He on my left knows about
She on my right
Both know of yet another
But none touch the other day or night
Yet they all touch me
Soft and free
It’s a multiple
But shared love we’ve got
Our polycule
in a pseudoknot
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Tonight on dVerse Mish challenges us to get our Quadrille all in a knot. With the added incentive of “I dare you to use pseudoknot.” Naturally, I had to take that dare head on.
This Flash Back Friday where I revisit and share a post from the past on this day brings us to a poem I originally penned in 2013, “The Life”. It was written using the glosa poetry form where you take a stanza from another poet and use their lines to create a poem of your own. [There is a little more to it and you can read the rules here if interested: how to write a Glosa.] It is one of my favorite forms to use as I enjoy creating works that go in a different path from the source material.
My poem was based from the opening verse of the song “Moon Over Bourbon Street“, by Gordon Sumner. If the title seems familiar to some, but not the author’s name; it is because most of the world knows him by his stage name: Sting. Yes, that Sting, as in Sting and The Police.
There’s a moon over Bourbon Street tonight
I see faces as they pass beneath the pale lamplight
I’ve no choice but to follow that call
The bright lights, the people, and the moon and all
Gordon Sumner (Sting) / Moon Over Bourbon Street
Everyone seems to be in easy mode
The corner’s quiet on this autumn’s eve
Despite the first cuts of winter’s cold
It’s happy smiles folks give and receive
Setting a mood that makes me bold
And my protector has me in his sight
On the off chance all is not as should be
And he may have to come rescue me
But I know everything’s going to be all right
There’s a moon over Bourbon Street tonight
Casting a cool light on this patch of street
I start to flirt with some and have my say
But walking in the sun is a different deceit
The base rules change in the light of day
I’m not acknowledged by all whom I meet
I know they know who I am, as they nod so polite
Those men pretending they don’t know my name
And the wives who avert their head just the same
Knowing their husbands are just faces in my night
I see faces as they pass beneath the pale lamplight
Yes, I’m paid for the need of my company
And more often than not, paid quite well
I aim to please after all you see
But I remember when things weren’t so swell
At the beginning of this life for me
Like babies, before I could run, I had to crawl
Now I choose just how my night is spent
But the truth of lies lay evident
When my pockets hold no cash at all
I’ve no choice but to follow that call
For all the company I have I am still alone
And I watch time shorten the length of my employ
I was young when I started and now I’m grown
I slowly prepare for when I’m past giving joy
But tonight, tonight my love’s my own
On nights like this I’m standing ten feet tall
Pretending I’m just like any other in the park
Out on the town for another evening’s lark
Just another guy walking in the leaves of fall
The bright lights, the people, and the moon and all
The story goes that the inspiration for the song was reading Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. However, it was the haunting visual of a person walking alone at night under street lamps in the lyrics that took flight in my mind. This above poem was the result. No vampires in this night.
In yesterday’s slice I briefly mentioned how my being a little cheeky while on the phone is what made me memorable and saved me some grief when getting my first vaccination dose. When the guy I spoke to on the phone saw me in person, his expression was one I’ve seen often. The quickly hidden surprise that the intelligent and funny woman on the phone is one with purple hair, who wore a Sherlock Holmes tee-shirt, jeans and rainbow mandala printed combat boots, also had a melanin enriched complexion. While the back-handed assumption it conveys annoys me, I am also always amused at shaking that assumption on their part.
It made me happy to discover this particular piece is what came up as my Flashback Friday as it also shook an assumption. I remember the first time I posted this, I had taken a couple of the readers by surprise with the second to the last line. One reader admitted to having his preconceived stereotype of the storyteller’s gender ‘jolted’. I liked that. Did I catch you off guard with that reveal as well?
You call me to lie in the fragrance *
Of the scent of those who only care
To lay odious privilege in the ways
That their pale puffs of new smoke
Ignore the long burning dark fumes
Of those who barely dreamed to dare
The dreams never given a chance
To lay odious claim in the ways
The scent of those who care
For traditions of their halcyon centuries
When their words were held as the only
Voices that ever had the means to say
What was yours to keep, not ours to share
That their pale puffs of new smoke
Ignore the long burning dark fumes
Of the peaceful conflagrations of the tired
Who’ve long held the raisining to explode**
Against those that desire their sweet past resumes
In a future in whose vile stench we’re again choked
For those who barely dreamed to dare
The dreams never given a chance
For we citizens who like you, are born here or immigrated
Still find ourselves the ones on the side alienated
Don’t be surprised upon return to where you’ve called me to lie
Quietly with nose wrinkled and looks askance
That I’m brave enough to be, to see, to rise from there ***
* Line was inspired from the last line of Season of Lilac by D. Margoshes
** Line inspired by the poem, Harlem by Langston Hughes
*** Line inspired by the last line of The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman
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Tonight at dVerse Laura Bloomsbury wants us Beginning at the End. We are offered several ending lines from select poems to be our muse for a new work of our own. We are asked to preferably not use the offered lines verbatim as the title or within the writing itself but either cite the reference at the end or place the quote as distinct Epigraph at the top. Naturally, Muse goes a little above and beyond and reference three poems.
dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Beginning at the End
Each square is story
Sentences in stiches
Pillow tucked paragraphs
Chapters of meandering memories
Lockstitch a life
My life
Started by one old hand
At my beginning
Passed through other hands
While I was busy
Finished with my old hand
To blanket my end
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Tonight at dVerse Merrill has the feel of autumn and wants to be blankest in a quadrille, a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered and must include some form of the prompt word – blanket.
dVerse Poets Pub | Quadrille #113: Blanket Us
Squiggles on a screen/in the dark night
time the path of my travel/there lays a stillness between
lines that do not take/the distance of us
into account the beating/that is guiding the silence
of my warm heart already there/at home so close yet so far
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Having another go at a (Super) Tanka
Colleen’s 2020 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday
#Poetry Challenge No. 192, #Themeprompt : Map
The
Blue skies and
Warm colors belie
The first hint of autumn days.
Pause.
Stop.
Acquire
A quiet moment.
Life encourages this soft
Path.
Time
Will again
Invoke its magic.
Next dash of eternity –
Poof!
Wallow in
A chance to marvel
The ebb and flow of breeze; be
Touched.
Give
This its due
What will be – will be
Change is the only constant,
Breathe.
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Today’s form is a Crown Oddquain
Tonight Linda tends bar at dVerse where on this day 58 years ago The Rolling Stones released “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and tonight happens to be Open Link Night.
dVerse Poets Pub| Open Link Night : On This Day
In the early hours
As the dawn does rise
Rain had fallen deep
As I lay in sleep
And soaked the dark earth
Awake now I breathe
The petrichor scent
Deep in the city
A moment of Zen
My window garden
Belies urban sprawl
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dVerse Poets Pub | Quadrille: How Does Your Garden Grow?
At dVerse Victoria wants to know about our gardens in a quadrille.
A Quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title. The poem must contain the prompt word for the challenge: Garden.
And because Muse likes to combine challenges I wrapped the Quadrille in a Tableau. (Or is that wrapped the Tableau in a Quadrille? You decide.)
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie| Saturday Mix – Lucky Dip, 8 August 2020
For this week’s Lucky Dip, the mystery bag gives us a Tableau.
The Tableau, a poetry form created by Emily Romano in October of 2008, consists of one or more verses, each having six lines. Each line should have five beats. There is no set rhyme scheme, although rhyme may be present. The title should contain the word tableau.
I with heart of night
Now reach for the sun
With revered delight
Oh, sweet baby girl
This is what you’ve done
Welcome to the world
Baby you’re the best
It is not bias
This I can attest
Oh, sweet baby girl
My love most pious
Welcome to the world
My soul you’ve laid bare
And redefined love
All I have I share
Oh, sweet baby girl
Stuff dreams are made of
Welcome to the world
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Double dipping with two challenges this weekend:
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie: Music Challenge
– Nobody Does It Better Week 85
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie: Saturday Mix
– Lucky Dip, 8 August 2020 – The Tableau
I am not happy
I am not angry
Nothing here to share
In this lethargy
Abject apathy
Cannot seem to care
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Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie| Saturday Mix – Lucky Dip, 8 August 2020
For this week’s Lucky Dip, the mystery bag gives us a Tableau.
The Tableau, a poetry form created by Emily Romano in October of 2008, consists of one or more verses, each having six lines. Each line should have five beats. There is no set rhyme scheme, although rhyme may be present. The title should contain the word tableau.
One dictionary states the word tableau means picture or representation; the poem should reflect this. A picture should come to mind as the poem is read.
Muse challenges with the representation of nothingness. Nothing to see here, but you can picture it.
Just once more, he begged and pleaded to her A hello and farewell tour as it were She scoffs it’s the silliest thing she’s heard And besides she’s now much too old a bird For what purpose could there possibly be To take on the burden of one like she To argue money came quickly and went Her career had made her quite affluent Nor could he argue for awards or fame Not with world-wide accolades in her name Just one more stand in the glow of limelight Doing the craft that has been her delight Ten years had passed since she last graced a screen And Broadway? Well that was a near fifteen It goes back and forth for a little while But he knows she’s in once he sees the smile That smiles that stops men even as jaded as he It was hard not to rub his hands with glee Some thought she turned a new leaf in life She brought none of the old dramas or strife A junior diva tested this new meek And learned from the curb that sweet is not weak And not a step was missed as she rehearsed Her new elegance shined as others cursed The nocturne really tested her voice Her body tired but she had no choice Once her fire’s lit she’s in for the fight And she was just fine come opening night She trusted her nerves would not let her sway As a full house harkens each word she says When that solo light shines, she feels such bliss And knows nothing, nothing will equal this The applause thunders as the curtain falls And she waits for the first of curtain calls A bouquet of taffy and red roses Greets her as she rises from her poses She laughs at the joke, both ancient and sage And waves at the giver just left of stage Exhausted but grateful she has this chance To act, to sing and yes a little dance As the light faded, she fell to the floor The diva had had her final encore She was called difficult but the best Fact to which all who knew her did attest Eulogies told with melancholy tears At the services filled with loved ones and peers Every soul there agreed that it was Fitting the last thing she heard was applause
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Tonight Lillian tends bar at dVerse Poets Pub. It’s Open Link Night, where our words are all we’re ‘just sayin’…’ | Open Link Night : Just Sayin’ . . .
Raivenne-lations 