Perennial

Chains rattle the door

Ghost of White Christmases Past

Snow, Snow, go away

 

Foxtail Palms wave at the sky

Green with envy, nevermore

For Frank J. Tassone’s Challenge #11

First Snow or Ever Green

The storm that brought snow to much of the US brought a touch of cold to us here in Central Florida. Growing up in the north I was always certain that I had been born in the wrong place and moved south shortly after college.  Except for a brief stint back in the midwest, I have been firmly planted where the snow shovel never roams and Christmas Dinner is served on the back porch.

Live Oaks Retain Life

live oaks retain life

November the joyous month

southern doors flung wide

thankful for reprieve from heat

we walk in the midday sun

Photo by Jilly

 

© Jilly’s  All Rights Reserved

Posted for Frank J. Tassone’s Haikai Challenge #8 – Thanksgiving.

November is the most beautiful month in Florida.  It is a time of returning to life and being outside; this is our season of life.

Paranoia

eyes at my windows

Photo by Jilly ©

windows to thy Sandhill soul

unfolding the red

infiltration of thy grey

feathers Paranoia Mine

 

Tanka by Jilly©

 

Photo by Jilly ©

Sandhill Cranes

We are being challenged by Lillian over at dVerse to write about the view from our windows, or the view into our windows.  Looking In/Looking Out.  Join us!

These charming Sandhill Cranes, a breeding pair and their young one (bottom photo) posed for me one very hot day just outside my window.  Their prehistoric-sounding call is a delight! The Paranoia part is purely fictional for poetry’s sake.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day One – “Vital Updraft”

Day One of 28 Days of Unreason 2017 (WooHoo!)

My writing has been flat, my muse bored, and my heart a bit frantic for a kick-start.  Jim Harrison’s Songs of Unreason is the best curative known to Jilly.  If you are joining in, you are most welcome!  Please know that I will not be doing anything formal (linky & etc.), so just drop me a comment to wave at me; I love your beautiful presence.  The Harrison line is followed by my first poem.  I went with the Tanka form just to be gentle with myself. In case you haven’t written a Tanka before it is like an extended Haiku.  5 lines with syllable counts of 5/7/5/7/7.

Harrison Quote / Day One Prompt:

“In this world of dreams don’t let the clock cut up your life in pieces.”  

~ Jim Harrison

VITAL UPDRAFT 
(A Tanka by Jilly ©)

Cumulus expand

Driven upward by their own

Energy and dreams

I stop all progress of time

Caught in the vital updraft

Photo by Jilly ©

 

Gob Smacked

Tanka Tuesday

 

Vanilla thunder

gob smacked you while standing bare

footed in the lone

some shattering afternoon

dark as night at two o’clock

 

© Jilly’s    June 6, 2017 All Rights Reserved

Exchange

Tanka Tuesday

Exchange sharp gold fish

for black coffee and old dogs

wishes of spring dawn

for hard acceptance of pain

and frozen January

 

© Jilly’s 5/16/2017 All Rights Reserved

Blistered Ground

Tanka Tuesday
Also posting a 'dirty' poem for d'Verse!  (Soil Poetics)

 

First pink sky of dawn

Fog wanders low on bronze fields

Lonely cattle graze

Blistered ground with gaping mouth

Still no rain comes near; we wait.

 

© Jilly’s 5/9/2017 All rights reserved

Please Listen To Me

Please listen to me
I have a story to tell
it is my treasure
I’m sure you want to hear it
please listen to me tell it

     Does not interest me
     I am thinking of my own
     story preparing
     my words it is my treasure
     I’m sure you want to hear it

is about my world
where I am the sun and you
are waiting to hear
my every word for I am
infinitely brilliant to

     Listen to me be
     enraptured by my tale of 
     woe of joy of my
     treasured daily minutiae
     please listen to me tell it


© Jilly's

NaPoWriMo encourages us to write a 
back-and-forth correspondence.
I chose to write a back-and-forth conversation.