Behold! April

Standing on the cusp of April, our beloved month of verse!  
I will be attempting, once more, to write at least 
one poem each day and post it here.  
I will also be adding to 'Mining For Lines' prompts.  
Feel free to share anything you write in response!  
In addition, I am setting a goal to participate in 
Wordless Wednesday throughout the month.  
Write on, my friends!   Jilly :)

BEHOLD!  APRIL

April is only

cruel when we are denied

joy in poetry

 
The agony the

utter ecstasy of verse

in a land of waste

 
Embrace sweet April

stir life round the batter bowl

taste and see the good

 
The wretched in all

imagery dipped and dripping

puddling at my feet

© Jilly’s March 31, 2017

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A Year Yearning

I feel guilty indulging in
                depression or is it
just malaise?
in Florida
in February

                I mean

after all those people with
dry skin enduring
late-season snow blackened
by ill-use and exhaust

while I sit
back on my lawn chair pondering a weeping
palm against
a cloud lit orange by the reflective
lights of Orlando sipping

wine wondering
how a year has

Passed

since flying into O’Hare
racing unsuccessfully
to beat out the storm
of the year
on I-94
wondering if a funeral can be snowed
out.

© Jilly's 

Writing Ironically at dVerse - join us!

Irony A’Stir

Four iced-tea spoons lie in the drawer
Four iced-tea spoons je t’adore
Long sleek waves sweep down the stem
Lush silver elegance with a rose at the end

A jasmine brew with ice drops a‘clink
Announce long summer days, cold, cold drink
A hammock to sway in the kind evening breeze
Swirling the ice ‘til the glass is a’freeze

Three iced-tea spoons a’heap in the drawer
Three iced-tea spoons I abhor
One on the counter upon the spoon rest
Come Monday morn rise early and dressed

A breakfast blend dark roast quickly a’grind
Announcing the weekend left quite behind
One spoon in the drawer that goes to the length
To stir up the coffee, the work-a-day drink

The ritual on Friday a’fore we rush out the door
The ritual on Friday ‘taint really a chore
Ditch the iced-tea spoons in the washer of dish
T’won’t need tall travel mugs ‘til Monday I wish!

© Jilly's 

Join in the fun over at dVerse where we are stirring up some Irony!

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tragic Ballad of Little Muldoon

I and Kuhn and little Muldoon
down to Log Lake did wander
cool was the mud betwixt my toes
and the sneezer did tickle my nose

I and Kuhn and little Muldoon
to the water’s edge did we gander
the air we did sniff and persnuffled
the breeze how our fur it out truffled

I and Kuhn and little Muldoon
thinking back it raises my dander
there a floating log opened its eye
and snatched up Muldoon passing by

I and Kuhn without our Muldoon
ran back up the bank of the lander
I will never endeavor to swim
with the likes of a log such as him!

© Poem and Photograph by Jilly

Join us over at dVerse!  It's Spring !
In the voice of this little raccoon -
I happened to be there when he lost his sibling
to an enterprising gator at Circle B Bar Preserve near Lakeland, Florida.
Turns out that raccoons are into rhyme and meter - who knew. 

Shimmer

Breathe thou twisting skipper of green
spill your shadow journey

                    a whispering dance


bursting our balloon of spring
scars of melted leaves
curled at ghost dawn
lulled by a breeze

                    spark the opening clouds


as a giggling rose
thy bubble jar
grins on cue









© Jilly's Poem & Photograph

Come over to dVerse and 
join in the fun!

A Bird Flies Through Me

 

The calculated
unpredictable dissonance
of Monk
balloons off the living room walls
as we toast marshmallows
arguing about whether you or I
are right-brained or left
wondering if that bird that launched
from the trees across the lake
were an eagle or early owl

Poem & Photo
© Jilly's 2016
A Quadrille
Join us over at dVerse!

on Birds, Birches, and the Joy of Eating Eggs

“It is the birthday of Robert Frost,”
You said over a bowl of soup
and I heard it as though
Garrison Keillor was sitting there, perhaps
because you are both from Minnesota,
and then, in that way of yours you added
“And I didn’t buy him anything.”
We both laughed and then fell silent
each working on poetry in our heads
tearing bread, spooning soup
Frost, like Dickenson, taking me back to my childhood
because they were the poets of my elementary
classrooms and I loved their words overtly
until sometime in college I was told
they were passé and of the lesser
poets and I felt my smallness of mind
but loved them still until
in later years they became fashionable
once more and I learned anew what
I always knew
that what I love, I love
whether it be poets or jazz or eggs
which are bad for you and then good for you again
which brings me back to that first poem
I ever wrote, in third grade
something about a bird on the walk or
birches bent by ice and, I image in all my pride,
a lesson about being true to my own heart 
and eating eggs any way.

© Jilly
March 26, 2017

 

All is right

On the second day of 
                    Spring
after a dry
dry winter when the
rivers and lakes
have given their life
to the dry
dry sky

A feather dusting of 
                   Rain
in flat wide drops
is given back
at last
at long last

We drove homeward
through a flashing
orange pink sky
of silent bolts
to find them
                Singing
on the lake and in the hollow
swamp beyond
in such fullness of voice
that the window panes
vibrated clean through
to the kitchen sink
where I washed
vegetables and swept
mushrooms

We lit three candles
on the back porch
poured two glasses
of pinot noir
drew the darkness
into our lungs
until our chests
ached with the voices

The sound of our neighbors’
voices speaking
Hindi on one side
Spanish on the other
the wheels of the trucks
on the highway
all drowned under
the layers of rasping
                     Harmony
with one mezzo soprano
speaking a descant of
                     Truth 
louder than
the billboards
on Orange Avenue tonight.

Jilly
Poem & Photo © Jilly's 2016

Voices

There are voices
in these woods
souls about the garden
They speak
if you listen

Not the grand
nor the showy
but the small, the shy
the sly pink blossom
requirring
a short lens
zoomed in close
a delicate hand
at the helm
while I say,

‘I see you there, small one.’
Click.

 

Poem and Image © Jilly’s 2016

Taken at Harry P. Leu Gardens

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