dVerse Poetics – New World — The Great Mother Smiles – a Prosery Tale

Mish is hosting poetics over at dverse poets and enlists us to create a new world

“As another year approaches, it is sometimes difficult to maintain hope for what lies ahead, though hope defined is really something of our own making. We can always have hope. We can always have dreams. This world we live in has progressed in countless ways but has also taken regressive steps, in my opinion regarding humanity. Often my poetry tends to dip into the dark. For me, the words flow from what I see as an obvious truth, a direction that our society has taken, without hesitation or contemplation. Today I am asking you to do the same. Dream with me. For this prompt, create and describe a “new world” as you envision it. You can write from a general perspective or focus on one particular scene in your new world. Try, if you can to avoid a specific political view. This ol’ world has been a bit lost for awhile now. The sky’s the limit. Maybe your world doesn’t have a sky. Maybe we live in the sky. Keep it simple or take us to Utopia.”

New World — The Great Mother Smiles – a Prosery Tale

Echo – dVerse Poetics

Merril is our host for Poetics at dVerse poets pub this week. So, for today’s Poetics challenge, I’d like you to write something about echoes. You can write actual echo poetry—where you repeat the end word or syllable or echo sounds.

OR—you can write a poem about some sort of actual echoes.
OR –you write about the myth of Echo.
OR—you can combine any or all of these.

Voices echo dimly
in the hollow of my heart
empty no longer

The Voice – The Moody Blues

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP

Less by Moonlight – dVerse Poetics

Laura Bloomsbury is our host at dVerse Poetics this week. In this season of more, more, more, Laura asks us to pen a poem of less.

The suffix ‘less’ has both negative and positive connotations and even neutral ones. The challenge is to choose ONE or MORE from THE LIST of words BELOW and include it/them in the body and/or title of your poem. If possible, add a soupçon of hopefulness for Hope is the message in this first advent week!

ageless ~ boundless ~ breathless ~ careless ~ cloudless ~ colourless ~ faceless ~ fearless ~ feckless ~ flawless ~ formless ~ harmless ~ heedless ~ helpless ~ homeless ~ listless ~ needless ~ restless ~ rootless ~ senseless ~ tasteless ~ weightless ~ windowless ~ wordless ~

Weightless by Moonlight

Gazing out at the cloudless night
colourless half moon shining bright
My eyes beheld the flawless sight
an owl in ageless graceful flight

Hovering weightless in the air
faceless prey now moves with care
for this fearless hunter dares
to hunt the boundless forest bare

harmless tonight he floats on by
formless hoots and eerie cries
restless now he scans the sky
the beat of wings his breathless sign

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP

dVerse Poetics – Black

from my polyvore collection

HA is hosting and welcomes us to another week of dVerse Poetics. “Today, I am prompting you to think of what comes to your mind when you picture ‘Black’. Think of what it means to you or what it stands for. You can venture into different areas like identity, materialism, personal experiences, physics, et al. as well. Or you can simply incorporate the word ‘black’ in your title and poem. Once you have thought it through and you have written and published your poem, link it up in the widget down below.”

Black Heart

Deep and Rich and Dark
the black of night
removes the colors
from our sight
but for a single star
that burns more bright
or is it just illusion

Hearts so fragile
and easily broken
when into blackness
the mind is woken
when angry words
can’t be unspoken
souls lie in confusion

Blackness covers all
withered limbs that
writhe and fall
crumbled ‘neath the wind
we must walk away or crawl
as colors dance in gay profusion

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP

The Dance – a Poetics Portrait

Photo from moderncolors on Pixabay

Ha is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub and Ha bids us:

“This week, I am exhorting you all to write/create a profile/portrait in your verse. You can go about it in a variety of ways — you can write a descriptive piece about an interesting person you met today or profile a loved one (or perchance someone you don’t like at all) or think of an event involving one or multiple people and write about the things as they transpired with people in the focus or perhaps do a self-portrait. It is open to interpretation but there are certain tools that can enhance a profile/portrait, for instance, rich details, movements, sensory descriptions, quotes, et al. Choose any or all.”

The Dance

She walks gently across
the last grass of summer
bare feet barely bruising
the browning blades

The scarf around her waist
is festooned with tiny bells
that jingle and clamor
with the sway of her hips

We lay a blanket on the grass
and she takes out her cards
telling me my future
while I smile and laugh

By the light of her lanterns
we dance beneath the stars
to the ancient song of the trees
and the music of the winds

We dance for our sisters
both near and far away
those who cannot remember
a time when the swish and sway

of a woman’s hips and legs
were so profound and beautiful
that music was molded to it
and they called it the dance

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP

The Poetics of Food

Lisa is hosting Poetics Tuesday over at dVerse Poets pub and she has asked for a poem about food. Fall and food an inextricably linked for me. Food and memories, I can still smell the pies baking. I wonder sometimes, how will a generation brought up on store bought confections ever know the pure bliss of the smelling the first pumpkin pie of day, fresh from the oven, still jiggily as jello, cooling near the window.

Grandma’s Pumpkins

All through the month of October,
the leaves turned bright colors
and merrily danced on the winds
like the way I learned to dance
with my tiny feet on top of Daddy’s

Grandma’s kitchen was filled
with harvest smells and warmth
fog from the cook pots steaming
the windows where I drew hearts
leaves and jack-o-lanterns

Pumpkins graced the table nightly
in some form or another
roasted and drizzled with oil
mashed with rich butter
or baked into elegant pies

The pies were my favorite
delicate things they were,
edges with dough shaped like leaves
the top dark brown at the center
radiating out into delicate umber edges

The largest from the patch
were carved on Halloween
into happy faces, filled with candlelight
to keep unfriendly spirits at bay
silent sentries guard us through the night

Grandmother and her kitchen are gone now
I watch my grandchildren carve the pumpkins
that will stand guard over our homes this night
the kitchen is redolent with steam and smells
of cinnamon and butter, and Grandma’s pumpkins

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP

Waiting

Waiting

There comes a time
when the prayers are all used up
when you don’t even know
what to pray for anymore
and there is nothing left to do but wait
for the hope those prayers have sown

There are 148 floor tiles
18 bags of tea, six decaf
Twelve black
The coffee is dark
Making up in strength
For the taste it lacks

Twelve hours ago
I knew not these sterile walls
Nor their nooks and crannies
Now I count the dust mites
Floating in the sunbeams
And the numbness of my fanny

But a butterfly floats past a window
It’s shadow dances with joy
Dispelling fear and gloom
Yes there is beauty to be found
And life to be savored
Even in the SICU* waiting room

* Surgical Intensive Care Unit – where I’ve spent the majority of my time these past 3 weeks.  Yes things are finally looking up.  I’ll post more about it later.  😉  For dVerse Poets Poetics Tuesday Sarahsouthwest asks us:

“How much of our time do we spend waiting for things to happen? How much do we spend hanging in the pauses between events, the gaps in our lives?”

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP