All That Jazz

Swingin’, swayin’ to all that jazz
Max drummin’ drums to syncopate
Ella’s scat, can ya dig it mate?

Billie’s sultry voice croons smooth as
liquid gold. Zoot suit struts janglin’
while Louis puffs his cheeks far as

air can go. Cool rhythms gyrate,
swingin’, swayin’, to all that jazz.

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Great jazz musicians referenced in poem include Max Roach drummer, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, both jazz singers; and Louis Armstrong, trumpeteer extraordinaire. Written for dVerse Poet’s Pub. Victoria asks us to create an Octain Refrain: Poem composed of two tercets and a couplet. Each line must contain 8 syllables. Poem must contain the following rhyme scheme: A b b, a c-c a, bA   Another poetic sudoku! A is the refrain with first and last being the same or close to the same. Second stanza c-c means there should be an internal rhyme within the line. Quite the challenge!  Photo credit: Free-Pik.

Lovers

Sun slips into sea
tinging waters pink
as first love’s blush.

Their love, sowed and tilled
through leaving tears,
rekindled in this place

where sky melts blue
into waves of aquamarine.
Bodies meld familiar

then spark as old wick
stammers then flames,
passion reborn.

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Quadrille (44 word poem) using the word “melt” as prompted by Grace, tending the bar at dVerse, a poet’s virtual pub.  Photo: sunset from our deck in Bermuda.

Aging in My World

I choose life with mystery. Space.
Question marks, exclamations, ellipses
not brackets or parentheses.

Certainty directs,
connects dots by numbers
like choreographed dance steps.

Give me ad lib, jazz scat
one man band with knees that bang.
Meander, run, or tra-la-la.

Tap shoes. Not silly silk slippers.
Too much between Point A and B
to follow a tutu pink linear path.

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Photo Credit: Shirley B.  Posted to Poetry Pantry on Poets United.
Thanks, Bjorn, for the introduction!

 

Ganache

Ma cherie, mon amour, au naturelle
like dew drops upon rosebud petals,
champagne bubbles tickling my nose.

Sweet crème fraiche atop fresh picked berries,
whip cream dollups daubed scoop by scoop
on thick chocolat pâtisserie.

Quite simply put, my dear,
you are my ganache.

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Quadrille (44 word poem) for Monday’s dVerse, and today, De Jackson our bartender at the pub, asks that we include the word “bubble.”  Photo Credit: Enrica Bressan.

Before the Dawn

Much has been written about the dawn of a new day. For me, it has always been the moments before that, which stir my soul. When dark shadow clouds and navy blue-black sky meld into india-ink black sea. It is all a scrim, a gauzed blanket that lies above and beyond with no horizon line.

The shoreline blurs, smudges, like a charcoal master piece. There are no browns, only shades of ebony and beginning blue. It is a delicious hush. Before the sun begins its slow ascent from underneath somewhere, slowly tinting edges into floating worlds of pink and violet, revealing solid lines and building shapes. Before that color of pales, there is only the unseen, blurring barely to the discernable. In that moment of suspended darkness, there is the presence of hope.

Clouds before the dawn
shadows undulate with hope
darkness woos my dreams

Written for Dverse Poets’ Pub Haibun Monday — this week Grace asked us to springboard from one of three given quotations.  I used the following: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” – Mary Oliver  A Haibun is prose, followed by haiku and usually underscores nature and some higher truth.

Scissor Me You

Two young blades were we
all shear joy
making lacey hearts
and peek-a-boos too.

Red crayons broken,
black marker now dry
we’re older, less sharp
and rusted with age.

In synch through the years,
our curves more rounded
our pace less quick,
we still meet at the heart
you and I.

We make each other
our valentine.

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Photo credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

…and She is Beautiful

A merry heart does good like a medicine
the yellowed brittle fortune
rest where he’d last touched it.
Beside the faded red envelope,
embroidered stitches now soft to touch.

She sipped her green tea, waiting.
The sun had set long ago
and now the rains were here.
Soon the streets would be a cacophony
drums, shouts, tourists and parades.

And from her window, she would see
the dragon dancing down the street,
her sign ever present, every new year
even in this approaching time,
the Year of the Monkey.

Closing her eyes, she saw again
mother, father, the land, and river
heavy rains bringing fish to the fields.
Images swam in and out in waves,
and memories filled her heart.

She sat, and sipped her tea,
waiting patiently.

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Written for Toni’s Chinese New Year’s prompt at dVerse, a Poet’s Pub. Toni provided several fortune cookie slips and we were to choose one, and use it as the first line in our poem.

Photo credit: Yenhoon

Angels Along the Way

Six minute eternity,
seventy-two hours ago.
A cardiac arrest.

Doctors talked incessantly,
you may return or not.
And if yes . . .

Then a voiceless lull
filled that sterile beeping room
and angels’ wings were heard,
as they carried you back to me.

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Dylan Thomas, in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog [first published by Dent on 4 April 1940] provided a whimsical explanation of the word “lull” – A host of angels must be passing by. What a silence there is!  

Angels Along the Way is  a quadrille (44 word poem) using the word “lull” — the prompt given by Bjorn at dVerse, a Poet’s Pub.  Do visit this fabulous site!
Photo credit: Benjamin Earwicker.
Thankful for every day! 

Nature’s Blessings

Mid night rains nurture
palmetto and loquat trees,
pinball through ridges
on Bermudian white roofs,
then steep in afternoon tea.

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Tanka verse form: 5 lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Photos and explanation: Fruit of the loquat tree in Bermuda – ripe when very yellow. Bermuda has no rivers or lakes or island-wide plumbed water supply. Each household must collect and store rainwater. Roofs are treated and always white with ridges that take rain water to each home’s underground water tank. A household that runs out of fresh water must pay to have a company “top off” their tank. And yes, the water is absolutely safe to drink – I do it every day! Photo is taken from hill overlooking St. George’s – the town we are staying in for 2 months. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in 1612, and a British overseas territory, hence the reference to steeping tea. The Kiskadee is a beautiful yellow bird found in Bermuda.

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