A new day, sun shining spreads its warmth. Rays of hope still glisten on foam capped waves. Steady tide still rhythmically constant beneath visible turbulent churning.
Autumnal brilliance shed. Trees bared to skeletal frames understand new seasons will arrive. Therefore, I choose to model hope, love and civility. Our next generations need us to believe.
Written on this day, after the 2024 election. Image from Pixabay.com
String of Black Pearls. Ida B. Wells, Daisy Bates Maya Angelou, Amanda Gorman Toni Morrison, Lorraine Hansberry Rosa Parks, Angela Davis Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan Misty Copeland, Aretha, Ella, Etta, Billie, Viola Davis Oprah, Simone Biles Jessica Watkins Dr. Kizzmekia Corbet and Kamala Harris
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Lisa asks us to include the word “string” or a form of the word (not a synonym) in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
. . . that’s not my name, but it could be. A Pollyanna is defined as one who is optimistic, always cheerful. Looking toward the sun, even in the rain. For me, a rainy day is a make-your-own-sunshine kind of day. In today’s divisive political climate, our world fraught with horrific wars, our earth struggling as humans threaten its survival, all the more important to remember the sun is always there. Even behind the darkest overcast skies. I call it hope.
Lisa is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She asks us to consider the words pilgrimage, walkabout, and wandering, providing a poem for each of the words. One option within her prompt is to “take a line from one of the poems and expand on it.” I’ve used the line “looking toward the sun, even in the rain” from the poem Walkabout by Caren Krutsinger.
AND, consider this an INVITATION to all who read my poem to join us at dVerse LIVE on Saturday, May 11th from 10 to 11 AM New York time. A link will be provided at the dVerse site on Thursday, May 9th that will take you to the LIVE site, with audio and visual. You’re welcome to join us just to sit in and watch and listen; and/or to read aloud a poem of your choice. Last time I hosted our LIVE session we had folks from the US, UK, Sweden, Kenya, Finland, Trinidad Tobago, India, Pakistan, Australia and Israel! All participation is in English. Hope you drop by!
Her iridescent spirit carries her through the golden dust swirls of the Orion nebula. Fourteen hundred light years away from earth, she awaits the right moment. She is the Unique One. A star whose heart pulses in time with the ebb and flow of ocean tides. She is composed of compassion and love. Once a nova who flashed too close to the moon, she witnessed the inhumanity of humanity. She must find her way through constellations and galaxies, to find one human creature she can claim. And in that claiming will come illumination. A flame. Kindling for a paradigm shift. The only hope for earth to survive.
Photo image from the telescope of John McKaveney: The Orion Nebula.
Written in response to NaPoWriMo, prompt for day three: to write a surreal prose poem.
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.”
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!
What names be known, for groups benign to get, to go; to roam, to grow.
Porcupines in groups are prickles. Wild geese do gaggle, soar in glee. The bees all bumble, swarms the buzz, while murder, mischief crows do make.
(And now excuse my poetic license)
A pile of purses we name a pursuit. A nosh of neckties, a collar’s noose. A group of grown-ups, known as grumps, a trickle of teens, they call a twit. A poet’s pub is fancied a pword.
*pword – Think of it as a plosive before “word” – not to be mistaken for pee-word!
Written for dVerse, Meet The Bar Thursday. Today, Bjorn asks us to write alliterative verse. He defines the form: 1. The alliterative verse has four stressed syllables per line. 2. The three first syllables alliterate, while the fourth does not. 3. There is a caesura (pause) between the first two stressed syllables and the last two. 4. If you want to, you may put a line break or some punctuation to make the caesura clear.
* I handled the alliteration and the syllables; in a few lines, I did not add the caesura. I did have fun with this….prickles, gaggles, swarms and murders. And then some made up group names: pursuit, noose, grumps, twit, and power! Phots from Pixabay.com
Create barrier islands to keep out hatred, people who lack empathy.
Envelop me in sea breezes that waft smiles.
Let a gentle sun warm and fan kindness among all.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Quadrille Monday! Melissa asks us to include the word “lagoon” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I chose to verbify the word. Photo take in Bermuda in 2018.
some days it seems a stick figure world sketched in lines only charcoal lines no curves no tints of color no punctuation negation no positivity stuck motionless mural of ethnocentrism narcissistic me-ism artists and poets needed to add crimson hearts splashes of love everywhere
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Mish asks us to include the word “sketch” or a form of the word, in our Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words sans title).
lillian the home poet 