Haibun in a Letter

 It's Tuesday, time for Poetics in the dVerse Poets Pub! Punam has us taking up pen and paper to write an old fashioned letter [poem.]

Dearest Mother and Daddy,

Where do I begin, perhaps with this postcard dated 1939.

From the stories I've heard 'round many dining room tables in decades past, I know my grandparents separated the two of you to keep you from 'becoming serious.' Mother [only 17] sent to Donifan Missouri where her grandparents lived, you [28] stuck in Caseyville Illinois. Horror of Horrors!! An older man! I can only imagine your sadness. But love prevailed. Mother you  returned within the month by train and I can only imagine your reunion. 

 

However my dear Parents, this is not the reason for my letter. Daddy, you died when I was only 16. You were 46. It was sudden and shocking. I was too young for grief, did not know how to process it. My younger sisters as well. Mother, you had three daughters to raise .. alone. I will never know how you managed it. With very little money. Girls in puberty and pre-puberty. Good grief.

Actually, Mother .. I retract that last statement. I learned through the years you had a strength and grace that others only dreamed of having. Of course you raised us, you raised us well. Remember how I taught you to drive? Daddy was driver in chief, you had never learned. Oh the craziness of you as a new driver. Remember when our stick shift '51 chevy began rolling backward [incline down] in the Famous Barr parking garage? We still talk about it and laugh. Terrified that day. We were lucky you had taken your first job shortly before Daddy died [we were building our little house] otherwise our future may not have been as rosy.  

Precious Daddy .. you would be thrilled to know I inherited a bit of your amazing musical talent. Your flair for the theatrical. I wish, oh how I wish I had inherited your genius. When I was a little girl, your sisters told me you created a solar shower in the back yard. Complete with tank, hose, letting the sun do its thing. After a day working construction you wanted to get clean before entering the house. Dare I point out, Daddy, that no one in Caseyville could have fathomed something like this. And you would be pleased to know they didn't appear in the marketplace for decades. 

Well, dear Parents, I will close for now but promise to write you every month. I have so many memories, much more to say.

Love,

Your Daughter Helen Louise

circling the sun

for all of eternity

blessings surround me

Alas Alas

photo by Lori Crawford Arnold

 politics as performance art

a fairy tale of sorts

packed with heroes and villains

damsels in distress

roaring rhetoric

boastful braggadocio

perfidious promises

luring us into their theatre

onto their stage

a macabre fairy tale

all too real 

Vintage Blend

It's Poetics Tuesday in the dVerse Poets Pub ~ Melissa reminds us it is "National Spicy Guacamole Day" in the US of A. To that end she provided us with more than a few appropriate words (we must use at least four) to include in our poems. I detoured 'round the guac. 

they say you're a shell 

of your former self

lost those quirky raw edges

your talking points ..

spice-less, bland, boring

but I prefer you older

no brash bravado

finely tuned with age

no more battles to wage ..

no more wars to win 

I Spy

Monday means Quadrille in the DVerse Poets Pub! Ms. Whimsy Gizmo provides us with a "lunar" challenge today! as luck would have it i recently acquired a book of jamie wyeth's art. this is my favorite painting!

Jamie Wyeth ~ Monhegan's Schoolteacher ~ 2004

it's hard to concentrate

when a young lad's

teacher looks like this

if only he knew

his lovely teacher

reads

e e cummings

by the light of the moon

by the light of the stars

naked and free of inhibition

if only he knew

Stream of Consciousness

 Composed this stream of consciousness for Friday Writings in exactly one minute twenty three seconds which lends itself to following the mandate to use [nutty[ adverbs [flowering[ adjectives as best we can. Whew.

you go girls. sisters at the game

Peacefully at peace this morning

on this amazingly beautifully crafted

day in normally unpredictable November

so what shall I do to wildly celebrate

should I behave meekly 

uncharacteristic for me

spend the day in quiet reflection

not my style

I shall uproariously joyously passionately

walk briskly out our front door

do a run walk as far as I can

great groovy music from headphones

after two plus arduous miles thankfully only one hill 

fall into an exhausted no injuries heap

pull my impossibly pop art floral designed

cell phone from outrageously colored tie died tights

text my sweet beautiful daughter

please please come rescue

your thoroughly exhausted 

too pooped for words Mom.

ABRIDGE

 Bjorn is event director in the dVerse Poets Pub today .... and it's all about "anagrammatic form" poetry!! Create a title of one word that contains no more than three vowels and four consonants. Find as many words as possible that use those letters and create a brand new poem. No punctuation, please.

Barge Lady Cruises

grabbed gear

dared a race ride

grabbed aged brie

braided bread

a barge brigade

be bad be bad

Behold the Snow!!

Kim is leader of the Prosery Brigade in dVerse poets pub today. She chose a line from Rita Dove's poem "November for Beginners" to be included in our prose pieces ~~ "Snow would be the easy way out"

Winter break! To the cabin we head. Our trunk jam-packed with snowshoes, cross country skis, booze, food, books, music. Within 24 hours we find ourselves in an unexpected winter wonderland. Snow has been relentless, piling up around the cabin until it's reached a staggering six feet. It is both beautiful and terrifying, a picturesque prison of white.

At first we feel a sense of awe at the sheer amount of snow that has fallen. It's like living inside a giant snow globe. Now days turn into weeks, isolation and uncertainty begin to take a toll. We flip flop between feelings of frustration, fear and moments of hilarity. Because cabin fever is real!

To escape we get creative. With a few makeshift tools, we dig a tunnel to where we "hope" the mountain's slope begins. Sure enough, snow would be the easy way out.

Adagio

 Laura is hosting Meeting The Bar in the dVerse Poets Pub ~ our challenge, to write an elegy. 

Grief

how can it be i am here

you have vanished

beyond my reach

decades since last we met

still i cannot forget

how we touched

how. we. were.

Praise 

 gifted athlete, amazing tenor

respected businessman, life of the party

irresistible you

fighting cancer with

all your might 

 until. you. could. not.   

Solace

we were not each other's 

first, nor last

undoubtedly the best

i. knew. you. knew.

Hard Fall

Lillian has us 'falling' in the  dVerse Poets Pub ~ Come join us!

it's not the kind of fall

that scraped and bloodied

my knees

broke bones or muddled

my brain

'twas falling out of step

the misalignment

and abandonment

of what I believed were

my core values 

free falling from grace

the hardest fall of all

Tell Me Why

1.

please tell me why

we need to fill space

cram it with stuff

we don't need in the first place

2.

yes, space is essential 

for dreaming, just being

unlocking potential 

it's amazingly freeing 

3.

takes time to stop heartache

blot out the pain

we need space, to move slowly

begin life again   

4.

with space we hit 'pause'

stop treading the mill

re-set our psyches

you know the the drill

 

 

Brave New World

In the dVerse Poets Pub today Bjorn asks us to write from a collective point of view!

Cards on the table, let's tell it like it is

everything we do, everything we are

gets converted into digital information.

expenditures, viewing habits, internet searches

observed by the anonymous 

all of it parsed for patterns

that predict what next we purchase

what next we view, where next we travel.

Algorithms used to make recommendations 

are not always unbiased

reviews we read may have been AI generated

technology is going to continue 

its relentless forward march

we must straddle that delicate divide

[ our convenience ~ their control ]

without compromising our precious autonomy.

Post Mortem

 Melissa is our host today in the dVerse Poets Pub  ~ we are to focus our poetry on the often haunted souls of artists and poets.

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”

–Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette (1886), © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Bone structure doesn't lie. He was handsome, a bon vivant

 'man about town' who knew things about life ~ about

 women, whiskey and tobacco. That strong jawline, cig

 dangling from his lips suggest more than a few times

 'round the block. 

I am intrigued. Dare I say libidinous? Fantasies of James 

Dean, Marlon Brando,  Leonard Cohen  begin to surface. 

The  antidote to fantasy  must be reality ~ I  walk away.

Below The Fold

 De Jackson is calling the shots today ~ asking us to fold a wee poem around the word "fold."

above the fold

yes, it's eye catching

attention grabbing

yes, it packs a mighty punch

but it's Sunday morning and

below the fold is where I head

page after page after page

politics, economics, culture, sports, science

all the news that's fit to print

COVID in October

 Bear of a Month

Finally October 15th, Mother and Son made it thru to the other side!!!

 Thank you for all of your get well wishes and kind thoughts.

Quarantined

banished from his company

like a naughty puppy dog

I cannot risk infecting him

Disconnected

until a tiny piece of plastic

gives the all clear

time to start living again

Synchrony

laughing and cooking together

how was your day

shall we see a movie tomorrow

Relieved

life is back to normal

for mother and son

we are the lucky ones

Dead Poets Society

In the dVerse Poets Pub ~~ 

My inspiration ~ Siegfried Sassoon ~ “When I'm Among a Blaze of Lights” ~ he certainly had a way with rhyme. 

in the city's rush and throng

I seek a place where I belong

amidst the whispers of tall trees

gentle hum of honey bees

meadows lush, deep green and wide

where wildflowers in abundance hide

for in the stillness of the night

I find my peace, my heart's delight

when I'm among a blaze of lights

within the city's sleepless nights

I feel a longing deep and true

for quiet space and skies of blue

Changing Brushes

Lisa has us using our brushes in the Pub today ~~ 

all kinds of them!

Behold the lowly toothbrush

basic tool you say ~

cleaning teeth and brushing gums

it keeps decay at bay.

Suspect if you are just like me

and hang on way too long

 your brushes fill with germs and mold

and that's just plain old wrong!

An American Sentence Poem

Losing track of time; I often find it immersive and quite pleasant.  

Folding Autumn Into Poetry

 

~~ with Jaime's permission / Drake Park, Bend Oregon ~~

carved faces grinning in the velvet night

harvest moon, a silver lantern's gleam

is this reality or simply a lovely dream

autumn's grasp feels tender

apple cider on my lips in the velvet night

dampened leaves beneath my feet

fragrant dance, my world transformed

autumn's essence, tangible, surreal

canvas for memories our hearts conceal

bonfire smoke that gently weaves a

tapestry of memories in the velvet night 

Melissa has us "folding poetry into Autumn" in the Pub  

Super Blue Moon

 It's time for Haibuns in the dVerse Poets Pub and Super Blue Moons!!

This morning, through a canopy of pines, the sun was colored a brilliant and eerie red/orange; wildfires are burning not far away. The air was heavy with smoke. Though transparent, I imagined it gray. It's there; my lungs tell me so.

Which brings me to Bend, Oregon's Super Blue Moon. I have learned when mixing smoke and dust into the atmosphere, shorter wavelengths of light (blue, green) are blocked. Longer wavelengths (red, orange, fuchsia) appear more vivid. I imagine our blue super moon might look something like this. 

hope to be alive

in twenty thirty seven

for a true blue moon

Muscle Memory

when I was a child

I took up the flute 

dreams of my future

{ professional pursuit }

medals and accolades

never went to my head

skipped lots of parties

{ and practiced instead }

years they flew by

like notes on a breeze

college, then marriage

four babies to squeeze

many years later

my face etched by time

picked up a flute

recollecting my prime

lips on the mouthpiece

notes in my head

had I lost all that talent { ? }

{ sheer feelings of dread }

In case you have wondered

muscle memory's intact

riffing on Czardas 

fantasy or fact { ? }

** performed this piece as an 8th grader .. won a first superior medal! I confess this time, it did not come easy, actually made it thru the first six bars ..  until difficulty got the better of me.

 

Bottle-Drop

Mabel Amber ~ Pixabay

Bottled Emotion

a turbulent sea, the tempest within

a turmoil of feelings held under the skin

each thought a whisper, each feeling a storm

bottled and hidden, cracks start to form

a bottle of glass, where thoughts seek a cage

emotion is buried on life's smallest stage

cracks start to form, pressure takes hold

breaking the confines, warmth vs. cold

emotions will dance like drops in the rain

mirth like no other, you cannot contain

in letting them go, you unburden the soul

embrace sweetest healing, once again whole

In the dVerse Pub, Grace asks us to consider the merits of "Bottled Poetry"

 

Pining Away

we met in that time of the year

when trees sleep and flowers die

found our fire amidst

laughing aspens, whispering pines

falling leaves of red and gold

autumn's light fading

sun's angle dropping

too low for nourishment

we lost our rhythm

drifted apart

Today in the Pub, De has us concentrating on the word "Pine" or a derivative! Forty-four words ~ The Quadrille!