Pen & Ink
Guided by a hand like yours,
pens can open many doors.
Unclip it. Uncap its point.
Let paper that pen anoint.
As words somersault and caper,
flowing from your heart to paper,
a simple point, an ink-trailed line
could link your lonely heart with mine.
For Weekend Writing Prompt: Guide
The assignment is to write a piece of exactly 45 words making use of the word “guide.” I snapped this photo in Guanajuato. Never hurts to have a pen handy!
routes laid out by heavenly bodies
the moon
at its birth
and
the sun
at its death
create
just the
suggestion
of a
road
that is
why
I rise early
for the
sunrise
why I
ask you
to join me
for the
sunset
to howl howl
at the
open moon
This is a rewrite of a poem written 8 years ago transformed into a quadrille for the dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Moon. Go HERE to read other poems written for this prompt. I think I like the quadrille version better. Thanks, De at Whimsygizmo, for the incentive.
Back-fence Whispers
Since I heard the rumors that my love is leaving,
unproven fears extend their claws and set my heart to grieving.
Still fluid memories of our love rush in to calm my mind,
shoring up belief that he’s not the roaming kind.
Still, those hurtful whispers breathed behind cupped hands
warn me that he’ll soon be off to foreign lands.
Thus, I sit and worry about what the truth may be.
Which love has he chosen? Is it the world or me?
The words today are hurt heard whispers since roams clawing rush still fluid grieving shore breathe : for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 619 Image by Ben White on Unsplash.
Number 9 Blues
Those eyes,
that song,
A bird the color
of the moon
we met under.
The wind
a ribbon of sadness.
Cold hands,
broken heart—
all the hue
of a trumpet’s lonely staccato.
Unmasked
I’d like a mirror so I can see
if I display felicity
when someone whispers in my ear
the name of one I once held dear.
I know not what my heart may feel,
what passions I might dare repeal
now that my head is ruling me
instead of love for somebody
long departed––no longer here
for so many a long-lost year.
If I could paint a picture of
the countenance of long-lost love
in monotone or multi-tones,
in stereo or monophones,
I hesitate to admit that
I fear the portrait might fall flat.
How often it has been my ploy
to act withdrawn or bored or coy,
as though the long-lapsed love I bore
is what steers my grieving core.
But, in truth, duplicity
is what in all simplicity
guides my actions and my thought
and turns me into love’s robot.
With paint cans colored various hues,
why do I always choose the blues,
rebuffing each potential woo
and dropping out of courtship’s queue?
And so, if love is not a ruse––
a mere excuse for whom to choose,
I stand here gawking, open wide,
with no place left in which to hide.
Respectability’s passe,
and pride too dear a price to pay;
for staying safe in grief’s tight room
is burial before the tomb.
And so my dear, this poem you view?
Pretend that it’s addressed to you
and join me in complicity.
Perhaps shared words can set us free.
I’m not a girl. You are no boy.
This poem is not a word-stuffed toy.
Should you respond with words that match,
it’s possible that we will catch
another chance to reach and choose
and maybe this time we won’t lose
the golden ring that does not bind.
This time we may find love is kind!
For Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #228
This is actually a poem I wrote seven years ago but for some reason, your photo reminds me of it so I changed the name and I’m reprinting it here. Is that cheating???
Reclaimed Words
I fall victim to your shallow spell,
shattered by your drifting gaze
that catches on me, then drifts on,
to mingle with the gathering haze.
The damp roils in and sunlight dims,
night mingling with the fading day.
The shattered call of evening birds
echo and then fade away.
When I call out, words split in two,
spilling their meaning to the sand.
When I attempt to gather them,
they fall again from twitching hand.
As you retreat, your power fades
and I reclaim each scattered word,
change their order and intent
into phrases less absurd.
Words once wasted assume power
directed at another ear.
Amazing how the selfsame words
gain power with a loved one near.
For The Sunday Whirl: Wordle 611 the words are: mingled dim damp shallow spell gaze drifts shattered call twitch words split
I answered a prompt for a quatrain about maps on dVerse by submitting a poem I’d written entitled “Roadmaps.” Although no one objected, it bothered me that I’d just fulfilled half of the prompt, so I decided to transform the poem into three quatrains. It only meant adding a few words to each stanza. Here is the rewrite. I don’t know if I like it better, but at least it follows all the rules:
Road Map
I’m held captive by your wrinkles, dear, enraptured by your ripples.
I love your freckles and your moles and all of nature’s stipples.
They are sacred landmarks. When I find one that is new,
I give thanks to nature for adding more of you.
Sometimes, dear, with the dark night around us rich and deep,
my mind goes on a walkabout as you lie asleep.
The road map of your body is the terrain that I pace—
the slight knolls and the gullies and your face’s fragile lace.
Some folks bemoan the changes that nature brings about,
and they bring a different beauty. It is true, without a doubt.
But as I trace each special feature of your body and your face,
I am sure that nature’s carving instills a deeper grace.
To read the original poem go HERE. Which do you prefer? This illustration and the original poem are from my adult coloring book entitled When Old Dames Get Together and Other Confessions of a Ripe Old Age. Available from Amazon HERE.
For the dVerse Poets prompt. Go HERE to read other poems to this prompt.
Day and Night
Every night when you emerge to climb down from your heart
and shed your daily mystery, you become a part
of what we were before they clashed—my daily life and yours—
before I rubbed against your nerves and you shut certain doors.
The very night bows down to gather round the slivered moon,
arched lighter on the verge of it, celebrating June.
You forsake your manly bearing and go against your grain,
show flashes of your tenderness that I’ve sought out in vain.
This is our nightly honeymoon that makes the day a breeze,
limbering up the stiffness and thawing out the freeze.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 603 the prompts are: heart you emerge night climb bow grain mystery clash flashes verge bearing The photo is of Rosemary and Jim, both now sadly departed. They were not a couple but I love this photo and thought it formed a good illustration for the poem.
Love Story After Rain
If I had a penny for each
of all my thoughts of you,
my dear, I’d buy us lollipops
for one hand,
yellow tulips for the other
and as the rainbows disappear,
replaced by brighter clouds,
stay near—
together
as we have been wont to do,
everybody else
disappearing
except us,
your sunshine drying
up the puddles.
Do not seek to join us,
world,
We are enough—
sticky-tongued
with pollen
clinging
to our lips and fingers,
silly grins.
Love story after rain.
For Wordle 319 the prompt words are: sunshine lollipops rainbows disappear join stay near penny together brighter cloud everybody
Also, for NaPoWriMo, the prompt challenges us to write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.
Conjuring
You are my homing pigeon, my wise old owl and dove.
My balsam for the pains of life, a well-remembered love.
Your presence is reality. It does not deviate.
You are a special part of life I can’t eradicate.
I breathe your name into the night and it draws you here.
Equal parts of holy and risque, you hover near.
And although your presence lasts mere minutes at a time,
it is time enough to prompt this laudatory rhyme!
Prompt words today are risque, name, balsam, deviate, reality and pigeon.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 