Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Friday afternoon’s the dead zone
they warned in solemn tones.
Said I, Couldn’t care less,
loathe to confess
I did.
Experimentally
one Friday I gingerly
hit PUBLISH on WordPress —
The silence?
Momentous.
I wonder, has anyone noticed these “dead zones” or is it just me? When is your most popular time when you get the most traffic? WordPress tells me it’s Thursday morning.
A response to “No!” by Thomas Hood (1844)
November threatens forgetfulness
of summer’s desire, the yearn, the yawn, the yes!
of existence, with no! of “no shine,
no butterflies, no bees”
with creak of knees, lines of face
silver hair and brittle nails
and yes! wintry death of all desire
but for the joy in plenitude
carpe diem of eternity summering in You.
“Thus the snow loses its imprint in the sun.” (Dante, Paradiso)
For Cee's FOTD (Flower of the Day), a dahlia; "No! Vember," d'verse's Poetics prompt, pays tribute to "No!" by Thomas Hood and asks that we take "a line from this poem and use it as springboard for a new poem." I chose "No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees."
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt © Claire Fuller and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories.Word count: 100
The Smuggler of Rainbows
“It’s just a tire shop, Dad! This can’t be where we’re meeting the rainbow-smuggler!”
Inside, a cheerful woman in a colorful sari stood out of the rain, waiting.
“I’d like a rainbow,” Retnam said from her wheelchair. “Where are they?”
“They’re hiding in plain sight, my dear!” the rainbow-smuggler said, shrugging. “Just reach into a tire.”
Retnam did, pulling out a huge rainbow-colored taffy.
She laughed, then frowned.
“But it’s not REAL!” she cried.
“Look up, Retnam!” the woman said, pointing to the rain-cleared sky. “There will always be a rainbow over your head, even when you can’t see it.”
don’t rue the last days
of October’s calendar
when little goblins
seeking candies door-to-door
run, as parent lanterns glow
I remember taking our kids to Halloween parties hosted by people we knew, but only once or twice taking them trick or treating in our neighborhood, always hovering in the background, half-trepidatiously (is that a word?).
For Carrie's The Sunday Muse #184 -Join in!
Autumnal severance
season’s flashing tonality
present past present future
the shin hurt of childhood quarrel
aging fruit and jarring tumbler
last year’s fashion muffler, tomorrow’s cinder
moth-eaten “do my bones look big in this?” sweater
witch’s brew of prescription medicines
growing old is time’s obscurer
a flash of autumnal red
like twinkling stars
fade and fall
For Sammi's Day 6 ("witches brew") and Day 7 ("Do my bones look big in this?")
Along the rolling hills I hear
your mournful singing haunting clear
yet windblown.
Under the moon’s vapid eye
how can I, elf, to you deny
your windsongs?
I’ll keep you under lock and key
lest you flee and escape from me
as windstorm.
The elvish king shall have you back
when he returns the one I lack
now windbound.
On Hallow’s Eve we’ll make a swap
my child returned, you with your harp,
— home windward.
Grace at dVerse challenges us today to write a Compound Word Verse, an unfamiliar form to most ous I daresay. She writes: "The Compound Word Verse is a poetry form invented by Margaret R. Smith that consists of five 3-line stanzas, for a total of 15 lines. The last line of each stanza ends in a compound word and these compound words share a common stem word which is taken from the title. (In the first example below the stem word is “moon” from the title “Moonlighting”; the compound words related to the title are moondust, moonbeams, moonsongs, etc.) The Compound Word Verse (3 lines) has a set rhyme scheme and meter as follows: Rhyme Scheme: a,a,b Syllable/Meter: 8, 8, 3 Click on Mr. Linky to read more and join in!
Six little kittens on the graveyard shift
On the factory floor in a corner quilt
Heard the clock chime midnight
Heard the place get real quiet
On Halloween.
One went to investigate
The others seemed to hesitate
Heard a “mew” from the factory floor
Where a skeleton hanging on a door
Danced on Halloween.
Two little kittens ventured forth
One to the south, the other north
Past dancing bones until a scream
From a vampire with a ghoulish gleam
Raised furs on Halloween.
Three little kittens waited a space
Then putting on their bravest face
Ran to the aid of their kin so true
When a gravelly voice shouted “Boo!”
A grinning goblin on Halloween.
Six little kittens no longer were
Kittens that scampered here and there
Now they flew in the dead of night
As bats that gave the workers fright
Purring as they slept on Halloween.
Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain vol ii: Day 1 – Graveyard Shift
Genre: Realism Word count: 99 Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (© Brenda Cox) and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories.
The Bus
Honey Humberg had waited for this day all her life.
She’d worked and saved to build the “Humberg Bus” from scratch, designing, commissioning and assembling it, part by part. She painted it in homage to the DIY hippies that were her inspiration, free thinkers and dreamers all. She would tour Europe showcasing her singing talent and the world would fall at her feet.
In the square, the crowd cheered when the Humberg Bus arrived.
They left when she began singing.
“How much you want for the bus?” a man asked.
“One billion pounds,” she said bitterly, turning away.
“Done.”
Warning: Sensitive topic broached. Björn at dVerse: MTB asks us to write a cadralor, which poetic form consists of "5, unrelated, numbered stanzaic images, each of which can stand alone as a poem, is fewer than 10 lines, and ideally constrains all stanzas to the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial to cadralore: each stanza should be a whole, imagist poem, almost like a scene from a film, or a photograph. The fifth stanza acts as the crucible, alchemically pulling the unrelated stanzas together into a love poem. By “love poem,” we mean that your fifth stanza illuminates a gleaming thread that runs obliquely through the unrelated stanzas and answers the compelling question: 'For what do you yearn?'" Click on Mr. Linky to join us.
A bird cries over the tele-
phone wire, is it you? is it done?
over black shrouded head
Shiny pruning shears in her gloved
hands, methodically apply to de-
locate dead heads, snip, snip
There once was a small torso in a
womb severally dislodged by forceps
into medical waste
If death comes in slippered feet,
will they curl at the ends
or just your lips? Mother?
All the ghosts have left, barren
in winter, the autumn leaves twist
the sea breezes rustle in her mind.
You see through me,
Dostoevsky, you leave no light
between truth and reality
and a woman’s heart (like a man’s)
lays bared before your demands
that life be lived not in the shadows
but where madness, danger, evil threaten:
and faced, leaves no doubt of allegiance
to the God whose truth is love.
Sanaa at dVerse's Poetics asks that we "dip our toes" into a panegyric: "Plainly speaking, the term “Panegyric,” refers to a poem of effusive praise. The genre being Greek in origin is closely related to both eulogy and ode. Click on Mr. Linky and join in!
This Jolly Beggar 