inhumanity

for far too many . . .

lillian50 Comments

Brown girl dreaming,
tattered ribbons woven
through dark tresses.
She walks in beauty
always plodding upstream,
seeking answers to secrets
from the center of the world.

Oh, to make a joyful noise
that all might hear in high fidelity.
Shout love triumphs hate.
One hundred white daffodils
strewn upon blood soaked streets
could turn a pinkish hue.
Become peace roses beneath our feet.

Oh for those inalienable rights
to be shared amongst us all.
Beyond the hour of land divided,
us and them transformed to we.
To prosper, pain free,
beyond this faithful and virtuous night
into and during every living day.

Or was that Declaration,
that torch held high
to those across the seas . . .
were those just words and symbols?
The happiness project
never intended to be shared,
never meant to be?

IMG_1599

August 9th is National Book Lovers Day and National Hand Holding Day, International Day of the Word’s Indigenous People, National Rice Pudding Day, and National Polka Day! It’s also OLN (Open Link Night) at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Folks can post one poem of their choosing – any form, any topic. 

In honor of National Book Lovers Day, I’ve posted a “book spine” poem written with book titles, all from the bookshelf on my desk. Reread the poem, and you’ll find these titles, in this order:

brown girl dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Ribbons – Spring/Summer 2017: Vol. 13, No. 2 (Tanka Society publication)
she walks in beauty (A Woman’s Journey Through Poems)  by Caroline Kennedy
Upstream by Mary Oliver
Secrets from the Center of the World by Joy Harjo and Stephen Strom
Joyful Noise (Poems for Two Voices) by Paul Fleischman
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
A Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon
The Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams
Pain Free by Pete Egoscue
Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Gluck
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

hey, bun! right it wrong

lillian50 Comments

there are days i can be in a haze. a daze. or a funk phase. i seem to be addicted to twenty-four-seven news. seams unravelling. politics, shootings, kapoho buried in lava. earth shudders, smolders in unrest. seems everywhere.

one day this week i should go cold turkey. weak? just do it. a day without news. without gnus. there are no gnus in boston. my phone as phone only. ear to the metal. eyes won’t smolder. just ears, if I get a hotty call.

nature irked, smolders
belches red, spills, spews lava
tourist season be damned

IMG_1131

It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Jill asks us to try our hand at avant-garde poetry — to write an unventional haibun. Traditional Haibun: one or two paragraphs of tight prose followed by a haiku about nature that includes reference to a traditional season, IE spring, fall. So – capitalization be damned; and I’ve added a tourist season.
Photo: from art exhibit in NC:  standing in front of what looks like a traditional mirror and somehow, the artist makes steam come out of your head in your reflected image!  These days, that’s what the news does to me far too often.
IMPORTANT reference: We stayed at the beautiful Lagoon House on the Big Island in 2000, 2001, and 2005. See 2001 photo below and explanation beneath.

IMG_1341

Lagoon House. I was in contact last week with the realtor who continues to offer rentals on the Big Island. He sadly told me the entire Kapoho area, including Lagoon House, is now under 30 feet of lava from the Kilauea eruption. It will literallly be hundreds of years before this area of the Big Island is inhabitable again. 

She Melts

lillian36 Comments

blue ice                                             cold as cold can be
cleft from frozen earth                 abandoned
floats alone                                      drowning
so deeply down                               in sea of despair

deplorable evidence                      scarred inside and out
man’s neglect                                   his indifference
temperature rises                           her tears flow in melting fear
frequent fissures                            pulled asunder
disaster nears                                  she dies more each day

 

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today Paul asks us to write a contrapuntal poem. The term is taken from the musical world and means counterpoint…a piece of music with two or more independent melody lines.
Read this poem three ways (IE three melody lines if you will).
1. left column only
2. right column only
3. from left to right in total – as in all the way through the first line, ignoring the big spaces between the columns; then all the way through the second line etc.
Iceberg photos from out trip to Antarctica. Eyes photo from Pixabay.com.

Bowery Dame

lillian30 Comments

Hey mistah!
What are ya waitin’ for?
Lookin’ for some kix?
Just a fiver for my special K!
That’s a kisser ‘n lots more.
You a sea capn’?
Crunchin’ time
away from the missus?
C’mon and sail my ship!

They called her a total froot loop,
nuttier than a fruit cake.
She owned her corner,
struttin’ her stuff in the Big Apple.
Jack of all trix in her trade!
Arms wrapped in bangles
lucky charms danglin’,
jinglin’ through all seasons.
Frosted flakes her winter glitter,
traded for sweat beads in summer.
Garters held by safety pins,
no chex and balances in her life,
just one day to the next to the next.
Known on her unseemly block
as the My-Fair-Lady dame,
clients banged her for a few bucks.
Yelled out their cheerios
as they straightened their ties,
hopped a taxi,
and went home to their wives.

city-569093_1920

I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets, and we’re brand name noodling! I’ve given folks three categories: candy bars, cereals, and perfumes. I’ve listed at least sixteen products in each category. Folks are to choose ONE category, and write a poem that includes at least TWO of the product names within that category. . . using them as just words in the poem. 

I’VE CHOSEN THE CEREAL LIST FOR THIS POST: Kix, Special K, Cap’n Crunch, Total, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Trix, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Chex, Life, Cheerios, Fruity Pebbles, Alpha-Bits, Cocoa Puffs, Count Chocula, Harvest Crunch, and Puffed Wheat.  I used the first 12 in this poem.

Also did a poem using the Candy Bar list! Take a peak!

Disillusioned

lillian27 Comments

“apologizing to the other passengers. As if car sickness was a crime.”  page 111, 5th line in 3rd paragraph of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

“You the sand I’ve crawled across.” page 111, 5th line in 3rd stanza in Jelly Roll by Kevin Young.

Disillusioned

Apologizing to the other passengers
as if car sickness was a crime.
Commuter train to end of line
end comes everyday.
Nauseating life of dregs,
there and back and there again.
Everyday merry-go-round hell.

Cell phone glued to your ear,
apologies for my stench.
I was you until I burned,
abandoned by the man.
You happy across the aisle,
my respect tossed to winds
abracadabra, like magic dust.

Path of self-worth, weed-whacked,
lost soul like tumble weed.
Arid dunes, grain smothers grain,
insurmountable pile.
My brain is a desert skull.
Bleached-bare eye sockets,
parched blind of caring.

And you sit there like him.
You the sand I’ve crawled across.

desert-1761930_1920

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Amaya asks us to bridge the gap: take a book near your bedstand, open it to page 111; copy the 5th sentence/line in the 3rd paragraph. That is the first line of your original poem. Choose a 2nd book and do the same but, this is the last line of your poem. And she admonishes, NO CHEATING! When I saw the  line in The Kite Runner I was ready to pick a different book!  But, no cheating…so Disillusionment is what came out of this prompt.

Allegory

lillian2 Comments

Standing midst the city bustle
carousel with children chortling
dark-suited briefcase clutchers
people-ears attached to cells
city buses garbed in gaudy ads
taxis weaving, hotly honking
rushing quick-stepping humanity
standing midst the city bustle.

Standing midst the city bustle
lone curbside flower bed
stems bedraggled, drooping heads
once gaily bright and newly sprouted
dulled by daily apathy
straw-color shrivel, stripped to shreds
barely living, shadowed existence
dying midst the city hustle.

NaPoWriMo Day 4. Prompt is to realize the importance of description in poetry. It’s all in the details, hence, no photo today
April: National Poetry Writing Month, a poem a day til the month of May.

Lost

lillian38 Comments

She lurched through life
masked as some kind of bandit
hoping to steal affection,

waiting impatiently
for the mardi gras of life
to throw beads her way.

She stumbled on embankments
peripheral vision hampered,
mask drawn too close to her soul.

Glancing downward,
sun blinding, glare too harsh,
she saw the rat staring from gutter’s grate.

Tomorrow would be yesterday.
No map to guide her.
she finally gave up hope.

wanderratte, rattus norvegicus, common rat, brown rat, norway rat

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Mish is asking us to write a poem that somehow deals with the word “mask.”

Dysfunctional

lillian4 Comments

He tied her in knots with a string of tales.
Flew her like a kite, jerking the lead,
back and forth in tormenting winds.
Strung her along, tethered to rocky shoals,
until his nots became a strangle hold.

Every Tuesday, Misky posts a Twiglet: a short phrase, a word; to prompt a thought, a flow, a memory. Twiglet #11 is the phrase “with a string.” Art from Wikiart: Nude Young Woman by Giorgione, 1508.

Outcast

lillian5 Comments

she stood, vulnerable, waiting
waves of jeers cast upon her
cold stares
her life as the different

hands on hips, defiantly exposed
cold
aasplashes
aaaaaof so-called humanity
hardballs hurled in hatred

ignorance deflected
she dared to say
quietly, firmly,
i am
me

IMG_4340Photo Credit: video displayed at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts; Monomorphic, 2013 by Nick Night and Geoffrey Lillemon.