Category Archives: dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Whispers From Erato

Posted on by
16

Muse whispering warriors ear

Take me now; I have need
Lexis to which I must heed

Ethereal whisper in my ear
Diaphanous sight before my eyes
Gossamer touch against my skin

The first preface to our prologue
Vellum void of phrase and prose

Let me bathe you in ballad
Let me shower you in sestina
Let my sweet imagery of nothing
Become your metaphor of everything

Let your periphrasis wrap me in symbolisms
Let your euphemisms surround me in similes
Let our soul be one for the discourse of rhythm
for the dialogue of reason, for the diction of rhyme

Let us fall down in the shadow of the valley of meter
Let us rise up on the rock of ages and iambs
Let us bask in the most of incremental repetition
Until only the onomatopoeia of our couplet is left

Diamante drops on parchment and papyrus
The final edict to our epilogue

Gossamer touch against my skin
Diaphanous sight before my eyes
Ethereal whisper in my ear

Lexis to which I must heed
Take me now; I have need

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Who’s your Muse?

Today Ingrid tends bar and invites us to choose our muse. I choose Erato, muse of love poetry and lyric poetry to let her sweet whispers scream everything. For when she  has need to speak I take heed to listen, and write… 

The Day She Rises

Posted on by
20

shnikt, shnikt

Metal strikes mineral in rhythmic space.

shnikt, shnikt

She is a lean shadow, sat alone. Silent tears shed blending into the briny tide that approach and recede her salt licked feet. Only saline tracks that frame her cheeks tell tale they existed.

Dawn chains to dusk, none saw her arrive, nor leave.

shnikt,

She has just been… there…

shnikt, shnikt,

Stone in one hand, blade in the other is no game or dream for her

shnikt,

We watch and wonder what on Earth caused this refrain

I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Words unspoken yet heard by all nonetheless

Not what they seem, the tears screen not her melancholy, but her rage

shnikt, shnikt

And all we know is: the day she rises will lead to the night someone falls

shnikt, shnikt

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Prosery: Finding Ms. Zora Neale Hurston

Today Lisa introduces the pub to one of my favorite writers, Zora Neale Hurston and challenges us to write a piece of prose that is no longer than 144 words, sans title, and must include the line “I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” from Hurston’s “How Does it Feel to be Colored Me” in World Tomorrow (1928). This can be flash fiction, nonfiction, or creative nonfiction, but it must be prose!

The Sunday Whirl | Wordle 510

refrain, lead, shed, dream, frame, space, recede, seem, screen, game, lean, chain

MLMM Sunday Writing Prompt, July 18/21 – The Quiet One

There

Posted on by
19

There in the shadows of the night
There within the glow of city lights
There are many things that can affright
There are just as many that excite

There, a riot is about to ignite
There in the shadows of the night
There, helicopters with floodlights
There, to televise the blight

There, someone chooses wrong over right
There, someone catches the wrong person’s sight
There in the shadows of the night
There, pray battles prey come stroke of midnight

There, under a sky dark and finite
There, where the moon is the only light
There, secret lovers meet to unite
There in the shadows of the night

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub Tenth Anniversary |
Meet the bar with Chant poetry

Tonight as we continue to celebrate the Tenth Anniversary here at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn prompts us to use our voices in a chant.

Here in a mix of a-starting with the same word as opening rhyme and b- closing each line in a tight monorhyme, I also revisit the Quartern form for an assist.


My Words

Posted on by
28

I’m stripped soul-naked standing bare
To a universe made of blank paper
Its mocking nakedness haunts me
Seductively taunts me with its vapor

I see my words as pieces of my deepest soul
Shattered apart in my passions throes
Then brought together in a multi-hued mosaic
A stained glass window, if you will, of prose

My words reaching through time with voices of one from long ago
My words reaching for the vernacular of the street griot, ya kno’

Words lose me in the folds of its scripts
And lets me discover myself yet again
Words listen to me when no one else wants to
Words speaks to me in a way no one else can

Sometimes my words scroll across my monitor
To let me say what I want to say
Sometimes I resort to pen and paper,
To express my words in some other way

It sometimes scares me to the core, being so beholden to such
I’m scared of being pushed away, I care for my words so much

Yes, I cater to word’s selfish lusts
It’s a call I’ll always heed
Words give off a satisfaction
That’s almost carnal in need

But lately my words are not happy
With the scratch of the mighty pen
There’s this new desire to be heard
And it’s a most frightening yen

Paper no longer holds them, my words have something to say
But in the excitement to be heard, my words get in their own way

I risk the bleat of my vocals failing
Changing the meanings I devise
Yes, my words on paper are lovely
My words from my voice are otherwise

But words have trusted me all this time
In the handling of its care
Spoken word is the natural evolution
If only I take up the dare

So, I put my trust in my words, as it puts in me alike
I take a prayer and a breath and step up to this mic

dVerse Poets Pub graphic


dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Take a risk!

Tricia at dVerse challenges us to explore the theme of risk. Whether it is tackling difficult subjects or laying bare a personal struggle in vivid detail, exploring a new writing form that you may find “risky” or unconventional; perhaps the risk we take falling in love.

Write on any topic as long the word “risk” is used,

The Beginning of The End

Posted on by
14

She sat among her own.

Around her were other historians of the old, the ancient, in spoken word alone. Some old, some young, all in awe of the hoarfrost woman, the eldest of the griots.

Eyes of stone that easily flashed in compliments or condemnations, were a study in consternation as she gazed among those gathered. Especially the young who dared challenge their way.

“Only mouths are we who sings the distant heart which safely exists in the center of all things!”

Bent and cane dependent, she moved boldly nonetheless to the youngest among them and held out a gnarled, aged hand.  He had tried to hide the offending item he carried, but as always, she knew.  

He handed her the scroll. Their history on vellum.

He saw it as the beginning.

She knew it for what it was: the beginning…

…of their end.

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Prosery: Here’s the thing about existing

At dVerse Sanaa tends bar and welcomes us to another round of Prosery where we are asked to write a very short piece of prose that tells a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end, in any genre of our choice.

Since it is a kind of Flash Fiction, there is a limit of 144 words. It must include a complete line from a poem in the story, within the word limit.

Punctuation can be changed, but it is not allowed to subract or insert words in between parts of the original quotation.

This week’s quote:

“Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart which safely exists in the center of all things?” – from Rainer Maria Rilke, “Heartbeat.”

The Castle Keep

Posted on by
24

My steed rides roughly through the loam
We’ve traveled very wide and far
Battle weary but still on par
For all the road I’ve yet to roam
The longest road the first step home

The portion to right unjust wrong
The cost to our men’s lives was steep
The pride we sow we humbly reap
The battle fought was hard and long
Tales that become folklore and song

Glad it’s all done should truth be told
I contemplate my latest scar
Hopeful my queen forgives the mar
Small price to pay her gentle scold
To see the face I long to hold

A winter’s storm slows our advance
All far travels have their own cost
As we lose more men to the frost
My men look to me for guidance
I cannot waver in my stance

Though my own mood be very drear
It’s I alone who holds their hope
It’s by my lead I know they cope
The last goal twixt what we hold dear
My men let loose a hearty cheer

I may yet enter in a tome
The sight of the valley’s green sweep
And just ahead the Castle Keep
The wind becomes our wild mane’s comb
The shortest road the last step home

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Exploring the Narrative Voice

Ingrid tends the bar at dVerse Poets and challenges us to write a poem in the voice of a fictional character. It can be any character. One can introduce the character in one’s own voice, but the main body of the poem must be in the voice of the character. It can be a dramatic monologue, or create a spirit voice through whom the poem speaks. The challenge is to experiment with fictional storytelling in the poem.

I’ve gone all medieval king returning home at the end of a battle.

She Tells Him

Posted on by
26

Standing there by the old fence
She sure is a pretty sight
He forgot just how her eyes do shine
Under the bright sun light
He ain’t seen her in over month
Truth be told not since that night
And he knows the call bringing him here
Can’t be for something right

She tells him the baby is yours
And he knows she ain’t lying
Inside her a life slowly grows
But inside him he’s slowly dying
Being a dad at seventeen
Wasn’t part of his plan
A baby makes him a father
But it don’t make him a man

She leans against the old fence
Not enjoying the cooling breeze
The silence between them is deafening
It’s not meant for times like these
She remembers how he held her close that night
How he made her weak in the knees
Not this distance she feels now standing next to him
Like she’s got some kind of disease

She tells him the baby is yours
And he knows she ain’t lying
She should be happy about this life that grows
But she’s on the verge of crying
Being a mom at sixteen
Wasn’t part of her plan
A baby makes her a mother
But it don’t make her a woman

He’s thinking how two together
Can sometimes add another one
She’s thinking she can’t raise herself
Let alone a daughter or a son
Both want to stand their own ground
Both of them want to run
And neither wants to dare to think
What the other thinks should be done

If he offers his hand would she be his wife
And somehow together maybe make a life
Or let it be something that they just let go
The distant dreams only the two of them will know
She tells him the baby is yours
And he knows she ain’t lying
No matter what they decide
Its knot that’s never untying

Having a child in their teens
Wasn’t part of their plan
A baby makes them parents
But she’s a long way from a woman,
And he’s a long way from a man

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse Poets Pub | Open Link Night

dVerse Poets Pub | Open Link Night #291

Today Mish tends the bar for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets where there are no prompts. Post the poem you want.

National Poetry Month Day 29 in a narrative mood.

Could Not Conceive Such

Posted on by
20

Tears flow with delight
Forgiven are the pains of labor
From the tender life so sweet
Of the new born in her arms
A baby she never thought
One like her would ever greet

~ Because they could not conceive such ~

A time in which the sunlight
He used to once savor
Would ever be forgotten
Living for centuries with such qualms
A creature of the dark sought
The warm rays of dawn now verboten

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Build a Bridge

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Build a Bridge

Tonight at dVerse Merrill asks us to build a bridge of sorts with the Puente form or to write a poem about bridges.

The Puente

In a Puente (Spanish for bridge), the first and third stanzas must have the same number of lines, but there is no set number of lines, as long as the two stanzas match. They can be rhymed or unrhymed. The bridge line is one single line connecting the first and third stanzas. The last line of the first stanza and the bridge line are a couplet, and the bridge line and the first line of the third stanza are a couplet. The bridge line then often connects stanzas written from different points of view or about different ideas.
It sounds more complicated than it is, but it really is not. Two stanzas with a middle line that connects them.

I bridge rhyming Puente of a woman celebrating the birth of her newborn with a vampire longing for the dawn.

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 28

Some Shade of Blue

Posted on by
20

I would need some time, to give it its due,
It’s a daunting thing you ask of me.
The seas are more than just some shade of blue

Oh, how would I render such a vibrant hue,
When seas reach the shore at dawn? At three?
I’d need some time, to give it its due.

In colors cleaved only with God’s imbue, 
This palette of mine must try to decree.
The seas are more than just some shade of blue.

There are whitecapped curls of waves to construe 
As they crash against the rocks prettily.
I’d need some time, to give it its due.

Certainly more time than you’d think it’s true. 
Shades vaster than the horizons to see.
Yes, I’d need some time, to give it it’s due.
The seas are more than just some shade of blue.

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse Poets Pub | Open Link Night

dVerse Poets Pub | Open Link Night

Today Lillian remodels as she tends the bar for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Open Link Night where there are no prompts. Everyone can post ONE poem of their choosing. No particular format, topic, etc.. Post the poem you want.

Tonight I offer a Villanelle

Doorbell

Posted on by
17

Doorbell ~ Raivenne

She greets me with each new dawn
Much like my doorbell loud to sing
We pick a cardinal point to walk
See the morn – for noon will bring
reminders that in this masked new world
the year passes in its usual swing
I sit until dusk – no points met
For a silenced doorbell cannot ring

Flood ~ T’ao  Chien

“The lingering clouds, rolling, rolling,
And the settled rain, dripping, dripping,
In the Eight Directions—the same dusk.
The level lands—one great river.
Wine I have, wine I have:
Idly I drink at the eastern window.
Longingly—I think of my friends,
But neither boat nor carriage comes.“

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics
China – Kingdom of the Poem

Tonight, at dVerse Poets Laura tends bar and reminds us that today, April 20th, is UN Chinese Language Day. Thus, we are challenged to re-interpret an original Chinese (translated) poem in our own style and try not to use too much of the original poem’s wording. I chose “Flood” by Tao Chien, whose ending lines of longing for friends brought to mind those missing friends and family lost this past year due to the pandemic.

In addition, I chose to re-interpret the poem in the Chinese LUSHI style:

  • eight lines long of couplets – The first couplet should set-up the poem; the middle two couplets develop the theme, the final couple is conclusion
  • each line must have the same number of words, either 5,6, or 7.
  • a mono-rhyme is on every even numbered line
  • Caesura (a pause) should separate clauses.