Today on Quadrille Monday, Dee (WhimsyGizmo), prompts us to go boldly and boldly go with 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 “bold” or a form thererod in your poem.
Yesterday on Quadrille Monday, Mish, got her sugar rush on at the bar and invited us to put a sweet spin to quadrille.
I also cheat a little in that my quadrille is also what I’ll call an Extended Arun. A nonce poem created by blogger GirlGriot, 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. Here I added an extra stanza to meet the 44 word Quadrille requirement.
Le petite mort, for those who may be unfamiliar with the term, literally translates to “the little death”. It is an expression in modern usage refers specifically to the sensation of post orgasmic afterglow that is as often likened to death.
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
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.
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.
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.
The fresh scent of lawn anywhere Can sometimes take me there Magnolia wafting on morningbreeze 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
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.
The alarm goes off and I reach for you When I hold you close, just like I used to do My heart listens for your sounds in the air then Before my head catches up, that they won’t be there again Some habits are just harder to kill And my heart breaks against my will
Every morn I wake that you’re not here It’s a struggle to not shed that first tear Another day without you It’s time for me to fly – I have not wings A nightingale with no desire to sing Another day without you
All these feelings I hide from folks each day. Falling in line with the games people play I just go through the motions of daily living, Hoping no one sees through the performance I’m giving When it’s the wind that mocks your gentle touch Or the storm of your kiss that I’m missing so much
Every mourn I wake, and I do mean mourn I try to anchor my thoughts, but I’m still too worn Another day without you It’s time for me to fly – and someday I might But right now this heart’s too heavy for flight Another day without you
In the morning I wake and sob in the lonely air Too many times I cry how it’s unfair It’s so unfair
Knew when we took the vows of man and wife That it would truly be for the rest of our life The calendar still holds the dates of the things planned From one winter to the next of activities spanned Because I thought there’d be more of life with you I’m alive, but this is not living without you
Every morn I wake and face the dawn A part of me is surprise how I breathe on Another day without you It’s time for me to fly – But I stay prone The sky’s a lonely place here on my own Another day without you
All that I need is time
To smooth these nipped edges
How much more can I take
I’m living a nightmare
While standing here awake
All that I need is time
To help me muddle through
These dreams of yesterday
Like popsicles in sun
They come then melt away
All that I need is time
You're still very much here
Not like I have much choice
Each breeze ignites your touch
As the wind holds your voice
All that I need is time
Just take it day by day
Small comforts slowly grow
Nothing lasts forever
This urgent pain will go
The Monchielle is a poem that consists of four five-line stanzas where the first line repeats in each verse. Each line within the stanzas consist of six syllables, and lines three and five rhyme.
Most males, especially over 50 are familiar with the semi-joking “I could’ve been rich, but my mother threw away all my (fill in the blank)”. I say men because in the 80’s-90’s the majority of baseball cards/comic collectors were males. It certainly was surprise, to my late-husband when he learned I had become a reader of them in the mid to late-80s. I knew I was a rarity among my friends, a girl who was into comics, my favorite being Marvel’s X-Men series. Yes, I wanted to be Storm – what female into comics didn’t?
I enjoyed the art and the stories, but I was not a collector. I did not purchase with the intent to collect. Still, there were some that I kept for whatever reason. The ones I chose to keep were properly cased in plastic sleeves with backing board. Regrettably, doing so with comics was not a thing when my late-husband was a boy buying them. It was not until he saw me preserving mine that I learned he had comics of his own stacked in box at the back of a closet. He saw how I protect mine, he chose not to go through his and they stayed in their box. A box I did not look in until our third move. Let’s just say when I finally opened that box for the first time I was glad I wore gloves, a good two-thirds of what was in that box was trashed. We did not try to salvage it. As for what was left? Aged, yellow pages, dog-eared pages, cockling, etc. This was the 90s, AOL was still mailing mini-CDs; the Internet had taken off, but it was not the monster we have now. There was no no way to determine the value, if any, of what we had without dragging the entire collection to comics retailer. That never happened. The box was repacked with his hodge-podge of Captain America, Daredevil, Ku Fu Masters et al, and my Spawn and X-Men where they remain untouched through three more moves until yesterday.
Yesterday, I mentioned that I spent the evening going through my comic collection. I say ‘comic collection’ with a massive grain a of salt considering the condition of most of what’s in it and I was not the most conscientious of collectors. Essentially, I finally grouped them by proper title and number. Where 30 years ago I would have had to drag them to a store, last night I used my phone to check the value of a few. There are many I know I bought back in the day, but I was the mom that dumped. However, an unexpected gem, or few, have survived…
X-Men #266
One day back in August 1990 I became the owner of Marvel comic’s The Uncanny X-Men #266. I spent one whole whopping dollar for the privilege. I know it’s not in pristine condition 9.8 on their grade scale, but it is a decent 7.0 one. At minimum I would get $100 for it according to a random website I checked even if booted down to a quality of 6.0. I have learned that if I had purchased this issue at a newsstand or retailer rather than the comic subscription service I had at the time would be worth. I’d love to know the logic behind that, but whatever.
The banker box of comics that has existed for nearly twenty years in my possession is now gone. All comics are properly categorized in a filing cabinet. I haven’t gone through each comic and researched their values. Of the random few I checked I know I could pay rent for a couple of months, so that was cool. That’s a project for another, knowing me sunny, day.
At 4pm one year ago today, I walked out of my place of employment without a clue as to when I would return. My boss literally said the words “Don’t come back here tomorrow.” The pandemic had hit, we went into emergency mode and my unit was one that would be working from home. My agency is twenty-four hours. There were/are units that continue to come in. There was no way around it, some services must be handled in person, even in the midst of a pandemic.
That translated to even though the City quarantined, and masks, hand washing/sanitizing and social distancing became de rigueur, on occasion my work wife and I would have to come to the office. It was part necessity and part breaking up what had quickly become the monotony of being cooped home. However, as the weather got cold, every couple of weeks became, once a month and once a month became we have not stepped foot in my office since the very first week of January.
We knew we were entering a ghost town with the barest amount of personnel, so dressing for ‘work’ had fallen by the wayside for my work-wife. I would not wear a full out suit, but I wore slacks and blouses, in my mind it’s the office. Still, we may have visited the office a maximum of fifteen times in this past year. It has dawned to me, now that people are being vaccinated, I suspect my office may reopen by the end of spring. Whether it will return to a full week or some split schedule is undetermined as of yet, as the City as a whole is excruciatingly, but definitely emerging into a new semblance of normal.
I’ve lived in mostly jeans and t-shirts. My wardrobe, work or otherwise, has barely been used in the past year; that is going to change. I know there are clothes in my closet that have not seen the light since Winter 2019. I am not going to lie, I have gained the Covid 20+ and I am not looking forward to going through some of my clothes. And while I admit to the retail therapy I’ve done in the interim, it’s not going to be pretty for some of my wardrobe. Not to mention, 0I have not worn proper shoes in over a year. Can I even walk in my low work heels anymore?
After a year of various levels of quarantine, I am looking forward to regularly seeing friends and (certain), colleagues again, dining in restaurants, going to concerts and movies and Broadway! Above all, I am looking forward to travelling again. Other than a weekend jaunt to Philadelphia last November, I have not left my fair City since I returned from Cuba in spring of 2019. In the words of Lenny Kravitz: I want to get away – I want to fly away – yeah – yeah- yeah
Still, I find myself conflicted. Am I ready for real clothes, five days a week again? After a year of pretty much living in Hermitsville, am I ready for the noise… the people(!)? As much as I am looking forward to being out and about once more am I ready for the world again?
Raivenne-lations 