The Engagement

dversepoets.com  The rhyme form this week is Ottava Rima, of Italian form used by many poets, including Yeats. It is supposed to be iambic pentameter.

The Cedar Waxwing blurts his song of love,
kismet resonates in my tight heartstrings.
He sweeps near to me fluttering above,
lands in deep blue-green foliage, folds his wings.
His bride-to-be dips and dives, clings to a yellow foxglove.
Head turned, she listens as he tweets and sings.
She lights on the same branch, cuddles closer.
He prays she'll accept his erstwhile proposal.

                         

I escaped the news last week...

I Escaped the News Last Weekend

I escaped the news

last weekend, wanting a world

  with everything

set right; I returned to the

sleepy beach hideaway of

  my youth

Tumultuous waves

rolled over one other,

going nowhere really -

Cold rain slapped my face,

drops ran down my neck;

the wind meowed around me.

Unoccupied worn

cedar-shake homes welcomed me,

  the hamlet asleep,

but for a blurred red street light

The drive was well worth 

the time to capture 

one quintessential sunset, 

one to ride horses

straight into!

Unyielding dunes clung 

to sea grass. I breathed in so

deeply the salty sea air

Theoretically, my

fearful thunderous 

thoughts subsided and I felt 

beyond carefree.

Feet to a fire, a cup of

mulled apple cider 

added to the ambient quiet

Conceived of literature

and art in my heart,

I channeled Hemingway and

 Picasso; I wrote, sketched and

painted through the night 

Ultimately, 

I am taken aback how 

truly, I now see, 

birth overcomes death 

...every day

and I am the only one
in my way

This Friday is Open Link Night over at dversepoets.com   Click if you would like to read more poetry

from the group.

I hear banjos..

Today at dversepoets.com, we are writing about the senses, using them to embellish our poetry. I used a longer sonnet form and three too many syllables in the next to the last line...or should I not have mentioned that?;)

I Hear Banjos 

I hear banjos under dusk's velvet sky

Flickering copper flames project pictures

of where I've been since the first glint in my 

parents' eyes to being a son's mother

In the fire's embers, reflections of days

of  lives suspended in time, rekindled

by smoldering desire, searching byways

for a star to follow, or a signal

Strong yet tender hands pluck the banjo strings

I hear echoes of an old bass guitar,

an antebellum dusty violin,

a hoedown with mandolin or sitar

Ushered in by moonlit frosted mountains

Swallows wings switch gears, abating their flight,

carrying scents of jasmine in downturns;

they stop a second to kiss me goodnight

We feast and revel under the light of Jupiter -

joined in song by mating red-winged blackbirds

The Pioneer Woman

Today is Haibun Monday. The subject is recipes, a short prose paragraph with a haiku following. If you wish to read more of these, please visit  dversepoets.com

Are you familiar with the TV cooking show "The Pioneer Woman"?  Ree Drummond's routine consists of cooking and serving up comfort food for her hardworking husband, four kids and friends. She manages to finesse easily a several course meal while sharing tales of daily life on their large cattle ranch in Oklahoma. She loves to cook a big cowboy meal and take it out to the group putting in a hard day's work. Imagine huge breakfast burritos filled with sausage, cheese, eggs, hash browns, topped with roasted tomatoes and jalapeno chilies, or mouthwatering fat bacon meatball sliders with barbecue sauce. She may make their favorite spicy ribs and beans dish, lemon blackberry bars, or cheese-chive muffins, even prepare watermelon granitas for refreshment. After preparing in her kitchen, she wraps the meals in foil and places food in convenient containers in a box. Along with the dog and food in the van, she drives out to the feed barn, a green pasture, or the large black, charred area of land burned the season before. It is her life's joy to plow her way through life in this manner. Her reward is not just the smiles, but often gorgeous sunsets on the way home, sometimes making her late to kids' activities.

Overflowing ponds,

abundant rains in the spring,

marinated blessings

Haibun Monday - Al Di La

dversepoets.com     

Driving in a car on a highway, what music would you love to turn up loud to play and hear. Write about the experience.

Sixteen years old, a summer in Mexico, I was studying Spanish, and learning about the world. I felt at home there among the throng of people.  In the public market I fell in love with the sounds, smells, the people and Mariachi music of Guadalajara. It was my first time traveling independently, on a jet plane, except for five other students. We split up on arriving and I lived with a Mexican family of four. Far away from our small town atmosphere, we were to speak Spanish all the time; we learned quickly.  One Sunday afternoon, we girls went to see the movie "Rome Adventure" with Troy Donahue and Susanne Pleshette.  The film was dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles.  The couple fall in love while traveling Italy's countryside via motorbike. I will never forget how romantic it was. At that time in my life it left a deep impact. First love and all of that.  And the song they played in the movie was "Al Di La".  Hopelessly I carried the song with me as I traveled back home. It played on the radio all that summer long in '63. I always turned the volume up when driving in the car and it played. To this day, it sends shivers up my back.

His candelabra 

in tow, we listened to our 

new song holding hands 

                                      

Lizzie Bordon

dversepoets.com

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES

Lizzie Bordon   1860 - 1927

In the era of  cotton mills and factories,
in Fall River, Ma., lived a man and four ladies
Mr.& Mrs Bordon, his two daughters, a maid,
whose testimony might well have saved

Lizzie Bordon from being duly executed 
even though her alibi was much disputed
Her dismal life run by her strict father;
her step-mother was such a bother

It is said to have sent her into a rage
her eyes grew big and she set out to wage
war against them when no one was around
maddeningly angry for being housebound 

Upstairs she picked up an axe
and gave her step-mother fourty whacks
Then she went downstairs and bludgeoned
her father on the couch with fourty-one 

The house was indeed a bloody mess
Among the tell-tale clues was a bloody dress
She likely burned it, so no evidence
No one believed in her innocence

She silenced them forever, acquitted in the end
lived a life of solitude with nary a friend