I am but a home poet. Prompts dog me, thrown out as commands with treats. Sit. Roll over. Shake. Go fetch. Bring it to Mr. Linky. Drop it. Drop it.
Heel. Heel. Find the rhythm, don’t jerk the leash. Words come to mind with expectations, arrange them in a meaningful way. Pen pants, drools, runs left to right, left to right . . .
. . . circles round and round, this way, that way. Veterinarians call it the zoomies. Poets call it frustration. Suddenly it’s done. And me? I’m doggone exhausted.
APOLOGIES to those of you who read this post earlier, when for some reason, WordPress deleted all the line formatting and it came across as prose.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Dora asks us to use an animal of our choice (real or imaginary) as a metaphor for how ideas and words take shape for us on the blank page. I had a bit of fun with this one, after having recently spent four days with my daughter’s family, including their almost two year old rambunctious dog!Image created on Bing Create.
I was where I am when the snow began: back row in the corps de ballet. My first professional performance with a prestigious company. My first performance in The Nutcracker.
We’d practiced Act I’s ending snow scene many times. Dress rehearsal was a joy as soft snow fell all around us. As a newbie, nobody warned me about the two three-hundred pound fabric bags of confetti snow in the rafters. Nor did they tell me in the real performance, the snow would increase in intensity until we ended up in a veritable blizzard!
I was afraid I’d fall. It stuck to my eyelashes. I warned myself: don’t breathe through your mouth! But I did. With my back to the audience, I coughed like a cat hurling a furball. The curtain dropped to tumultuous applause and I’d survived. “Welcome to the real world of ballet!”
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I didn’t have time to write to Merril’s Prosery prompt for Monday, so did it late and am posting here. The prompt was to use the line “I was where I am when the snow began” from the poem The Dead of Winter by Samuel Menashe. Prosery is a piece of prose that is 144 words or less in length and includes a specific line of poetry given in a prompt.
A Dancer’s Tale was motivated by an article in the December 5th, Boston Globe, “The Snow Must Go On.” It actually quotes ballerina, Seo Hye Han who plays the Snow Queen in the Nutcracker about how the snow sticks to everything and tastes terrible because of the flame retardant on it. Boston Ballet actually does have two 300-pound fabric bags of confetti snow in the rafters for each performance of the Nutcracker. The bags are rotated and the snow slowly falls at first and does indeed, end up in a blizzard at the end of the scene. After the curtain comes down, stage hands immediately use machines similar to leaf blowers to clear the stage and save all the snow. They put the used snow through a machine to “sift out” false eyelashes, feathers, sequins etc. so there is just “pure” confetti snow left to reuse. According to the article, Boston Ballet goes through over 2,000 pounds of confetti snow in each season’s performances of the Nutcracker. Fascinating article to read! A Dancer’s Tale is purely fictional.
Image was created by me in Bing Creative! Thank you Bjorn for showing us how to use this AI!
Spelunker by day lady’s man by night. Stalactites his game, caves his domain.
Met his match at the local pub. Spellunker by night, scrabble her game words her fame.
Challenged him after a pint or two. She won the game he won her heart.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa hosts Quadrille Monday and asks us to use the word “spell” somewhere within the body of our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Had a little fun with this one. PS: a spelunker is a person who explores caves. Image from Pixabay.com
lillian the home poet 