Chet Baker’s Tangerine
Shirley Temple’s “Ooooh, my goodness!”
The flight pattern coming into O’Hare
without him
where she’s playing Solitaire
forming a perfect fluttering
arc shuffling the deck
wondering why the glass
is octagonal
and the hole in the ground
was a rectangle
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
For The Daily Post Circle
Sarah Connor’s Challenge Poem for September’s Casting Bricks posed a beautiful dilemma as I felt her portion of the work had a most satisfying wholeness about it. Here is my completion of her Ghosts at My Table, with her words in bold.
there are ghosts at my table tonight
I write, not mentioning that
my table is a pale rectangle
of wood, so that perhaps
you picture your own table,
round, white, plastic –
or a dark mahogany oval,
and your ghosts are
the dark ring left by
a wine bottle, the last time
you had dinner with
a long lost lover,
or the scorched place
where you set down a pan
too quickly, the day
you heard that news
about your sister, while mine
are the assorted stains
and scratches left by my
children as they leave their
childhood, not quite ghosts,
waiting to fade.
traces, corner-of-your
eye glimmers of that wistful
year when the youngest
fell through the ice
yet returned to sit
on the OED to reach
the pudding and meat;
flickers of damp lashes
at the giving-away altar,
wondering if it were joy
or sorrow; apparitions
that slip into the chairs
round the smaller meals
each night and hover, seamless
visions lingering long after
dishes are clattered and wiped
from my vision and I, wavering
between longings.
© Connor / Lyman Collaboration
The September edition of Casting Bricks to Attract Jade, our collaborative writing challenge, is drawing to a close, but since the links don’t expire, all are welcome to take the writing plunge. I roll out the October Challenge on Friday, the 6th!!! Looking forward to fresh and zany collaborations once again. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to contribute a half-poem challenge or pose a Renga challenge, finding something to spark your imagination. ~Cheers! Jilly
Hag-Ridden
Closet-Hidden
Chest-Holder
Ghost-Bolder
than all my Beliefs
your Facts
their Science
can defend
when
REM holds
Council
with Awake
A
Wake
As the Chief of Mahrs
Gallops across my Lake
of Dreams
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
Frank has us writing poems for dVerse tonight on the theme of Sleep. Join us!
O bland Adonis
she fell for his
six-pack abdomis
Movie and dinner
proffered he
with smiles sure
to swoon every she
Milk-toast he
turned out to be
with rippling
curls his brains
unfurled
A second date?
No enspicement
such a flavorless fate
tempted she!
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
This brought out the Silly Jilly side of me; no apology.
Mish spices up our Quadrille writing over at dVerse tonight! Join us 🙂
Taking up the Challenge from Colin Lee, here is my completion of his Vernal Flutter. I invite you all to join in with the Casting Bricks September Challenge where we collaborate and enjoy each other’s work. There are nearly 2 weeks remaining in the September Challenge. (I will roll out the October Challenge on Friday, October 6th.) All are welcome!
I have kept Colin’s rhyme scheme and, hopefully, his voice in this. His words are in bold.
Awake my soul into a dream
A dream of robins’ poetry
Whereon tickly fluff of dandelions rhymes
And in silken crepuscular rays the verses stream
I hear a heartbeat
Dripping warm dewdrops of mead
Into the wind
Into her melodies of angelic sweet
Awake my soul to a poet’s scheme
A scheme of heron’s rhymes
Whereon snail’s spherical shells imagery curves
And in nocturnal dreams are lunar beams
I hear a wingbeat
Echoing soft reverberations of sweet wine
Into my core
Into her descants spring is complete.
© Lyman / Lee Collaboration
Digging back a few weeks into the Poetry Prompts on Poet’s & Writers, I’m going to spend this evening on this prompt:
“Write a poem that takes its cue from an element of Poe’s verse that you are especially drawn toward. Consider its themes of loss and devotion; the extensive use of alliteration and rhyme; the “nevermore” refrain; classical, mythological, and biblical references; the question-and-answer sequencing; the symbolism of the raven; or the forebodingly dark atmosphere.”
Care to join me, my poetic friends? I’ll be back to post my poem here after I have successfully written it. Here is a Linky if you feel like joining in!
Update: Here is my Sonnet, which is a blending of those things that caught my poetic eye from The Raven and a nod to Sonnet 130 with its reverse simile.
My lover’s voice is nothing like a raven
He does not quote a dark and dreary word
Tousled hair and face oft times unshaven
No other love could ever be preferred
I have seen Adonises beholden
And men with wealth beyond the normal way
My lover’s lips breathe words of honey golden
A treasured heart more green than gold can stay
He pours the wine and calms my troubled mind
Wends wisdom’s sound as from the mouth of Pallas
Forevermore our hearts will be entwined
Shining as a midnight borealis
Like poetry and verses read out gently
He is, he is my dosed nepenthe!
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
Cheers! ~Jilly
Completing Imelda’s Challenge Poem, Words, I learned a new form and found great enjoyment working with this gifted poet. Her words are in bold:
Words, once set free, blend in the wind
breathing a timeless existence;
Some grow wings to fly to heaven
They ask gifts for the gentle tongue
Breathing a timeless existence,
words illuminate our soul
Memories do falter in time
consequences of words live on.
Some grow wings to fly to heaven
dropping soft prayers upon the clouds
seeds of rain to cleanse the dry land
a renaissance to flood the hearts
They ask gifts for the gentle tongue
to sing in languages unknown
filling lungs with placid breezes
fertile verses settling soft
© Lyman / Santore
Collaboration for Jilly’s September Challenge of Casting Bricks.
Please join us! We start anew on the first Friday of each month with our collaborative challenge. There is a permalink on my sidebar. ~Jilly
In the September Casting Bricks Challenge, NoSaint has managed to lasso the illusive Coltrane in his completion of my Challenge Poem. I’m impressed! Take a look at what my talented friend accomplished!
What color is it when poetry
is lost, leaving only prose
and Prozac and a longing
for nights cold enough to throw
an old familiar blanket
into the dryer just to smell
its heat evaporate
into memories of shipwrecked
eggs and jigsaw puzzles
with the pieces that make up
the eyes missing from the box?
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
Join us at dVerse for none of the answers to your poetic questions.
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
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