Just Because…

Just because I no longer
stand in front of your eyes
doesn’t mean you can’t see me
close them,
I am there

Just because I no longer
answer when you call my name
doesn’t mean you can’t hear me,
speak softly, listen carefully
there is my voice

Just because I can no longer
touch your hands
doesn’t mean you can’t feel me,
hold on to another,
my arms are there

Just because I am no longer there
to show you I love you
doesn’t mean my love is gone,
Place your hand on your heart,
feel its beat
I am there

Know that I am with God

Know that God is with you

And in that we are still with each other

Just because…


Day eight of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

In The Moment

The silence was loud – A cacophony
In the moment felt after – Their two hearts beating as one
What once was – scattered – What it now collects
So beyond what could have been – In the moment of his kiss
When he marked her with a smack – That she returns it in kind


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dVerse Poets Pub : MTB: Cleaving to Antonyms in Contrapuntal Lines

Tonight, Laura is hosting this week where we are challenged to cleave antonyms in a contrapuntal poem.

Here I play with the ending and the beginning of a relationship, tenses and use of the word smack a bit of a contranym itself.

Choosing from a collection of opposing word pairs as a prompt. We must then write two distinct poems, while including the chosen words somewhere in the body of each poem and then combine as one larger composition as either a Contrapuntal, Cleave or Reverso form.

When looking up examples of the above poetry form I realized I knew of another form which aso fit the desired theme perfectly and offer a Super Tanka.


Day seven of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

House of Mourning

Tears stop just short of flowing down
So silent remains my grief
Buried deep in the mundane of simply living
Far from the shores of relief

Still I wear so clumsily the my mask of norm
Designed to hide the depth of the moaning well
My true face of sorrow is exposed around the edges
All those around me can tell

I claim this brooding on my own
It is my desire
I am not yet prepared to unburden this load
And none dare to inquire

It is not my wish to dwell in this house of mourning
Sleep soundly in this bed of pain
But as long as my heart closets these lamentations
Locked shall its doors remain


Day six of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

It’s Good To Know

This love thing
Wasn’t my calling
Sentiment
Not a thing I could stand
Yet you right zoomed in
So enthralling
Put a wrench
To my solo life planned
And though
I haven’t finished falling,
It’s good to know
It’s with you where I’ll land


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #173: Zoom Poems

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

on Quadrille Monday De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) had us zooming around the history of a humble four letter word that, in the beginning, literally sounded like something fast and exciting – like race cars. Thanks to Covid, the word has also become somewhat synonymous with a slow dreadful thing to be avoided – like online office meetings.

As such we’re being asked to Zoom our way around a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “Zoom”.

Here my mind zooms in completely different direction than my previous quadrille.


Day five of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

With Just One Little


Several long years in the void of

Living on the brink in frightment

Of an orange-haired menace destroyed of

Any enlightenment

But now Karma’s been employed of

Things, yes, I’m zooming in delightment

Petty in my schadenfreude

With just one little word Indictment


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #173: Zoom Poems

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday on Quadrille Monday De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) had us zooming around the history of a humble four letter word that, in the beginning, literally sounded like something fast and exciting – like race cars. Thanks to Covid, the word has also become somewhat synonymous with a slow dreadful thing to be avoided – like online office meetings.

As such we’re being asked to Zoom our way around a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “Zoom”

Day four of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

I Know In The Morning You’ll Walk Away

This is the bend before the break.
This is the mercy not the grace.
This is the proof and not the faith I try to find.
There shouldn’t be a good in goodbye.
–Jason Walker / Shouldn’t Be A Good in Goodbye

The night beautiful and starry
Then you pull me close – whisper I’m sorry
And something inside begins to shake
For I know in the morning you’ll walk away
It’ll only hurt more if I ask you to stay
And this is more than I can take
This is the bend before the break

It’s not what’s meant by ‘till death us do part’
When the thing that’s dead is your heart
But I see the nothing left in your face
So when you tell me it will be okay
I know in the morning you’ll walk away
Leaving me in the pain for time to erase
This is the mercy not the grace

This is not how it I want it to be
My heart shattered all around me
The loosened knot of the ties that bind
I know in the morning you’ll walk away
You tell me, I’ll be fine again someday
And it is a truth that’s most unkind
This is the proof and not the faith I try to find

Even though we it’s far from right
When I let you stay for one last night
You hold me with love, that I know is a lie
And there’s not a damn thing left to say
When I know in the morning you’ll walk away
So when the dawn and I break, I don’t cry
There shouldn’t be a good in goodbye


Day 3 of National Poetry Writing Month

I play around with an untraditional glosa

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

Chipped Away

Never one for romances
I was blinded to arrive
Apart from old advances
By time’s sweetest contrive

You chipped at the iciness
That fear had given quarter
Revealing warm spiciness
Under this cold heart’s mortar

With twin hearts now emblazing
Gave no choice but to sever
The cold to the amazing
This love so dear so clever


Day 2 of National Poetry Writing Month I bring you an Ae Freislighe poem

The Ae Freislighe (ay fresh-lee) is an old poetic form from Ireland. It has a quatrain stanzas (4-line stanzas) of only 7 syllables per line. What makes is interesting (and somewhat frustrating) is its rhyme scheme.

Lines 1 and 3 rhyme together, but they rhyme as three syllables (xxa)
Lines 2 and 4 rhyme together as two syllables (xb)

A unique element of the form is that the final syllable of the poem should be the same rhyme as the very first syllable of the poem. (Yes, I cheated here – rhyming the word, not the syllable. It said should not must – shoot me.)

An Ae Freislighe poem can be as concise as one stanza, or scale out as far as a poet wishes.

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

Not Waste It

I
Do sense
Here and now
This first bright spark
I shall not waste it

You
Also
Know the gods
This moment touched
You will not waste it

We
Now one
Deep feeling
This sacredness
We do not waste it


I kick off National Poetry Writing Month with an Arun, as I have done these past few years, in honor of the fiend (<– not a misspell), and creator of this poetic form – GirlGriot, who first got me into this yearly challenge.

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one syllable with each line. 1/2/3/4/5 — 3x. There are no other rhyme or structural requirements.

National Poetry Writing Month
20 years of 30 poems in 30 days

Stolen

The memory of it still lingers
Like sticky nectar on our fingers
Made the more so in summer’s heat
From the vain attempts to sluice
Our chins of honeyed peaches juice
But in a moment replete
Under the fading eye of Sol
We heed the thrill to shun control
The stolen kiss even more sweet

summer kiss

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dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: Prelude to a Kiss

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

Today at dVerse the challenge from Kim (Kim881), is to write a poem about kissing, a special kiss that still haunts you, a peck, a snog, a kiss hello or a kiss goodbye. Whatever it is, try to capture the wordless intimacy of the act.

And this stolen kiss comes via the Nove Otto

The Nove Otto poetry form  is a nine-lined poem with 8 syllables per line (isosyllabic). The rhyme scheme is as follows: aabccbddb

How Do I Remember You Today?

How do I remember you today?

Faded ribbons holding memories
Twirling the colors between my fingers

Indigo as the night you first touched me just so

Scarlet as the blood pulsing through my veins
When I went from being your woman to being your wife
Perhaps the white as the fresh made snowball in sunlight
That I waited until I was inside the house to throw

Faded ribbons holding memories

Maybe the orange of the summer tiger lilies
You didn’t think could I grow in our yard
Oh, the lush green for the fresh-cut lawn
I had to teach you how to mow

Twirling the colors between my fingers

Perhaps the rich deep brown of steak
Well done as you loved, but I abhorred
Then there’s the aqua as crystal clear
As the waters of our Caribbean cruises

Or the slate of the morn I became your widow

Twirling the colors between my fingers
Faded ribbons holding memories

How do I remember you today?

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dVerse Poets Pub : Meeting The Bar: Memento

This week Grace has us Meeting the Bar via mementos. Either as the poetry form itself or in a free style poetry with a theme of memento, using symbolism as a poetic device.