To Sleep

Then you laid me down to sleep

In cotton coddled

For sweet dreams ‘til my eyes open

Thus days and nights wrap round the world

‘Till now I lay you down to sleep

In linens layered

But on your eyes I place a token


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #156

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight Mish hosts at the pub and wants us to “wrap” things up 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 “wrap”, or some form of the word, in your poem.

Loving You In Silence

Loving you in silence

Is seeing you so much
Talking with you so often
And yet knowing
For you there is nothing to say
Or anything to see
Of me at all

Loving you in silence

Is watching
Your heart grow fonder
For someone else
And I find I am honestly
Wishing you happiness
As the tears
I’d never cry without
Fall hard within

Loving you in silence

Is seeing the light of your smile
Shining so brightly
As we chat about the future
And that when you say “we”
You will never mean “us”

Loving you in silence

Is knowing the chance
Of what might have been
Is forever overshadowed
By the reality
Of what will never be
Loving you in silence

Is realizing
It is what it is
Because sometimes
The only way to hold on
Is to let go
And I can finally
Move on

Amicable

Faces
To sun
It’s over, done
We cheer and root
Grabbing all the Absolute

Long
We’ve waited
How we’ve anticipated
For this fine date
All the ways we’d celebrate

The
Finalized papers
Turn to vapors
All troubles we carried
Much better friends than married


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #155—Let’s Celebrate

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Merril hosts at dVerse and wants us to “celebrate” in a quadrille.

Some couples do celebrate their divorce amicably.

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 “celebrate”, or some form of the word, in your poem.

Memento Moirai

From Clotho’s components
All those moments

This life is made, with intangible string
My traits and gait by Fate compiled
A certain butterfly is already on the wing
I emerge from the cocoon voicing the wild

Thread in Lachesis clime
Will be lost in time

When born the days ahead seem vast
Each stich becomes a memory vapor
Yet all too soon those years are past
I voice them all, on pixels, on paper

Of Atropos’ domain
Like tears in rain

I must go in for the fog is rising
My words will speak for me beyond the snuff
Always verbally enterprising
Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: words of departure

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Laura Bloomsbury tends the bar and invites us to write a “deathbed,” poem with the inclusion of a quote from a selection provided. Typical of Muse – using just “a” quote wasn’t an option.

The following are in my take on the prompt where Fate/Moira may control my body but my voice will live on.

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain”
-Roy Batty, Blade Runner
“A certain butterfly is already on the wing.”
-Vladimir Nabokov
“I must go in for the fog is rising”
-Emily Dickinson
“Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
-Karl Marx

Let’s…

Sit back for a few and relax

Put our feet up with a most happy sigh

Enjoy these little moments for how quickly they fly

Laugh so hard it’s tears of joy we cry

Learn to love a quiet moment to the max


dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #154: Casting a Poetic Spell

Tonight at the pub Sanaa, aka adashofsunnya enchants or id that hexes us to spell out 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 “spell” or some form of the word in your poem. I do it acrostically.

Luna Sees

They sit on the roof drinking in the sight
Of diamonds twinkling in the witching hour
Alone at last on this shortest night
A blanket is beneath them, but heat scours

Tar and flowers scent this roof top tower
Fingers follow trails on skin damp with sweat
Where light cotton clothes have little power
And their slow loss causes no one to fret

Cool jazz plays on an old cassette
As the solstice weaves its most magic ways
Soft curls are set free from its shell barrette
As I softly smile on their loving plays

Throes of passion begins, they close their eyes
And breezes carry away their heightened sighs


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: Sun, Sand, Storms, and Celebrations: Summer Ekphrastic

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Though it’s not technically summer (yet), here in the northern hemisphere, we’ve already had a few scorching days. Merrill who is tending the pub tonight, entices us to pick from a selection of paintings evoking a variety styles and summer themes to write a summer ekphrastic poem inspired by what you see or feel.

I chose: “Tar Beach 2” Quilt 1990
by Faith Ringgold, American, born 1930. Produced at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, founded 1977 Philadelphia Museum of Art. I can’t upload it, but you can see it here.

Before I even clicked on the link to view it, the title alone took me back to the days of rooftop barbeques, nighttime parties and things that happened in the late-late-late nights that only the moon sees.

First Night

Less our doubts will be,
Stowed away with trouble.
Some sweet peace to sleep with.

In this our first night to be,
Holding love for life.

Time under this moon;
Light on our twining bodies, so good.
Will this first night never to end!


dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Compound me a Sleepy Quadrille night!

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

I pull a double dVerse duty swinging two prompts in one write:

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille night! Sleepy times.

First Sarah (sarahsouthwest) invited us to write a sleepy little 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 “sleep” or some form of the word in your poem.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: Compound me!

Next Lillian insists we regale her a poem using at least one compound word from a list provided.

The catch being to split the word over.
Achieving its two components; yet keep it together. (<– see what I did there)

Naturally, does Muse just use one compound word in a poem? Noooooo…. Let’s make every confounded end/start line be compounded – yeah! Oh!, and still make a quadrille – right!

Hades to Persephone

Flanked by the seasons
twixt chill through warmth
Then back ‘round
Who could
know?

That you’d fall for me
Or that I’d fall
So deeply
in with
you?

This in no surprise
We’re touched as gods
All that’s left
Is to
ask…

Marry
Me?


dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | ‘Tis the Season Quadrille #149

Tonight at the pub, Lisa tends bar and sets the season on 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 “season” or some form of the word in your poem.

I also cheat a little in that my quadrille is also what I’ll call an Reverse 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. I inverted the syllable count and add two words to fit the quadrille requirement into a proposal of mythical proportions.

Red, White, Blue

Much
Too deep
Much too fast
You blazed red in
Betrayal’s fury

From
Tears that
blurred the sight
With lust’s white heat
You let yourself fall

So
Cold in
Broken-hearted
Blues of too much
And not enough

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

As is now tradition for me, I open National Poetry Writing Month with the Arun.

A nonce poem created by friend and fellow 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. Today, I follow the pattern she’s set, left aligned and un-rhymed.  As always, I will take a little poetic license, in future runs of the form.

National Poetry Month 2022 graphic

The Anatomy of a Challenge

Over a dVerse ~Poets Pub, Sarah, the host for the challenge, prompts to choose one of the below paint names and use it as the inspiration for a poem:

Trumpet, Tea with Florence, Chemise, Confetti, Goblin,
Mirror, Rolling fog, First light, Hidey hole, Masquerade

We are further challenged to incorporate as many of the words as we can and to have fun. While I can post to my blog at any time, the challenge is only open for two days.

As I responded: Oh, that was said to the wrong person. It is my natural wont when see a list of options with a prompt to select one to try to use them all. 

In other words – thanks for giving me free rein to do what I was likely to do anyway. 😁 And because I am a glutton for punishment, I’m thinking a free verse poem would be easier for this but noooooooo, Muse is all Oooh, look! Sarah posted an extract from Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market”, let’s do a glosa! I’m thinking, okay, a tradition glosa works for this, gives me up to forty lines to work all that in. Crap! What did I think that for? Forty lines? Pfft! That’s too many – you can do this in just twenty, c’mon, Rai!

I swear, I can’t with them sometimes – except clearly I can, so I don’t even bother arguing – a shortened glosa it is – I pick two lines to work with:

They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather
Goblin Market – Christina Rosetti

My next challenge: hidey-hole – what am I supposed to do with that? Hmm, grey shades of rolling fog at first light came to mind. For some reason I am minded of latter stages of butterfly chrysalis which are more beige than gray, but it stuck. Ah! chrysalis = hidey hole, butterfly – monarch. A visual of a monarch butterfly flittering among purple heather appears and three lines quickly emerge:

Among the violet hued heather
As she emerge from her hidey-hole
In ochre gown mirrored in trim of coal

Excellent, two items from the list are scratched off and I have part of the required rhyme for the endling line. Oh, apparently this butterfly is a female – okay.

Next thing to tackle: Goblin. How do I work that bad boy in? Ah, bad boy! Goblin’s has scared the butterfly, threatened her if she comes out. That helminth! Hmm, worm… And my opening lines appear:

Swaddled in the rolling fog
his ragged chemise color of bog
The goblin worm had filled her with fright
Dare she show upon first light

Scratch four more from the list! I go back and forth like this, until I I’m satisfied. I have met the requirements for a glosa and worked in nine of the ten phrases. What’s the hold out? Tea with Florence. Now ‘tea in Florence’ would have inspired an Italian slant, but it’s with Florence, something different. While I had thought of a couple of lines rhyming Florence, it would break the glosa form and I did not want to do that. I go back and read the requirements for the challenge and am reminded that the choices given can also be used for the title. And problem solved, the monarch has a name, and the poem has a title! Let’s meet:

Tea with Florence the Monarch

It’s not highbrow, not winning any awards. I’m just having fun telling a story in verse. It’s not bad for an hour and change worth of work.


Day 22 of 31 – Let’s see how others are slicing it out today…

15th Annual Slice of Life Writing Challenge

15th Annual Slice of Life Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers