In Times Like This

For Merril’s quadrille on dVerse Poets Pub and for my in-person Creator’s Studio

 

In Times Like This

“These roads are haunted now.” Salem’s Lot, Stephen King

 

Thin yellow sun blankets the roads.

I travel these roads without you now.

A frisson of loneliness runs down my spine

I am temporarily blinded by tears.

I swerve to avoid a squirrel zipping across the road,

granting it emporrary life.

A hawk searches above,

 

December 22, 2019

For De’s quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets Pub. Today the prompt word is sky.

December 22, 2019
“My witness is the empty sky.” Jack Kerouac

I watched the sun slowly setting
in your beautiful sky blue eyes,
holding you close feeling your
breath go lighter until…
it stopped.
I peered into your eyes –
the sky was empty.
outside it was sleeting.
I closed those beautifu sky blue eyes
forever.

The Wind is Eavesdropping

for Kim’s prompt at dVerse Poets Pub https://dversepoets.com/2020/09/07/quadrille-111-whats-that-rustling-in-the-eaves/.  We are to write a quadrille today – a poem of exactly 44 words, excluding the title and using the word given for the day – eavesdropping.  It jas been a long while since I have visited my old friends at dVerse as I have been grieving the death of my husband.  I have been writiing but not positing.  Today, this word was a sign – I have been working on a short poem with the word in it.  Hello fellow poets!  It is good to visit again.

The Wind is Eavesdropping
“The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.” George R.R. Martin

The wind is eavesdropping on the trees
and the woodland creatures.
It listens as the squirrels
skitter and scamper
and prepare for fall.
Cold this twilight with
Venus burning bright.
The sun explodes in a pre-autumn
blue sky as the geese fly quickly southward.

 

 

Sevenling: This Amazing Man

A sevenling for Frank’s prompt – write a poem of seven lines.  I wrote a Sevenling poem.  A Sevenling poem form is simple – yet complicated. Lines one to three should contain three connected or contrasting statements, or a list of three details, names or possibilities. This can take up all of the three lines or be contained anywhere within them. Lines four to six should similarly have three elements (statements, details, names, or possibilities) connected directly or indirectly or not at all. The seventh line should act as a narrative summary or punchline or an unusual juxtaposition.

 

Sevenling:  This Amazing Man
“God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.” – J. M. Barrie

He disliked three things:
People who were cruel to children and animals,
People who were wealthy and did not share it to feed the hungry,
and people with no sense of humor.

He loved hybrid tea roses,
his stinky basset hound Chester,
and the smell of rain on newly cut grass.

This amazing man asked me to marry him and I said yes.

 

 

 

 

Not Closed

For De’s Quadrille Prompt over at dVerse Poets Pub and for Positive Prompted Poetry.  The word for today is “closed”.

 

Not Closed
“The first blooms of spring always make my heart sing.” — S. Brown

small business and restaurants
are closed – as is schools
government offices.
I walk around the neighborhood
and smile.
Not closed is the blue sky over head
and the dogwood trees,
the birds singing,
small yellow butterflies
hovering over dandelions.
lilacs bloom –
Spring is open!

Outside

For Carrie’s 100th Sunday Muse BlogSpot. whoo hoo! 100! I am having trouble with my ancient computer and so I cannot post the pic of a teal door.  I ended the poem with an American sentence.  Congrats Carrie and thank you so much for the prompts!  Here’s to 100 more.

Outside
“Everyone is battling something emotional behind closed doors – that’s life.” Caroline Flack

Behind the door I spend my days alone.
I fix meals for one,
sleep alone,
don’t talk to anyone.
I have become the ultimate introvert.
Outside my door –
spring arrives.
the lawn is full of tiny blue
forget-me-nots,
dainty blue Johnny jump ups,
countless purple muscari hyacinths.
green flushes the branches of trees
and the blue sky covers all.
I don’t feel alone when I am outside.
I walk around and remember.
then I go back inside.
The alone starts again.

Spring returns with a canopy of blue overhead – the vernal sky.

Tears in Frames

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse BlogSpot.  Artwork is: “Eyes Without a Face” by Digital Collage Artist Robin Isely A short one today. I have been immersing myself in Japanese classic haiku and am starting back on my quest to be succinct.

Tears in Frames
“One by one, drops fell from her eyes like they were on an assembly line – gather, fall, slide…gather, fall, slide…each one commemorating something she had lost.” ― Lisi Harrison, Monster High

Tears came before I could stop them,
what was the point in wiping them off?
I have imprisoned myself in my grief –
observers wander the halls
in the museum of my grief –
as lost as I

Your Song

For Carrie’s wonderful picture prompt at the Sunday Muse Blogspot.

Your Song
“I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words, how wonderful life is while you’re in the world.” Your Song by Elton John

I am the moon in the cold black sky
shining through the lace of
your curtains,
reflecting your face in the shining wood
of your piano.
You are contemplating an piece by Chopin –
the Minute Waltz?
Poloniase in C Sharp Major?
Piano Sonata No. 3?
Maybe something modern –
Maybe – Your Song?
I wait in the blackness
listening for your first note.
I am up here alone –
staring down at the cold earth below me –
frost forming on the grass and cars.
Shadows from the lace of the curtains
forming on your back.
You play the opening riff to Your Song.
The dark earth sleeps beneath me.

Peeling Fruit

For dVerse Poets Pub.  Today is Quadrille Monday.

 

Peeling Fruit

“What can we expect from an empty shell Where many hearts of pearl once beat to dwell, Waves fail to break hard layer’s bond of love, Wailing shore sends memoir to the sky above” ― Munia Khan

The knife plunges into the blood orange
and the chef pulls back the peel
and rips it from the orange.
the blood orange seeps red liquid.
I feel just like that orange.
the orange bleeds juice –
the human bleeds tears.
the knife keeps ripping.

Voice of the Wolf

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse BlogSpot. I managed to fix my puter.  Yayyyyy!

 

Photography by Sarolta Ban
View website HERE

 

Voice of the Wolf
“Our lives are richer when we listen to what wolves have to teach us.” Jim and Jamie Dutcher

She approached the old woman slowly,
head down in a gesture of peace.
We are all wolves howling to the same moon,
she said.
the old woman put down her paper.
she pondered what the wolf said.
We are all wolves howling to the same moon,
the wolf said again.
This time,
the old woman rose from the bench
and followed as the wolf led her to the woods
and to the full moon.

 

 

 

Cold Stars

For Amaya’s prompt at dVerse which has some strange rules. I hope I fulfilled them all. If not, oh well.

Cold Stars
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I look at the impersonal stars in
the cold night sky
and I wonder –
do they know you died and left my sky?
do they care?
they shine all the time you know.
you just can only see them at night.
How can I care about the end of civilization
when my life changed so drastically?
Is that why you stars shine on in the cold darkness?
Not caring?
You stars suffered an unfathomable loss
eons ago?
And still burn with the pain of it?

The Songs of Birds

A quadrille for Dverse Poets Pub. It is quadrille Monday and De is hosting. She has gifted us the word “fill” or a variant of the word.

The Songs of Birds
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

It is cold and rainy but the trees
are speaking with the voices of birds.
Their songs fill the air –
they must have known I was lonely and
needed a friendly chirp or two.
I wander around this empty house
like a ghost – weeping.