Category Archives: Poetry

Obsession – My Ode to Joe

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This is my confession it is my obsession
I have a natural predilection to its addiction

Memories of my father and his ochre cup
Attached to his side, breakfast, lunch and sup’

My oath to drink only one all my friends joke about
I would offer my first-born rather than do without

An olden concoction for which we modernists still toil

To smell its aroma fills me with such frustration
To see its liquid flow as I pour fills me with anticipation
To taste its liquid heat is such a sensation
To feel its burn down my throat fills me with elation
To hear that last swallow fills me with such trepidation

For some it is more precious than diamonds, gold or oil

An obsession shared by many on this orb
As sip after sip it is so greedily absorbed

I oscillate between the need the makes my heart burst
And the joy of feeling the elixir oust my deep thirst

I’m like a kid with chewiest of toffee
Nothing beats that first oomph of coffee

Glass coffee mug with line indicating it is safe to speak to owner of said mug when the contents have reached the bottom line.
Yes, this is my coffee mug at work.
Yes, my colleagues know not speak to me until my coffee reaches well under that bottom marker.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: Cheers!

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Today at dVerse Poetics our host and pub-tender paeansunplugged invites us to raise a glass and sip on some verbiage to that all quenches our thirsts. I chose the libation that gets many of us up, running and ready to face the world with less of a snarl in the mornings – well at least me.

Just Reading

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Most people saw images. People, animals, objects and then they made stories about them.

Not Papa. Papa only saw words among the luminaries once the skies grew the dark.

She walks in the street of the sky, Night walks scattering poems, calligraphy in the stars.

That is what Papa told me when I was young.That above our heads are words among the stars.

Reams of poems of Night.

Shooting stars? Line breaks. Comets? An exclamation.

Pictures were for those too young to read. He taught me how to read them as well.

To read the sonnets, couplets, quatrains and meter that falls from Night’s fingers to the firmament she treads giving Luna teasing nudges to see who notices her offerings.

It is why when you ask me what in doing as I gaze into the diamond dotted indigo skies I answer, just reading. 

Street of the Night Sky Goddess
— Raivenne

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Prosery: Tulips & Chimneys

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at dVerse we’re challenged to write a prose piece of no more than 144 words including the prompt.

Today’s prompt which comes from Tulips & Chimneys, by e. e. cummings and is the last line of IX- Impressions:

“In the street of the sky night walks scattering poems..”

We may alter the punctuation, but we must use the line in its entirety without inserting any other words. 

L’amour Mort

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Photo of woman at a grave in autumn

Autumn leaves in warm earth tones vale upon the new mound of soil. The leaves appear demur on the soil adorned with fresh florals. She who has spent nearly three score with in life until a year ago, has now joined the he in afterlife. Most have begun to mill away, eager to start the slow shedding of bereavement that begins with the repast, but she lingers a spell.

I watch her eyes, both mournful and misty.

And I watch as she, a morbid Noah, mentally gathers the dates of the ancestral pairings interned. I know she sees in the family line none have gone more than two years without their hearts in life beside them. The dichotomy of such beauty in sadness. She fears it, yet, I see she embraces the seemingly inevitable as we finally leave.

To her, death is quite romantic.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Prosery – Bob Dylan

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at dVerse, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) hosts and would like for us to write a Prosery piece which includes the line:

“To her, death is quite romantic”

It is from “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan, from his 1965 record “Highway 61 Revisited”.

Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words,
Including the given line from the poem.

Punching Age

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It started at one,

strong and sure

The promise of more

its lure

Birthday punches are a rite it’s true

But as they wore on, so did you

I took its weak finish

with a laughing smirk

Forgot I was 59

didn’t you, jerk?

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #160: Poems that Pack a Punch

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday on Quadrille Monday, De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo, got a little punch drunk at the bar and invited us to punch out quadrille. Yesterday was my birthday. My bestfiend, not a misspell – who had the good sense to be born exactly a year later, and I were joking about the childhood silliness of delivering birthday wishes via punches on the arm. One punch-wish for each year, sometimes the token punches are delivered gently, sometimes not. Because I am blessed to age like fine wine, I do not look my years. Unless a boxer, I imagine most would begin to tire before reaching my current vintage and thus today’s silly quadrille.

Falling into Spring

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Fall comes fast and furious in ochre and goldenrod jewels that seeming shoved aside the abundant verdant hues of summer. For all its warm beauty I am cognizant of the oncoming days when grayed twisted bodies, shrouded in mounds of white fluff, exchange its colorful jewels for icy diamonds that drip from limbs that will scratch at the too cold skies of winter.

As I kneel in one of the garden beds, the loss of warmth and color sadden me. It’s peaty scent, petrichor after the last thunderstorm momentarily bely the seasons in my mind. I am reminded after winter comes spring and the better days that then follow. Pruning, turning over earth in preparation I remind myself I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace. Thus I bury my autumn doldrums in thoughts of spring for now.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Prosery: When it comes to Katherine Riegel

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Sanaa (aka adashofsunny) would like for us to write a Prose piece which includes the line:

“I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace.” from the poem, “What I would like to grow in my Garden.” by Katherine Riegel.

Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words,
Including the given line from the poem.

Morning Scent

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The fresh scent of lawn anywhere
Can sometimes take me there
Magnolia wafting on morning breeze
Even if I cannot see the trees
Yes, sometimes a hint of sweat
Remembrances of you beget
The mourning in memory spurred
When into earth you were interred

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #158: Morning Has Broken
dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: A World of Common Scents

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday on Quadrille Monday Linda Lee invites to put our best morning forward in a quadrille.

A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “morning” in your poem.

Today dVerse guest host Jo invites us to A World of Common Scents and challenges us to write a poem of scents.

Linda’s “morning has broken” struck at Melpomene who cruelly reminds pleasant scents do not always pleasant memories make.

To Sleep

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Then you laid me down to sleep

In cotton coddled

For sweet dreams ‘til my eyes open

Thus days and nights wrap round the world

‘Till now I lay you down to sleep

In linens layered

But on your eyes I place a token

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #156

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight Mish hosts at the pub and wants us to “wrap” things up in a quadrille.

A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “wrap”, or some form of the word, in your poem.

Loving You In Silence

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Loving you in silence

Is seeing you so much
Talking with you so often
And yet knowing
For you there is nothing to say
Or anything to see
Of me at all

Loving you in silence

Is watching
Your heart grow fonder
For someone else
And I find I am honestly
Wishing you happiness
As the tears
I’d never cry without
Fall hard within

Loving you in silence

Is seeing the light of your smile
Shining so brightly
As we chat about the future
And that when you say “we”
You will never mean “us”

Loving you in silence

Is knowing the chance
Of what might have been
Is forever overshadowed
By the reality
Of what will never be
Loving you in silence

Is realizing
It is what it is
Because sometimes
The only way to hold on
Is to let go
And I can finally
Move on

Amicable

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Faces
To sun
It’s over, done
We cheer and root
Grabbing all the Absolute

Long
We’ve waited
How we’ve anticipated
For this fine date
All the ways we’d celebrate

The
Finalized papers
Turn to vapors
All troubles we carried
Much better friends than married

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #155—Let’s Celebrate

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Merril hosts at dVerse and wants us to “celebrate” in a quadrille.

Some couples do celebrate their divorce amicably.

A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “celebrate”, or some form of the word, in your poem.

Memento Moirai

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From Clotho’s components
All those moments

This life is made, with intangible string
My traits and gait by Fate compiled
A certain butterfly is already on the wing
I emerge from the cocoon voicing the wild

Thread in Lachesis clime
Will be lost in time

When born the days ahead seem vast
Each stich becomes a memory vapor
Yet all too soon those years are past
I voice them all, on pixels, on paper

Of Atropos’ domain
Like tears in rain

I must go in for the fog is rising
My words will speak for me beyond the snuff
Always verbally enterprising
Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: words of departure

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Laura Bloomsbury tends the bar and invites us to write a “deathbed,” poem with the inclusion of a quote from a selection provided. Typical of Muse – using just “a” quote wasn’t an option.

The following are in my take on the prompt where Fate/Moira may control my body but my voice will live on.

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain”
-Roy Batty, Blade Runner
“A certain butterfly is already on the wing.”
-Vladimir Nabokov
“I must go in for the fog is rising”
-Emily Dickinson
“Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
-Karl Marx