard was always the scene. More often than not, they’d be in the midst of a wild dance to the blizzard gods when Mrs. Cranston called out to them, one by one. All of the names swallowed up by the cold, but loud enough so they knew her homemade hot chocolate was ready.

All these years later, Jill looking so beautiful in her wedding gown, they sat looking expectantly at Mrs. Cranston. Snow falling outside the church fellowship hall’s window, she held up her champagne flute: “To lasting friendship, my dears. You will always be my cold-nosed angels!”

It’s Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today Bjorn is hosting from Stockholm, Sweden. He asks us to include the line All of the names swallowed up by the cold in our piece of prose/flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length, sans title. The line is from the poem “After Someone’s Death” by the late Swedish Nobel Laureate, Tomas Tranströmer.