Category Archives: Poetry

When Never Happened

Posted on by
Reply

Sunlight streaming through my window
May as well be a cloudy day
Heartache and desire chill my spine
When thoughts of never come into play

Waking next to you that morning
The epitome of everything I once dreamed
The dread of reality crashing down immediately
Making me want to cry and scream

Moving my head forward was easy,
why does my heart keep stepping back?

Ignorance is bliss it is true
What could never happen would not be so
But the morning after never – happened
And I cannot undo what I now know

The feel of you beneath me, yielding
The dance of your fingers along my spine
The wanting with every fiber of my being
All the while knowing you will never be mine

Moving my head forward was easy,
why does my heart keep stepping back?
Stepping back to never

And if I could, I’d give this all away
But a song I never thought to sing
Was given voice for some reason
Now forever a reminder of this thing

It’s a bitch knowing the gods played us
It’s too cruel of both joy and regret
And the thing is most days I’m just fine
But today I’m an unstrung marionette

Moving my head forward was easy,
why does my heart keep stepping back?
Stepping back to never,
to when never happened.

<>==========<>==========<>

Drifting on a memory

Theme Thursdays | Never

Winded

Posted on by
26

I ponder the landscape before me
The heat blistering
Vapors rising from its midst
Near blurring my view
Like steaming asphalt
On a summer day

Then winds caress its surface
A summer zephyr
Hot in its own space
Yet cooling
Compared to the craggy topography

In the near distance
I can see the drafts
Bending the haze to its will
Its passage a forgone conclusion

Or so I thought
As one harsh gust
Changes the very terrain
Blasting away all in its path

Looking from the empty fork
To the mound freshly fallen
Upon the floor
It’s just as well I think
Damn food was too hot anyway

<>==========<>==========<>

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!!

Today at dVerse, guest pubtender Kathleen Everett has prompted us to write a poem about the wind. I suspect a very hot serving of pilaf and a very hungry tummy that lead to some impatient huffing and puffing on my part, with unfortunate results, is not exactly what was meant, but hey – it works right? Right.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Winds of March

Let’s see how others are blowing their way through this 17th  day of the challenge:

8th-annualc2a0slice-of-life-story-challenge-invite

Unrequited

Posted on by
8


Can’t call a soul to my defense
The blame is mine, this wound immense
Don’t fall! Don’t fall! – sworn to uphold
The secrets of new spring leaves hold
The heart, the soul, can’t be controlled
You paint the sky with stars so bold
My vow too gone to be consoled
The secrets learned too late are cold
This love for you never is told
For to another yours is doled
Love found, yet lost, is the penance
To ache in this profound silence

<>==========<>==========<>

Because I have not done a poetic form in a while – today’s form: Duo-Rhyme (12 line)

The Duo-rhyme, is a 10 or 12-line poem, with the first two and last two lines having the same rhyme scheme, and the center of the poem (lines #3 through #8 or #10) having their own separate mono-rhyme scheme.

Meter: 8 beats per line, written in iambic tetrameter (4 linear feet of iambic)

Rhyme Scheme: 10-line: a,a,b,b,b,b,b,b,a,a  or 12-line: a,a,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,a,a

 dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Open Link Night – 144

Hello

Posted on by
1

A man smiled at me while I sat at an open café
My usual first response: to turn away
To see which woman the smile was directed to
And I think to myself “It couldn’t be you!”
For too long I’ve worn a badge of pity
Not feeling loved, needed, wanted, pretty

In the beginning my spirit was his to inhale
in the end his spirit I couldn’t exhale

My ex’s house cleaning included the parts of my self
from the years I put my own needs on the shelf
then left my empty cupboards open for all to see
Exposing validation of the unworthiness of me
I finished the job he started on my own
And turned a heart made for sharing, abandoned and alone

So ingrained was his scent in the breaths I take
I had to relearn to breathe for my own sake

Taking fresh stock of what I wanted, but not needed to be there
I surprised myself to find my pantry no longer bare
No longer blinding myself to what I needed to see
I rethink to myself “why not me?”
A fresh breath, a fresh step, a fresh peace, a fresh start
Each breath osmosis; restoring soul to the heart

I take the shades from my eyes to let them show
Turn back to my admirer and breath. “Hello”

A Moment

Posted on by
19

Can we just chill for a moment please?

Let go of our burdens big, our troubles tall
Close our eyes for a moment
Before the moment’s gone.

Just chill for a moment please.

Take the load off our shoulders
Take a deep breath to breathe
Feel the good air slide in
And your worries exhale out

Chill for a moment please.

To put our worries down
And our feet up

For a moment please.

And remember that
Life is less about what we have to lift
And more about what we find uplifting

A moment.

Please.

<>==========<>==========<>

It’ was one interesting day that started nor ended as expected. A moment was needed.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight : Week 146

 

Talk Dirty To Me

Posted on by
10

Labium
superius and inferius oris
in tumescence
release a barely discernible decibel
of languorous aural emissions

All immediately negated
with the onset of cataglottism
to labia majora and minora

The effect
a highly desirous result
in the slow cessation
of osculation

The means of reduction
to the initiating stimuli
of narratophlia
via the buccal cavity
of a pleasing nature

<>==========<>==========<>

Today at dVese we’re challenged to Systematically Derange the Language by trying one of 3 approaches Reduction, Oulipa or Surprising Conceit to create a new poem. Via a combination of Reduction and Surprising Conceit I create a piece by using dry technical phrases in a place where most writers are very fluid and verbose on the subject.

dVerse ~ Poet’s Pub | Meeting The Bar 

This Morning I Woke Up

Posted on by
14

This morning, I woke up…
To invisible hands
Covering my ears, eyes, mouth
At news of conflicts,
Sights of damage,
Speaking of war
My mother trying to protect
What’s left of the innocence within me
From the evil around me
…and picked up my pen.

This morning, I woke up…
To grit in my clothes
That no amount of shaking out
Can ever seem to set free
The fine silt of cracked walls
That permeate  the very air itself
It becomes a part of the ink
That is my bloodstream
…and picked up my pen.

This morning, I woke up…
To shattered windows,
The latest of blasts bursting the last of panes
In the former still of the night
Too much to bother cleaning then
Now a glaring hazard in the early light of dawn
Still it’s almost a relief,
No longer having to worry
About breaking what’s already gone
…and picked up my pen.

This morning, I woke up…
To wishing those invisible hands
Were still there to provide the bliss
Of the ignorance of youth
For now they know I know
And there is no going back
To the unseen, unheard, unspoken
…and picked up my pen.

This morning, I woke up…
To one hand holding a pen
The other a rifle
Pondering
Which holds more power
The one for fighting what’s without
The other to keep it from becoming
What’s within
…and picked up my pen.

This morning, I woke up…
To remember my only choice
…and picked up my pen.

This morning I woke up…
…and picked up my pen.

<>==========<>==========<>

At dVerse  we’re invited to write poetry against the world today when the outspoken are being killed. It has been a subject at the back of my mind for a while now, brought a little closer since the death of Charlie Hebdo, but with the recent deaths of Avijit Roy and Boris Nemtsov it’s moved to the front.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: Make our voices heard

<>==========<>==========<>
Also, see how others are slicing it up this month:

8th-annualc2a0slice-of-life-story-challenge-invite

So Cold

Posted on by
7

Oh so cold | my soul breaks

Your sweet warming touch | slick shards that shatter though my heart

Now fills with trepidation | the shrapnel of all your lies

Where it was once welcomed most fondly | leaves me with harsh truths

Breaks my soul | oh so cold

<>==========<>==========<>

The “Tonequain” is a poetic form created invented by Tony Meade. It is based on the classic cinquain form, then breaks it by adding an extra syllable to each line, giving a five-line poem with lines of 3, 5, 7, 9 and 3 syllables in that order. In addition where the classic has strict use of iambs, because of the odd number of syllables you cannot write an iambic poem in this form (you could try writing in dactyls, amphibrachs and/or anapaests if you want). You are free from of the iambic tyranny!

You can reverse the order of the lines, write a two stanza poem where the form of the stanzas mirror each other, or you could write a garland or even a coronet.

I had a little fun here where I wrote two Tonequains side by side. The first in 3, 5, 7, 9, 3 syllable order, the second in reverse with a 3, 9, 7, 5, 3 order. Each a Tonequin on its own, together creating a Super Tone if you will.

Enjoy

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting The Bar : The Cinquain … Expanded

Unspoken

Posted on by
7

.
.

Hello darkness, my old friend
In twisted linen wound
My sweated girth

I’ve come to talk with you again,
In screams and wails without sound
Gossamer baggage weighting me to the earth

Because a vision softly creeping,
While the sun was upward bound
Turning this soul to flameless hearth

Left its seeds while I was sleeping
Taking from my flesh its pound
For all it’s worth

And the vision that was planted in my brain
The tick- tock of my own ‘gator run aground
Mocking me in a Cheshire mirth

Still remains
In the ever-growing mound
Of compassion’s dearth

Within the sound of silence
To seethe and confound
The truth never given birth
<>==========<>==========<>

Abhra is hosting at the Poetics bar here at dVerse Poets Pub today, challenging us to talk about secrets without actually revealing any.

Using the ever familiar lyrics of Simon & Garfunkle’s “Sound of Silence”  in a modified combination of Glosa and Trireme Sonnet forms.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics : What is your secret