I Belong to the Tides

dversepoets.com
For today’s prompt, we are asked to write a poem that includes our birthstone.

I Belong to the Tides


I belong to the tides,
I am the sea,
I am crystal clear Aquamarine,

my transparency,
symbol of my fidelity

I awake on distant shores,
carry birdsong to places unforseen,
I offer tranquility
and spiritual healing

Minding the hourglass
for mariners who keen,
I promise a safe
journey home
I am known for setting the tone
for lovers re-uniting

Companion to the
ubiquitous Bloodstone,
steady and serene...
Babylonians
believed it bled for their strength
and well-being.

Together we fight
the good fight, float
with the moon
and starlight

I am Aquamarine...
Forever seventeen,
I am blue tinged with green

Sugar and Spice

'





Ar dversepoets.com today, the Monday Quadrille #41..in 44 words, use the word spice or a derivative of  it.



      Sugar & Spice

Mitochondrial
DNA gave her cheeks of
peaches and vanilla ice cream,                      
hazelnut eyes, saffron hair,
a temperament of
earthy, solemn juniper,
easy as soft rosewater...
allspice true
 ...she is not the person she
was before, easy
to take for granted,
not hard to read,

Unnswered questions..

dversepoets.com
The prompt for today is posing "questions" without giving answers. This has been revised as at first I gave answers.

Who gathers of an evening taking in the new moon and Mars?

What is it about words and pictures?

When will I be loved again?.

Where does the scent of drying flowers come from?

Why, won't you please come in?

How many solitary meals sitting in the chair by the wood stove remain?

Mostly, I wonder, why isn't everything  fair under Heaven?

All there is...

We are writing haibuns today at dversepoets.com about the "Why" behind our writing, what our style of writing is.

All there is..

Born under the Aries constellation, writing for me fulfills a need to express emotions.  Words rooted in passion, pain, sadness and joy are seeds from which grow stems of my  stories,  blossoming into scenarios of love under a pale moon, or blades of grass pushing up excruciating growth, or a meadow of amazing realization. My flowers reveal how we love, cry, ache, or dream,  how it feels to live the days of our lives.  In my garden grow verses descrbing experiences we share as humans, unleashing basic instincts as we react to the world around us, encompassing all there is.


Planted deep within,
a plethora of feelings -
compost of our souls

Free verse - flip flop weather

Words 'rain, reign, rein' in a prose poem.


dversepoets.com
    Free verse - flip - flop weather

Flip flops made it difficult
to run across the street to
buy ice cream
The heat was stifling,
my face and arms burned
a hot rosey red...
eighty days without rain...
Then, thunder rolled in,
clouds unreined
a welcome downpour.
My face lifted to the sky,
I wallowed in the cooling shower, raised my arms high,
finished the last of the waffle cookie cone.
In another part of the world, hurricanes.
Reigning angels hearing prayers rushed in, sent ships with water, food, and supplies.
Millions of less fortunate
after the storms, suffering,
wishing, waiting for torrents
of compassion to keep
flooding in.

End of August...

Acrostic poem today @
dversepoets.com

End of August


Embers blink back at me amidst grey smoke
Nothing else on my mind but you and me
Dancing flames speak of summer's fickle end

Of building sand castles on future shores
Forever pink clouds grace your silhouette

Amber shadows bleed from a crying sun
Undulating waves invite us to wade
Gusts of a north wind rustle the sea grass
Upon sunset we fall into starlight
Slowly cease coos of doves in bushes blue
Together, in vintage photos we fade

Quadrille #39 Blissfullness

dversepoets.com

Blissfullness

Pale rainbow palette above,
face in sea's air,
raindrops sashay down upon my face.
A fledgling's feather falls against my cheek.
I drink the fine wine of blissful miracles;
nature sings love notes to my senses
From a rainstorm afar,
bells toll a concierto

Ask the moon...

It's Open Link Night over at dversepoets.com  Find lots of good poetry for reading over the weekend. Mine is prose poetry.

I asked the moon,
 "what shall I do
when I want to just hide?"
Must I bare all, unlike you,
a total eclipse of the soul?
When people want to see only
one side, how long will it take
for the earth to turn to coal?

I ask the stars how and when
they will fall, for how
long they will look down on us.
Why is our journey so toiled and jagged,
such a short haul?
And, it's dangerous
venturing out
The sun is split, filters divided

Today I ask the heavens,
"Is life all by chance
or is it destiny? I
want to know why,
intellectually,
to understand why my life
is longer and better
than others', who live with drought,
disease and tyranny.

Not all touches me
in my corner of the world,
yet I feel diminished by
each misdeed against
humanity.
I fail in my small
capacity
to effect a stream
of consciousness, help  raise the
world above its searing ignorance
and dissonance

I miss our innocence,
even its trial and strife;
the canary's song not startled,
a grazing flock of  deer,
uninterrupted.
Misty-eyed, I ponder
Orion's prism lights,
asking from whence
comes our happenstance
of being

I can't escape the cold reality -
or is this ugliness a dream?
Whose truth leads us out,
keeps us from falling into an abyss?
Certainly not by a man's whim,
a casual glance
or sneer over the shoulder,
or a barbaric
swoop of arms that miss,
perchance.

Solutions are hard to come by
without a leader who knows
how to use the bully pulpit -
to enhance
the world we live in,
rather than subtract
its democracy,
and take along with it,
the beauty of this earth
Divine guidance appears
to be in evil hands.
Where are our morals and mirth?

Summer Nights

After a July break we are back to writing over at  dversepoets.com  and we are writing sonnets today.

 Summer Nights

In this burning summer of new love unfolding,

I watch you waist deep in water cobalt blue

Swimming, you wrap coconut oiled arms around me

We hide behind tall rocks and kiss.

Across the sky you will fly, and I could die

missing you, just days away from fall leaves turning.

Wet, damp sand i my hair smothers your face

Ocean foam ripples down my spine

It isn't fair clouds move more rapidly on our beachwalk

Remembering smokey warm summer nights

I'll find you in my dreams of yesterday

The light in my eyes will never reach you

when you leave me sitting here on a driftwood log

Thoughts of your lemony kisses hang in mid air

.

FYI...The Minute Poem

  FYI

While I was in the nail salon
all was foegone
for today's curse
keeps getting worse

Gals spoke of suicide among
the very young
Preyed upon
by anyone

It happens almost anywhere
they wait in lair
to bully those
in fragile throws

https://dversepoets.com

Window with a view..

The prompt for dversepoets  
 is to write about windows.

                       by klr 2013

I love windows with a view -
spend much of my life observing from them,   daydreaming through them,
in my mind's eye from within them...
of one day..
sitting, looking out at a rainy Paris street scene.
I've never been there, you see... to look out a castle window at white cliffs towering by a foggy Irish sea.
I loved the ordinary backyard view of chickens in old Mexico, hearing mariachis, a lovely rose garden and caves in Extramadura. I've opened a window to hear the soothing song of Hawaii's waves, to see her sunsets.
I remember looking through old wavy glass windows of an old homestead house, could see history, the memories residing therein...a Christmas dinner cooking on a stove, potato peelings, jarred pickles, and quince preserves on the table. Candles in the windows welcomed carolers from the cold.
Stories are embedded in those wavy glass windows and thick walls, of births, birthdays, illness and death. They do not distort the truth.
I used to look out my upstairs bedroom window with a sash, see bold visions of myself climbing into the Big Dipper, sailing boats of nursury rhymes in the night skies.
From the kitchen window with Twinings tea, cup in hand, I've seen raindrops hit, fall, and puddle together over and over again, cats sleeping on their sills.

Windows open to many worlds, their framework a place for masterpieces of art in everyday living theater in the round.
Through the portals of windows, doors, the keyhole of my imagination is unlocked,
leading me beyond the beyond to the unknown yet uncannily familiar future.

Wings of grace... Quadrille #36

Having gifted himself to the world, not racing to win
...finishing his journey...
arriving fulfilled,
he bravely hurdled obstacles
...in stout rusty under-armor,
character true.
His weary wings lift off
life's end post....
flickering into paradise's mystery hush,
weeping hearts
letting him go.




For the first prompt after a two week break, I wrote a 44 word Quadrille using the word "flicker".

dversepoets.com

Summer- Haibun #40

Sun enters my soul's open window. The melon pallet precedes the blooming of honeysuckle and drinking of wine.  Ms. Cecil Brunner’s rose volunteers higher, wrapping its branches around the garden trellis.  

Mixed bachelor buttons grow tall amid green grass and amber yarrow, mirror themselves in aqua inlets of a the sea. Wetland bogs drown out the torches of evening sunsets. Cool tea invites bees to go barefoot in the the June rain. Solstice lingers in its own afterglow. And, somewhere between strawberries and hydrangea skies, the sun is preserved in mason jars for August flamboyant show of gladioli. 

Brides feel summer breezes billowing their gowns quietly. Lustrous mornings gradually flow into long evenings of summer’s soft soundtrack.  Only a slight movement betrays the steps of a baby deer coming out of the forest.  Summer’s hues begin to change to almond muesli and faded yellows.  Where the river rounds the bend, one smells wood-smoked barbecue, and perhaps hears the owls and elephants, or the cheers from a football game.

.

Blessings in trying times...

Today we are to write blessings poems, offerings to uplift and create better energy during these tumultuous days.

dversepoets.com

Blessings to those who 

harbor no hate, try to make 

the world a better place

May your hearts enter other hearts, 

chase out what evil there exists

replace with unconditional love

May your compassion 

spread on wings of gaggles of 

geese, as weather moves 

around the globe, touching faces 

with summer soft rains,

loosening roots of anger and fear

May angels ride on sunlight's 

slender beams, uplift 

you when all seems lost and bleak

offering you liquid stairs 

to ascend, overcoming 

obstacles in your way

May forests green raise 

your consciousness as you walk

proudly in truth across the

 liberal grass of freedom

growing on playgrounds

choking out moods of despair

Blessings to those who 

nonviolently fight for 

dignity, clean air,

human rights and medicare

May jeweled dragonflies skip

by, wanting to know your face

Peppermint oil on my temples..

dversepoets.com  Quadrille #35

PEPPERMINT OIL ON MY TEMPLES

....awakening in
meadow yellow green,
lavender floral notes astound
Time sweetens memories;
my soul, rooted to the ground
Peppermint oil on
my temples
cools my mind;
love is soft, and when he
comes along, he will
taste like the poetry I
wish to write

Periwinkle skies

dversepoets.com
Victoria has asked us to write using the Lai form of poetry today, a nine line stanza or verse with the short 5 or 2 syllable lines. I expanded it to several more lines.

Sayer,
With my hazel eyes
I see the sunrise

layers,
and I theorize
the Universe' size.

Sailors'
silken moons arise;
I romanticize,

players
immortalized in
periwinkle skies

Prayers, 
stories of our lives, 
hopes, dreams realized

Paler
stars found, a surprise
novas rhapsodize

Nature
mourns, decries the why's
of lost butterflies

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