Tag Archives: Poetry

Not Just One

Posted on by
44

Before me
Its emptiness
Is indeed a shock
Remnants of its past fullness
Cling in memory to mock

The fault Lays with me
I cannot quibble
Once full bag of crisps now done
Thought I’d have a nibble
Lost the bet on that one

“Lays Chips: betcha can’t eat just one“

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #145: Nibble

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at the pub, Mish tends bar and gives us a a little something to nibble in a quadrille prompt.

I plead the fifth on whether the above poem is based on real or recent events.

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

From Dawn to Dusk

Posted on by
22

We float, we wake, we breathe, we scream
Search for the dream
And all we find
Opens the mind

Yet all the choices that we make
In no time take
As El Sol sighs
‘Til we close eyes

When the heart beats for last time
Its mortal chime
That now is done
With Earth we’re one

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetry Form: The Minute Poem

Today at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace tends the bar challenges us to take a sixty seconds, or so, to form a Minute Poem.

The Minute Poem, created by Verna Lee Hinegardner, once poet laureate of Arkansas, is a 60 syllable verse form, one syllable for each second in a minute.

It has the following rules…

1. narrative poetry.
2. a 12 line poem made up of 3 quatrains. (3 of 4-line stanzas)
3. syllabic, 8-4-4-4   8-4-4-4   8-4-4-4 (First line has 8 syllables of each stanza.  Remaining lines has 4 syllables in each stanza)
4. rhymed, rhyme scheme of aabb ccdd eeff.
5. description of a finished event (preferably something done is 60 seconds).
6. is best suited to light verse, likely humorous, whimsical or semi-serious.

Yeah, about numbers 5 and 6 – I heard Melpomene scoff “What’s a minute to the sun?” in my mind and knew Muse, being contrary, was going to kick “humorous, whimsical or semi-serious” to the curb. I just write the report.

Your Voice

Posted on by
21

In sound’s more gentle graces

Many failed with noises stifled, stark

But you’re a jaguar in a cello

Your voice sultry, dangerous, dark

And oh, how it paces

My heart to quaken, quivering

For it’s only you, sweet fellow

Who leaves me shaken, shivering

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #144: Shivering!

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Tonight at the pub, Merrill tends bar and gives us a shivering invite for 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 “shiver” or some form of the word in your poem.

The Sinner’s Prayer

Posted on by
2

He pleas to the Great Yonder

Help me now

The path was wrong to travel I know
The seeds of which he did sow
A darkness harvested to seep
In full regret of the fruit he reaps

I’ll take you there is heard…

It is too much

He vales to his knees to ponder

If the means will be forgiven to cope
With a prayer, he does dare hope
That he will not be left to wail and wallow
He closes his eyes in faith and follows

Oh!

I’ll take you there is heard…

It is too little

He opens his eyes in wonder

The core of his soul is shaken
To learn he was mistaken
He aimed his pleas to a gate higher
But is led to a lower pit of fire

He knows the ‘there’ he deserves is the one he’ll see.

Oh! Oh! Mercy!

It is too late

painting of a path. One end leads to the gates of heaven - the other end to a pit in hell.

Written for Thursday Inspiration #142 I’ll Take You There
I was inspired by this image…

Image of a man on his knees in prayer with the quote "The sinner's prayer was a desperate plea for mercy"

The italicized lines above are from the song “I’ll Take You There” by The Staple Singers.

The Horns of the Hunt

Posted on by
2

The horns of the hunt echoed across the snow
The air cold and crisp with its biting sting
Such is the path this winter does sow
But the chase was on, we felt not a thing

Ah ho! Ah ho! A hunting we go!
The horns! The horns! Our tales echo!

Aye, with patience we stalked our quarry
We laid in the deep snow at readiness
Kills decisive and quick, never we tarry
Our arrows loud in the emptiness

Through trees and brush, for buck and doe
The horns! The horns! Our tales echo!

The necessities are done to prepare and pack
We lift our horn so loud to blow
Work done we celebrate and travel back
For to our homes we the wearied go

Our horns lay tell of successful tow
The horns! The horns! Our tales echo!

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie | First Line Friday: December 17, 2021

Our host Dylan provides the first line, we get to write whatever comes afterward. Length, genre, and structure are completely up to us. We are feel free to modify the line as we see fit, adding punctuation, quotes, or other bits if so desired.  Or for more of a challenge, change nothing.

The line for this week is: The horns of the hunt echoed across the snow.

The Bottom

Posted on by
6

A sober heart
All knew him to be
Standing good with Bill W
Yes, that was he

Then dark days took
And his foundation shook

From the highest peak
His good standing soiled
Never again found the bottom
To a bottle of Crown Royal

Glass with dark liquor splashing out

I saw the bottle of Crown Royal in my mind and Muse took it and stomped.

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Quadrille #141:
Heady is the Poem That Wears the Crown

De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo, lets us have a little crowning glory in the form of a quadrille.

The Quadrille poem must be exactly 44 words in length – not including the title and use this week’s prompt word crown.



Two Sides

Posted on by
13

All day and night
I want of you – I
Want so deeply that “want”
Is too trite a word – this
To me, my very breath – is to
Be in this love – to be
Yours and yours only
Forever and a day

What you ask of me, I ignore it all
Yes, I submit easily, but I
Don’t want what you want
This moment is all there is
This is all I want – to
Have you now – to be
Yours and only yours
But only for tonight

dVerse Poets Pub graphic
v

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics: For the love of puzzles . . .

Lillian is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub where she shares her love of how one word leads to another in crossword puzzles and their cousins in style: Acrostic Poetry.

In Word Acrostic poetry the first word or the last word of each line in a single stanza poem spells out a message.

Lillian has created an Acrostic Plus where the first letter of each line in the first stanza spells out one or more words, while the last letter of each line in the next stanza spells out something different, and so on, but together there is one message.

We’re challenged to either write a poem that in some way relates to a puzzle, includes the word “puzzle”; or try our hand at an Acrostic poem. I combine a Word Acrostic with Lillian’s Acrostic Plus to tell a familiar tale of Mars and Venus,

And I Wake In The Morn

Posted on by
Reply

And I wake in the morn

In your arms

Your heart under head

Its beat in my ear

Sounds that lulled me true

Then woke me anew

Among decades and scores that pass

The sounds are now quiet

And I wake in the mourn

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Quadrille #134: We {heart} poems

De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo, lets us have a little heart-to-heart in the form of a quadrille.

The Quadrille poem must be exactly 44 words in length – not including the title and use this week’s prompt word heart.

No More

Posted on by
16

Once cast aside in a dusty mire
You cleaned and placed it by the fire
To take it to a purpose higher
My heart’s desire, My heart’s desire

The iffy thought now deemed revere
An ideate I have no fear
Its impish voice whispers so clear
Within my ear; within my ear

The blade left there for me to see
The flames illume its true decree
You know that I won’t let it be
It calls to me; it calls to me

From thought to act it came to be
The one swiftly incised is me
Drenched within the scarlet spree
I smile with glee; I smile with glee

I take purchase upon the floor
And leave a gift you can’t ignore
You’ll find me smiling by the door
But I’m no more, no, I’m no more

This went unexpectedly dark. Among the Muse it is usually Calliope and Erato who have my ear, but this time it was Melpomene who called loudest.

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetry Form: Monotetra
Grace tends the bar and challenges us to write a Monotetra.

The monotetra, a poetic form created by Michael Walker, must be written in tetrameter, either iambic or trochaic, approximately 8 syllables per line. Each stanza is a quatrain (four lines), that is monorhymed. The fourth line of each stanza must be a dimeter, or 4-syllable phrase, that is repeat twice.

The stanza structure:

Line 1: 8 syllables; A1
Line 2: 8 syllables; A2
Line 3: 8 syllables; A3
Line 4: 4 syllables, repeated; A4, A4

This poem can be as short as 1 or 2 quatrains and as long as a poet wishes.

The Cause

Posted on by
22
Image of man crying in sepia tone

I had watched
In waning sunlight
How it reflected
In soft contours
As one sun
Became another
And yet another
That set
In each watery stream
Until in darkness
I walk away
Too cowardly to admit
That I
Am the cause
Of those tears

dVerse Poets Pub graphic

dVerse Poets Pub | Quadrille #132: Your Poem Theme: Stream

At dVerse, De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo, hosts bar for Quadrille Monday, where we are challenged to pen a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), that must include the weekly word prompt. This weeks prompt: Stream