The Devil’s Daughter’s Song

I live at the edge of your atmosphere
a sunset strip colorific and clear
in a life despite God I cheer
raindrops on a sunny April afternoon as tears

Ineffable lamentations surge sweetly to my ears

I bang the drum called your heart with sass
for life in a bottle is a house made of glass
it was  a fruitloop daydream to think me a mere lass
the tiny box of lies – the molehill now a mountain of morass

Is the wafting requiem heard through the crevasse

I wake laughing when you knock me out weeping
I am my father’s daughter, my lure your curse vastly sweeping
your eyes wide shut, don’t touch me while I am sleeping  
the hate with which I slumber – the secret lover I’m keeping

In the melodic dirge of your tears slowly seeping


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Let Music Speak

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Yesterday at dVerse, poet-tender for the evening, paeansunplugged, invited us to let the music speak and challenges us to write a poem based on prompt phrases from the music of Linda Perry:

  1. Edge Of Your Atmosphere
  2. Sunset Strip
  3. Life Despite God
  4. Sunny April Afternoon
  5. Bang The Drum
  6. Life in a Bottle
  7. Fruitloop Daydream
  8. Tiny Box Of Lies
  9. Knock Me Out
  10. I Am My Father’s Daughter
  11. Don’t Touch Me While I Am Sleeping
  12. Secret Lover

We were only required to to incorporate two of the above choices in our poems about music. As usual Muse chose not understand the message. All twelve prompts are there in the order as given.

We Don’t Need Television

Makes us wanna holler

When they try to silence us

We’re done being quiet

Makes us wanna break free

When they try to hold us down

We’re done being still

Our movement is revelation

Watch us

Hear us

Our voice revolution

We’ve had enough


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #174: You Say You Want A Revolution

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

For this week’s Quadrille, Kim (Writing in North Norfolk) is prompting a revolution for a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include some form of the word “revolution”.

Here I give gentle nods to Gil Scott Heron (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) and Marvin Gaye (Inner City Blues)


Day nineteen 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

Unbinding


You’re too brazen girl
was oft the scold.
Be quiet and meek,
Fit in this mold

But my carefree soul was finding,
That it chaffed in the binding.

So, this woman breaks
from convention’s hold.
Aye, I will be daring
I will be BOLD!

“I Have Been Set Free” by Joanne Holbrook

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Q44 #167: BOLD-ly Go

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

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.

On Arrival


I
The one
Teetering
Perilously
On the precipice

Shamed
To call
What I knew
Before as best
For now I do know

That
Nothing
Not a thing
Could possibly
Be as candy sweet

As
Screaming
Loud His name
On arrival
Of la petite mort


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #166: I Like Candy

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

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.

Obsession – My Ode to Joe

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

Glass coffee mug with line indicating it is safe to speak to owner of said mug when the contents  have reached the bottom line.
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.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: Cheers!

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

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.

Just Reading

Most people saw images. People, animals, objects and then they made stories about them.

Not Papa. Papa only saw words among the luminaries once the skies grew the dark.

She walks in the street of the sky, Night walks scattering poems, calligraphy in the stars.

That is what Papa told me when I was young.That above our heads are words among the stars.

Reams of poems of Night.

Shooting stars? Line breaks. Comets? An exclamation.

Pictures were for those too young to read. He taught me how to read them as well.

To read the sonnets, couplets, quatrains and meter that falls from Night’s fingers to the firmament she treads giving Luna teasing nudges to see who notices her offerings.

It is why when you ask me what in doing as I gaze into the diamond dotted indigo skies I answer, just reading. 

Street of the Night Sky Goddess
— Raivenne

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Prosery: Tulips & Chimneys

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at dVerse we’re challenged to write a prose piece of no more than 144 words including the prompt.

Today’s prompt which comes from Tulips & Chimneys, by e. e. cummings and is the last line of IX- Impressions:

In the street of the sky night walks scattering poems..”

We may alter the punctuation, but we must use the line in its entirety without inserting any other words. 

L’amour Mort

Photo of woman at a grave in autumn

Autumn leaves in warm earth tones vale upon the new mound of soil. The leaves appear demur on the soil adorned with fresh florals. She who has spent nearly three score with in life until a year ago, has now joined the he in afterlife. Most have begun to mill away, eager to start the slow shedding of bereavement that begins with the repast, but she lingers a spell.

I watch her eyes, both mournful and misty.

And I watch as she, a morbid Noah, mentally gathers the dates of the ancestral pairings interned. I know she sees in the family line none have gone more than two years without their hearts in life beside them. The dichotomy of such beauty in sadness. She fears it, yet, I see she embraces the seemingly inevitable as we finally leave.

To her, death is quite romantic.


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Prosery – Bob Dylan

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at dVerse, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) hosts and would like for us to write a Prosery piece which includes the line:

To her, death is quite romantic

It is from “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan, from his 1965 record “Highway 61 Revisited”.

Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words,
Including the given line from the poem.

Punching Age

It started at one,

strong and sure

The promise of more

its lure

Birthday punches are a rite it’s true

But as they wore on, so did you

I took its weak finish

with a laughing smirk

Forgot I was 59

didn’t you, jerk?


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #160: Poems that Pack a Punch

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

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.