Empty Tableau

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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.

The Final Bow

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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
woman on stage arms out

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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’ . . .

dVerse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight Mic

No Means To Measure

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I rise up in slate – what care I of time?

Shades reflective of my soul – my heart wonders in hues felt,

Charcoal through silver – yellows through purples.

Dawn or dusk does not matter – the seconds, minutes, the hours

In the colors of mourning – are no means to measure joy.

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At dVerse, Frank Tassone, our pubtender for today’s Meeting the Bar, challenges us to delve into aesthetics of Imagism, where less verbiage is employed to produce more imagery. We’re also encouraged to use Japanese or Sappho Greek lyric to accomplish such.

I chose an ancient form of Japanese poetry called Tanka and used it as a Super Tanka.

Tanka are 31-syllable poems. In Japan, it is usually written as a straight line of characters, but in English and other Western languages, it is usually divided into five lines, with a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7.

The key to the Super Tanka form is that it is two Tanka side-by-side. Each can be read independently, yet must also work together as a whole, in effect creating three poems in one.

dVerse Poets Pub – Meeting the Bar: Imagism Revisited

dVerse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight Mic

Until Control Slips

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Suppressing a desire
For centuries commuted
Ferried about
Twixt the rage
And the frustration
Via the complication
Of our blackness unheard and unseen
Except through
Crosshairs white and blue
Until control held sage
With fury slips out
Only to be persecuted
For the fire

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dVerse ~Poets Pub Quadrille #105: Cry Havoc and Let ‘SLIP’ the Dogs of War

Tonight at dVerse Linda challenges us to write a Quadrille, is a poetic form created here at dVerse, a poem of exactly 44 words (not counting the title) and including this challenge’s prompt word: SLIP

A Flush of Release

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Given sweet release, on a sultry night
One hears the morning bird’s song, I close my eyes and breathe deep
It bans the darkness, heeding ganja’s call
Sleep a hazy memory, in the aromatic flush
Bright music waking the soul, all coherent thinking lost

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Tonight on dVerse Poets Pub Mish challenges us to flush things out in a quadrille – a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title. One of those 44 words must be the prompt – flush..

As I worked this out I realized I was on the path to creating a Super Tanka, so I just went with Muse and combined both. And being that today is 4/20 my mind naturally went to ganja’s call…

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub,
Quadrille #102 – Don’t Forget To…

Life-Chance-Death Pain-Faith

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LIFE
living
existence

one day at a time
for the rest of your time
trying to be at one's best

'because the alternative sucks'

CHANCE
fortune
in fate's hand

opportunity
it's not in your control
what turns the wheel, guides the die

'life, the moment your eyes open'

DEATH
finite
infinite

it is what it is
for as long as we're here
It's not as long as we're gone

'it is the great equalizer'

PAIN
anguish
agony

in body or soul
and oftentimes in both
you bear the unbearable

'it's what lets you know you're alive'

FAITH
belief
conviction

the ultimate trust
is the substance of hope
evidence of things not seen

'all that I have left in me now'

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It’s Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub and a join in with a Clarity Pyramid poetry form for National Poetry Writing Month.

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

Open Link Night

National Poetry Month 2020

It’s No Sacrifice

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I am not Catholic, but I like the basic idea of Lent. Well, my interpretation of it anyway. The idea of sacrifice, of giving up something. Sometimes, I’m surprisingly good at it.

The year I gave up chocolate was stunningly easy by the Friday after Lent started, Snickers candy bars and I separated from our daily habits. Separated to the point, that once Lent was over, I didn’t pick the habit back up again. It was not a conscious decision, I simply stopped.

On the other hand, the year I attempted to give up my potty-mouth…? I woke up at 5am that Wednesday morning, and by the time I reached work at 8am that same morning – well… Let’s just say, the the less I say about that bullshit the better.

Then was was the year I gave up meat. Not just beef and poultry, seafood as well. I good thing right? How is it I wound up in Atlantic City for a friends birthday for a weekend in early April. A weekend that included an All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Saturday at one of the restaurant. A restaurant where the ONLY thing that did not have some form of flesh in it was a salad. Not the salad, that might have indicated choices. No it was literally A single salad, for the rest had some form of meat mixed in. There was something like seven different salads available. I could only eat ONE in the entire buffet. My friends thought I was insane as I stuck to my miserly guns as they cracked open crab leg after crab leg after crab leg. I was proud of myself, because I did not cave. For any of you who read may have read my About Raivenne page – you know how I suffered.

This year it was junk food.

Because yes, leave it up to mean to give up comfort food the year of Coronavirus. At work it would have been easier. There I have to make an effort to get up and go to the vending machine or the concession stand if I want to munch. I did not realize how much garbage I consumed daily until I noticed had a little something of a surplus in my finances. Thanks to self-isolation that bump also included how much I have saved by not being able to go to Starbucks..

From the files of Good Deed/Unpunished : Lent started on Ash Wednesday as always – my order of Girl scouts arrived that Friday. The following week I had to give away a cake because I could not eat it. I also was gifted a variety snack box of the chips. And because Fate and than wretch Karma like having fun, I was reminded by a friend that it is technically 46 days of no cakes or chips or cookies or…or…or…because why not?

Every single day I glared at the Thin Mints, Dipsy Doodles etc mocking me from atop the refrigerator, and the Häagen-Dazs giving me the cold shoulder for ignoring it in the freezer. All the while thinking to myself how they were going to be Alllll Minnnnnne. Oh I relished sinking my teeth into the salty savor of chips, the sweet goodness of butter pecan, come Easter Sunday.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Junk food.

Easter Sunday came and went and I have yet to touch any of it. Not even to sniff the plastic.

They say it takes 21 days to break a habit, a minimum of 90 to break an addiction. It’s now Tuesday night, 48 days since Ash Wednesday and I just started thinking about it. Now I wonder if my junk food days are behind my like Snickers. Let’s see how long it lasts.

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up this week – Slice of Life Tuesday

The Return

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In distant dreams
the muse
will

Come read to
me some
poem

Words soon forgotten
upon eyes
opening.

I create this
just to
prove,

I can launch
bright words,
forms

on pixilated paper
that mean
naught.

In my zest
nothing is
sacred.

Yet I hesitate
before I
begin

Because one words
should have
meaning

Before they escape
to the
sun

And the moon
and the
stars.

Then I realize
with vibrant
jubilation

That to do
this little
bit

Is a start.
I beam
YES!

In silent lucidity,
my muse
returns…

National Poetry Month 2020

A Page That’s Blank

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This is the only true terror to be
The blinking cursor that moves not one space
Or those ruled lines that scream to be penned on
A page that’s blank, while pen is full scares me

Thoughts clash around in ambiguity
Those wisps of words, so close within my grasp
Yet I cannot make heads nor tails of it
This is the only true terror to be

Sometimes mere scribbles are all that I see
But at least there is hope for something more
Empty eight by elevens have no chance
A page that’s blank, while pen is full scares me

This is the only true terror to be
For someone whose whole life depends on words
A page that’s blank, while pen is full scares me

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Ars Poetica in a Villonnet

At Act I

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Yes, all of the world is a stage my friends
At least it is told what the people say
From when we begin until our time ends
Our too brief ride held in Sol’s sweet sway
And it matters not what part we will play
For as prince or pawn is roll of the die
At Act I, Scene I: curtains rise: we all cry

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Tonight at dVerse Frank challenges us to “is to write a poem with seven lines.” For those who want to go a further we are challenged to make it like a Chaucerian stanza/Rime Royal – is a seven-line poem in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABABBCC.

dVerse Poets Pub: Meeting The Bar

dVerse Poets Pub graphic