Category Archives: Poem

“In Person” For SOCS, Feb 21, 2025

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In Person

I am the emptiness in you that glues the parts of you together.
I form those other worlds that are the universe inside of you.
I have a language all my own that speaks through your voice.
There is something holding us together, something keeping us apart.

You are that part of me that only I can search for.
You are the part I wrap myself around.
You are the mystery that forms the game of my life.
When I am alone, you create in me the opposite of loneliness.

They are the full cast of my life.
They  come together when I am willing to let both of them go.
I let them take turns being my guide.
It is in getting lost in them that I let myself be found.

For SOCS  the prompt is “in person.”

“Dropped Glove,” Madrigal Poem for dVerse Poets

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Dropped Glove

When love first blooms it seems eternal love
Impossible that it might fall away
What use is love that doesn’t choose to stay?

At first love seems to fit one like a glove
that warmly cloaks our hand both night and day
When love first blooms it seems eternal love
Impossible that it might fall away

We know not what love’s garment is made of.
We only note when it begins to fray
and loosens more and more along the way.
When love first blooms it seems eternal love
Impossible that it might fall away
What use is love that doesn’t choose to stay?

For dVerse Poets we were to write a Madrigal poem. Here are the rules for an English Madrigal: :Content: Often includes a theme of love
*Usually written in iambic pentameter.
*Comprised of three stanzas: a tercet, quatrain, and sestet.
*All three of the lines in the opening tercet are refrains.

Form: A thirteen-line form in three stanzas:
Stanza 1] Tercet -Three lines
Stanza 2] Quatrain – Four lines
Stanza 3] Sestet – Six lines

[L1] A (refrain 1)
[L2] B1 (refrain 2)
[L3] B2 (refrain 3)

[L4] a
[L5] b
[L6] A (refrain 1)
[L7] B1 (refrain 2)

[L8] a
[L9] b
[L10] b
[L11] A (refrain 1)
[L12] B1 (refrain 2)
[L13] B2 (refrain 3)

Go HERE to read other poems created to this prompt.

Simplicity for Moonwashed Madness, Feb 20, 2025

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Simplicity

Trying to keep it simple is harder than you think.
Each time I straighten out my life, fate adds another kink.

 

For Moonwashed Musings,
To see other responses to the prompt, go HERE.

Mulberry

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Mulberry

Vincent, what skewed your branches, streaked your sky,
and drew tormented waters from above?
What crops, obscured by grasslands
pressed to earth?
What part of you
at rest beneath that tree––
now only your marker
left for us to see?

For dVerse Poets
To see other responses to this prompt, go HERE.

Rum Dumb for RDP, Feb 19, 2025

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Rum Dumb

Beer is tacky. Wine’s a joke.
My preference is Rum and Coke.
Squeeze a lime in. Take a sip
to cool your throat and wet your lip.
My favorite form of inebriation
is always Cuba Libre-ation.

The RDP prompt is Tacky. Can’t resist that one. Went back 11 years and found this ditty I wrote that just happened to contain the prompt word. I didn’t remember writing it, so perhaps you don’t remember reading it.  Does anyone???

Incandescent Insect Insomnia for MVB, Feb 16, 2025

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Incandescent Insect Insomnia

When nature made the  glow worm glimmer,
would that she’d installed a dimmer;
for when I put out the light,
what I expect is total night.

When it puts itself in action,
I fear it sets up a distraction.
Little glow worm on the shelf,
please keep your glowing to yourself.

 

For My Vivd Blog, the prompt is Glimmer. Photo gleaned from the Internet.

“Stickler” for Stream of Consciousness Saturday, Feb 14, 2025

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Photo by Ryan O’Niel on Unsplash. Used with permission

Stickler

The banker, the doctor, the rabbi, the priest
used to jam back in high school and never ceased.
They’ve been meeting on Saturday nights all their lives
leaving their girlfriends and bishops and wives
to drink beer and rap and have deep discussion
about riffs and choruses, notes and percussion.
The priest is the drummer. He wields a wild stick.
The rabbi’s a string guy. The cello’s his schtick.
The banker plays sax and the doctor’s on keys,
but they’re all pretty good at  shooting the breeze.

It’s as hot as a sauna and still they play on.
All through the night and into the dawn.
the priest squeegees his glasses off with his left thumb
while his right is engaged in beating the drum.
He’s a stickler for rhythm, enthralled with the beat.
He stirs a small zephyr while stomping his feet.
When they’ll stop playing is anyone’s guess.
It’s obvious they overlook my duress.
They’ve had a good jam. A most excellent session,
but the priest better scoot or he’ll miss my confession!

The prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday  is Stickler.

I Took a Picture of Your Name for dVerse Poets, Feb 14, 2025

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I Took A Picture Of Your Name.

After so many years, seeing it again on the screen,
I took a picture of your name.
Not written by your hand,
it had a strangeness––
featureless, revealing nothing.
It had no voice,
no breath.

Out there sharing itself with the world,
it has formed a wall around
that intimacy it birthed when you took my hand in yours,
using your name to pull me closer,
powerless against its strength on your tongue.

Everyone wanted to share a part of what made you you,
but I only wanted to be with you, back when,
scrawled in your careless hand,
you were written on my soul.

Wanting to be perfect for you,
remembering that tattoo you traced across my back.
Your name and mine.
“Always,” you wrote.

For the dVerse Poet’s Pub, Feb 14, 2025

To see other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

“Next” for the Three Things Challenge, Feb 14, 2025

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Next

To live in yesterday’s a sorrow.
From the past I need not borrow.
I just need my next tomorrow.

 

For the Three Things Challenge  the word I chose was:  NEXT.

For Writing Prompts: Team

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Poor Sport

I’ve never climbed a mountain.
I don’t dive in the sea.
Team sports are simply pastimes
that don’t agree with me.

I cannot bat or pitch or catch.
A baseball skill I lack;
and when I tried at tetherball,
it hit me in the back.

I flinched and ducked, then stood back up,
tried once more for the ball;
but when I missed, got hit again
and took another fall.

I ski a lot upon my back
and when I swim I sink.
The water I can handle well
is in my kitchen sink.

In grade school when we played those games
involving run and chase,
I was the last one chosen;
for I never won a race.

I did not shine at tennis,
nor at volleyball.
When it comes to doing sport,
I find I’ve flunked them all.

Bowling, golf and badminton,
croquet and racquetballing
are talents I just don’t possess.
They simply aren’t my calling.

I fear I lack the focus
to hit balls with stick or hand.
To me, it’s hocus-pocus.
I’d rather join the band.

In games that take sports prowess,
my teammates rave and rant
that I do not play kick-the-can,
but rather, kick-I-can’t.

Some people lacking talent,
coordination, speed—
simply choose spectator sports
to fill their sportly need.

But I don’t like watching football,
your soccer or your hockey;
and when it comes to horse racing,
I neither bet nor jockey.

I admit, at sports I am
the worst you’ve ever seen.
So stop expecting more of me.
I simply lack the gene!!

For Esther’s Writing Prompts: Team