humor – Page 11 – lillian the home poet

Paging Vincent Van Gogh

April 6, 2016lillian10 Comments

Hybrid sunflowers
big time flower power.
Fast growing giant Kong,
Bashful Lemon Queen,
bold eye catching.
Ms. Mars, uncommonly gorgeous.
Elf, compact charmer
and Little Becka too.
Madly floriferous Candy,
Strawberry Blonde, Frilly
and Crimson Blaze,
dazzle with sensuous high definition.
Sunny Bunch, Honey Bears
precious beauties,
incredible lovable faces.
All flummoxed on your easel,
sowed one quarter inch deep
in oil, denied full sun,
borders and beds.
Your fame, their demise.

IMG_7325 - Version 2

Written for Day 6 NaPoWriMo, using day five’s prompt: Create a poem using words from a seed catalogue. This is from Burpee’s 2016 catalogue, pages for sunflowers. All words, including title, are exactly as written in Burpee’s except for those italicized. Kong, Bashful, Lemon Queen, Ms. Mars, Elf, Little Becka, Candy, Strawberry Blonde, Frilly, Crimson Blaze, Sunny Bunch, and Honey Bears are all hybrid sunflower varieties. I do love the Found Poetry genre. Photo: from beautiful Cape Cod’s Provincetown, several years ago.

April Cruelty

April 4, 2016April 4, 2016lillian38 Comments

Crocus seduce, daffodils beam,
we walk lighter, brighter.
Young women shed coats,
bellies concealed in down
bloom pregnant joy.

Temptress Spring,
hips swaying in soft breezes,
sashays to bed budding green.
Wakes at dawn,
cold white kisses shimmer,
laughs flurry at our foolish trust.

crocus-1345997

Photo Credits: That’s me, this morning, April 4. On the porch in my bathrobe appalled at this cruel April snow! Crocus photo by Swirls 71.
Written as a quadrille (44 words) for dVerse using the word “shimmer” and for NaPoWriMo Day 4‘s prompt to write about the cruelest month.

All That Jazz

March 25, 2016March 25, 2016lillian35 Comments

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.

Note_lines_horizontal

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.

Arachnophobia Be Damned!

March 11, 2016March 12, 2016lillian25 Comments

[With apologies to Mother Goose]

Little Miss Muffet determined to stay
plots on her tuffet as bravely she sits
needles in hand she prepares now to play,
two legs to eight, but rapier in wits.

Nursery rhyme loser? A girl who has fits?
Web spun over years into dark comedy.
Finger pricked in the snatch, spider flits
flails, then falls. Arthropodic tragedy.

Silken threads become elegant to the eye
blood dots cloth as she doth smart
needles weave and suddenly stop with spasm cry.
Game over. Venomous to the heart.

Curds and whey topple, she utters a moan
dead heat with spider, they lie on the stone.

SONY DSC

Written for dVerse Poet’s Pub with Gayle tending bar. We’re asked to write a Bouts-Rimes which is French for Rymed Ends. This form began in the 17th century as a rhyming game. Gayle’s challenge: use the following fourteen words in the order presented: stay, sits, play, wits, fits, comedy, flits, tragedy, eye, smart, cry, heart, moan, stone. These words were borrowed from a sonnet by Edmund Spenser. These words, in this order, must be the end line rhymes. For me, another poetry sudoku!
The real Nursery Rhyme:
BY MOTHER GOOSE
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Watch Me!

February 10, 2016February 10, 2016lillian38 Comments

I am in my eighty-seventh life on this earth. I’ve always been a feminist. Female, beautiful, and independently sufficient at the same time. I loved my can-can ruffle life in the Parisian bordello. And I donned a bright sash when I pounded my suffragette drum.

But this narcisstic genius body? It’s perfect!

I am bright, erect, and wear my sunny ruffles well. I stand above those two-lip characters, dutch men all of them. Short-lived though I shall be, there is nothing daffy about me! I am JonQuil the magnificent. And I out shine every bloomin’ thing!

trg1

Word Count: 96. Written for Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle Wiseoff-Fields provides the photo prompt and a myriad of folks work their words into what is known as “flash fiction.” Must be a complete story about the photo, in 100 words or less. FYI: the jonquil, as well as the daffodil, are members of the Narcissus genus. Photo Credit: The Reclining Gentleman.

Chateau de Sable/Castle in the Sand

January 28, 2016January 31, 2016lillian18 Comments

“Ou est le bibliotheque?” She grinned, listened like she understood, then ducked into the first café she saw. “Un croissant. Donnez moi le beurre.” She’d had so many croissants, butter, le boeuf and les oeufs in the past two days, she’d probably gained five pounds. But she loved using her old high school French.

She ate quickly then followed the map to finally meet The Earl of the Castle de Sable! They’d met on the internet. His English was remarkably good. So she’d flown to Paris!

“Um, really? This is a . . . house! And your name is Earl????”

chateau-de-sable-ceayr

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers. Each Wednesday she challenges folks to write a 100 word story based on the photo she provides. This one took me back to my high school French (50+ years ago) and the only words (in addition to the first verse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!) that I remember 🙂 Photo Credit: ceayr

Happiness Extended

January 4, 2016January 4, 2016lillian4 Comments

She enjoyed decorating for the season
memories gently removed from tissue paper,
placed about the room.

Christmas cards from years gone by
ornaments of glass and styrofoam
some misshapen, now glitter bare.

Each year’s new wreath carefully selected
artificial greens bedecked in happines
meant to last well beyond her window.

And as Epiphany dawned
she readied herself for church
donned this year’s circle of golden stars.

Her wreath of choice, her Sunday hat.
And she wore the Christmas spirit
well beyond the new year.

In response to the Daily Photo Challenge to let a familiar shape, the circle, inspire you. Poem motivated by photo, taken at the White House December 2015.

Birthday Party

January 1, 2016January 1, 2016lillian6 Comments

He sat upright
surrounded by canes, walkers
tv guides, checkerboard games,
and the people that accompany them
in a place like this.

He waited patiently
for the last strands of that age-old song,
some high pitched warblers
hunched over the tinny piano
pulled out for occasions like this.

Balloons hovered above his head
as candles dripped life-time moments
onto fondant flowers.
Festive paper plates too thin
for the thick slab he desired.

And so I asked the centenarian
for the secret of his longevity.
Well sonny, I always say,
close your eyes to dream.
Just make sure you open them wide
to watch where you step.

Balloons_design_background