Tag Archives: dVerse ~ Poets Pub

No Means To Measure

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22

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

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

At Act I

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11

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

I Just Want You To Know

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14

And I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
“Iris” by the Goo-Goo Dolls / “City of Angels” Soundtrack

Some question my sanity year after year
That I’ m not quite right is abundantly clear
Stepping in and out of darkened lucidity
The voices in my head are mostly a minor din
But that yellow dress you wore that day did me in
It was the red cape to the bull of my insanity
And the voice gained control was full of hate
As you stepped to me smiling sealing your fate
For my mood was downright ugly
And I don’t want the world to see me

I don’t deny what I’ve done to some women is sick
But you weren’t like those yacht girls who fall so quick
All their smiling as they think I’m at their command
They dangle promises of a young love so sweet
But it’s me holding their hearts, feeling their heat
And then ripping it from them with my bare hand
But you, you disregard all concepts of my deceiving
My inner voices wondering why aren’t you leaving
Never having had an experience like this firsthand
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand

False yore flows from my cruel lips with ease
Yards of lies with an inch of truth to please
The truth a means of passage, merely a token
So you yawn in my face, knowing it’s unwise
And yet you laugh seeing the truth in all the lies
Behind every filthy word I’ve ever spoken
From you the truth shines bright and sure
The lightness of your heart, ywis so pure
But can I believe your heart is solid – oaken?
When everything’s made to be broken

And so you survived more than just the night
Even knowing down deep I may never be right
For goodness knows I really didn’t give a damn
If you drowned in all the tears you yield
Brought on by all these damn fears I field
‘Cause you were never part of the program
But you’re still here and nothing denies
How I yearn for the feel of your light in my eyes
But mine are the eyes of a tragedy ma’am
I just want you to know who I am

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One of my favorite poetry forms: a Glosa.

dVerse Poets Pub: Open Link Night #268

dVerse ~Poets Pub

Luna Sees

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8

In the darkness of night the constellations shine

Telling their stories

As goddess Luna in her magic glory

With sides

Ebon dark and blanch light

Still bares witness to all

The storm clouds seen by us now

Does not make it

Any less so

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I’m pulling a succinct double duty here.

On Monday Linda asked us to create a little magic in quadrille – a poem of exactly 44 words, not including the title using the word of the day: magic.

On Tuesday for Poetics Mish asks us to contemplate the following by Mizuta Masahide:

“Barn’s burnt down, now I can see the moon.”

Use it as inspiration to note experiences of our own personal insight or enlightenment and pen a poem.

I am minded through these trying times that just because we can’t always see the joy in life, does not mean it’s not there waiting to be noticed again for those who remember to look.

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse ~Poets Pub |
Quadrille #100 : Where’s My Magic Wand
Poetics – Now I Can See…

What It’s Not

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23

It’s not the breadth of his shoulders
Or the warmness of his gut
It’s not the stride of his long legs,
That oh so proud strut

It’s not the coin of his bank
Saved in bunches
To cope with any fallout
From rainy-day punches

Nor is it being held in his strong arms,
A niche for me made so dear
It is his deep rumble of sweet nothings
Whispering everything in my ear

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Tonight at dVerse, Björn challenges us to Listen to Lists. Be creative, use any type of list and then write a poem from that list. Let it grow, and be inspired by rhymes and metaphors.

My list is also something of a Not Poem.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub: Meet the Bar & Listen to Lists

dVerse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight Mic

In The Silver Night

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I hear the clock ticking in the dark
It echoes my heart as I lay alone
With you in my head
Wanting you by my side
Wishing you were my own

The moon holds all my secrets
How I long to be in your heart
With words of love I’ve only said
Within my dreams there are many things
I want you to be a part

In the silver night

I did not think I could fall in love
Thought it a bother to have such
It seemed that Fate had other plans
To have you so close and yet so far
It is all just too much

Sometimes I think you could never care
For the type of man I am it’s true
Sometimes I think that you know
That I’d give you everything
And I hate myself for loving you

In the silver night…

And I’ll convince myself that I can manage
That caring is not an advantage
But now I know it’s a lie!

Loving you is a pauper’s face against the window
Wanting on that which I beseech
It’s a distance of galaxies when we’re feet apart
In my mind I know how’d your lips feel
Even though you are far out of my reach

It’s the eggshell syllables of your name
I whisper to your specter in Luna’s light
For once again I face the stars on my own
All alone

In the silver night

In the silver night…

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DVerse Poets Pub | Open Link Night #261

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

Better Plans

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I did not want that I should fall in love
For it seemed Fate had better plans for me
It was a bother not mine to speak of
I did not think I could fall in a love
Hard as the bedrock yet soft as a glove
That such love could be returned you see
But now I know I have fallen in love
For it seemed Fate had better plans for me

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Today on dVerse Poet’s Pub Frank challenges to write a triolet or a poem that closely resembles a triolet.

So, what is a triolet? A triolet’s characteristics are the following.

  1. The poem has 8 lines.
  2. The rhyme scheme is abaaabab.
  3. The meter is iambic tetrameter.
  4. The first, fourth and seventh lines repeat.
  5. The second and eighth lines repeat.



Filled

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12

I have lived
An outside life
That contained
Laughter, tears
Rage, joy

Yet have felt
Nothing
For so long
I no longer
Remembered
The dearth of true feelings
Within

I knew not my own
Emptiness
Until I began
to fill myself
with loving
you

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dVerse Poets Pub | Quadrille #97 – Filling the Page

At dVerse Poets Pub, De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) is asking us  – to find some poetic fun with the word fill and faithfully formulate a quadrille – a poem of exactly 44 words (not counting the title).