d’Verse Poetics; Hold onto your head (2)

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 26 Comments

Here is a second response to Merril’s Tuesday Poetics Headless Horseman prompt at d’Verse Pub for Poets . Go over to the Pub to find out more, to read the other poets’ responses and to link your own poem. Or just belly up to the bar, head in your hands.

 Where Are We Headed? by D. Avery

Once upon a time there was a species oh so clever
had found such a complex way their own heads to neatly sever
Advanced with technology, growing ever so much bolder
until they were all thumbs, heads lost beneath slumped shoulders

Learning was no longer valued, with the world within their hands
they marveled at false knowledge, smug about what they did not understand
They thought they were so clever, letting loose what they could not comprehend
and with their heads bent on their slumped shoulders, the real world came to an end

d’Verse Poetics; Hold onto your head

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 31 Comments

Tuesday Poetics at d’Verse Pub for Poets this week is hosted by Merril from Yesterday and today: Merril’s historical musings. She would have us write a poem about “some version of the headless horseman“. Go over to the Pub to find out more and to link your own poem.

High Horse by D. Avery

I ride a steed as black as ink
certain my hands are sure upon the reins
I’m astride a great high horse, I think—
(I’m headless, so I haven’t any brains)

I think I’m astride a great high horse
though it’s impossible for me to see
For I have no head (nor remorse)
for this capital deficiency

I can’t be reined in atop a horse so high 
Look at me! Hehe! Surely I must look grand
But so many just close their eyes
and keep their own heads in the sand

Some raise their heads, lift their voice and face 
so much wickedness despite grave fears
Heedless, upon my high horse I race
headlong and headless, I cannot hear

When all about are losing their heads
I shall remain upon this lathered horse
Had you eyes you’d be filled with dread
at my heartless heading on this dire course

#SixSentenceStories; Need (& Choice)

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 19 Comments

Each and every week Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, regularly posts a Six Sentence Stories prompt word, and with great irregularity, I respond. Today I found that I had started a response to the September 21 prompt, ‘Choice‘. I remember that now, and also how I just stopped and dropped in the middle of the second part when I got busy with Life. But the most recent prompt word, ‘Need‘, works nicely to finish that off now that I am returned. You might recognize these characters who first appeared in a Six three years ago and have recurred, irregularly, ever since. The most relevant backstories to this 12-pack are Unto Us and The Pageant. The link up time for your own Six Sentence Story(ies) will be Wednesday at 6:00 PM. See you in Sixville!

Needing To Be Nice  by D. Avery     

Me and Gloria were sitting in my lounge drinking tea and sketching trees when the gray-haired man came in and sat in his usual spot at the end of the counter. Even from where we sat I could tell that he was even grumpier than he normally is and of course that got Katie going, I could tell by the way she held the coffee pot high over his empty cup, and then, even though she barely moved her lips, I heard her tell him he’d better start making better choices about how he conducted himself in this diner, that’s what she said, or she would choose not to serve him now or ever again. He looked around then, open mouthed, but the few people in the diner did not look his way and when he saw Gloria he closed his mouth and harumphed, and then he saw me, paused, and turned back to Katie to softly ask, “May I have some coffee, please?”  

Katie poured it slow and careful, with her eyes on him the whole time, like a dare.

But then she softened her eyes and asked him if everything was all right.

“No,” he sobbed, “No, everything is all wrong and now it can never be righted.”

Choosing To Be Nice  by D. Avery     

Daddy stepped out from behind the grill to take this all in and Bob folded and put away the paper he’d been reading before going and standing beside my daddy.

It was Gloria who went and sat at the counter beside the gray-haired man and listened to him tell about his daughter who had run off for good a few years ago, with no word until the State Police contacted him recently to let him know that his one and only child was dead. This would be his little girl that he’d mentioned when I invited him to the Christmas pageant, the one that I remind him of because I look like her and I like to sing like she did.

I stayed in my lounge, the booth with the ripped seat and my art supplies, and couldn’t hear all that the gray haired man said, but I heard Gloria telling him we all live and die with the consequences of our choices, and I heard Bob say, with a hand on my daddy’s arm, ‘You don’t need to do this’. Then Katie was there and said, ‘Okay, but tell Penelope first.’

And so I found out that while I didn’t have a mother I did have a grandfather and Daddy said that I didn’t need to be nice to him, that the choice would always be mine.

d’Verse MTB; Cinquains

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 33 Comments

The most recent Meeting the Bar challenge at dVerse Poets’ Pub, is hosted by Björn. The example he provides at the pub, by the originator of the American Cinquain, Adelaide Crapdsey, sets the bar high. Björn reminds us that this form has been explored at the Pub before when Laura shared an example of a cinquain chain. After lying awake wondering what I might write about, or what more any poet might say about the moon, I wrote the following desperate piece. Go to the Pub to learn and read more. 

Wanted!
Cinquain topic
Syllables I can count—
Lack inspiration/ideas
Will pay.

Paying
with sleepless night.
Perhaps we could barter?
One overused (almost full) moon
I’d trade

Trade that
(including clouds)
for something less cliché
Can be slightly used if it’s new
to me

To me
good poetry
is rich in surprises
under scuffed edges, potential
projects

Projects
I put off or
I never quite finish
finally place in a free pile
for you.
****

For you
might have vision
talent and skills to bring
poems to life, life to poems
and things

In things
unseen, unsung
unrealized treasures
you might find extraordinary
value

Value
ordinary
every day things and with
your poetic words make glitter
brightly

Brightly
your written words,
artfully wielded, yield
another way of seeing, show
a way

Some way
to salvage what’s
been hacked and tossed aside. So if
you find a moon in my free pile—
it’s yours!

W3 Prompt #174; Blitz Poem

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 33 Comments

Wea’ve Written Weekly

The W3 Wea’ve Written Weekly challenge is hosted by Poet of the Week Carol Anne. Carol Anne has given us the blitz poem to play with, a fun fast moving fifty line poem. Click HERE for more information on the W3 Wea’ve Written Weekly challenge and to read the other poets’ responses. 

Lost until Erupts by D. Avery

Get a life!
Get lost!
lost at sea
lost time
time waits for no one
time flies 
flies free as a bird
flies high on the wind
wind beneath your wings
wind in your hair 
hair of the dog, dogs of war
hair shirt worn for show
show must go on
show your true colors
colors of the rainbow
colors of bruises old and new
new ideas battered, buried through the ages
new testament ignored, forgotten
forgotten fruit becomes rotten
forgotten manners lose their way 
way of the world
way off track
track the truth through her story
track a liar to his lair before the rain
rain comes too little too late
rain pounds dust to mud
muddy the water
mud in your eye
eye of the storm 
eye on the prize 
prize possessions
prize prised from your grasp
grasp the futility
grasp at straws 
straw men
straws drawn
drawn swords
drawn shades
shades of memories
shades of possibility
possibility improbable
possibility in chains
chains locked and pulled
chains, links breaking
breaking with tradition 
breaking silence
silence is not golden
silence erupts
erupts
golden

d’Verse Quadrille #230; Rumpus

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 31 Comments

A quadrille is a poem of EXACTLY 44 words, not including the title, a funtastic invention of d’Verse, the pub for poets. This week’s Quadrille (#230) is hosted by Kim.  She says our 44 word poem must include some form of the word “rumpus” within the body of the poem. That word always leads me to Maurice Sendak’s classic story, Where the Wild Things Are. Go to the Pub to find out more about the prompt and to read more Rumpus poems.

Now Stop! by D. Avery

The wild rumpus has certainly begun

(awkward time to be American)

Ill suited, wolf-suited leader

of yellow-eyed sheep

In his private boat

gnashes his terrible teeth and gloats

He who would be king

of monstrous things

in the room of his very own night

d’Verse MTB; Cherita

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 23 Comments

This past Thursday’s Meeting the Bar challenge at dVerse Poets’ Pub, hosted by Merril, was to write a Cherita. What an intriguing form. “ai li created the cherita poetry form in June 1997, so the form is now 29 years old. The official guidelines: “Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse.” I followed those simple rules but the first attempt seemed too wordy. ai li’s were much more spare so I pared the first poem down and I think I like that one better. Not sure if it’s enough of a tale, but it’s what showed up. Go to the Pub to learn and read more. 


A poem is a dog walking purposely, off leash, no master in sight
the dog that can’t be coaxed or caught
no sweet talk or treats slow his pace or turn his head

so when this dog leans in with pleasured squint
to your massaging hand, lays his head in your lap

you know that you are truly home

*****

a poem is a dog

off leash
no master in sight

should this dog 
show up at your door
let it in!

W3 Prompt #171; Ghazal

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 42 Comments

Wea’ve Written Weekly

Thank you David for hosting the W3 Wea’ve Written Weekly challenge. Thank you to last week’s Poet of the Week Dennis Johnstone for passing the baton to me. Even though I said let’s write a ghazal, I did not find this to be an easy form and I’m pretty sure this is my first. As others have written about the form, I found that it was tough to get started and once started hard to stop. The starting was helped by the latest Tuesday Poetics at d’Verse where Lillian asked us to walk in the woods. Couple that with some recent re-reading of history and I was inspired to meet the challenge. Click HERE for more information on the W3 Wea’ve Written Weekly challenge and to read the other poets’ responses. 

Family Trees by D. Avery

Genealogical digging has shown my roots among these trees
guess that’s why I’ve always felt at home among the trees. 

Gone those first woods that to settler’s axe did yield
only stonewalls now remember fields, vanquished ’neath these trees.

So many stories does history hold 
so many family tales could be told about the trees.

My grandmother’s grandfather, in his woodlot cutting lumber
found in his nascent eternal slumber, pinned under his fallen tree.

My father’s father ran a timber mill 
For decades now they both lie still beneath the living trees.

Two of my uncles went away to college
returned with greater knowledge, Foresters, keepers of the trees.

Recall how my father planted and grafted
how that work has lasted, he’s left behind good strong trees.

In dappled sunlight as a child I played and ran 
here imagination first began, wild, among the trees.

Even now when human cares I want to abandon
I seek my sylvan companions, seek the quiet wisdom of the trees.

When comes time for my ashes to be scattered
I will give up this life’s matter to the roots of some young tree.

I’ve come to A very personal place
long held in the woods’ embrace, present with ancestry.

We’ve all taken up saw or shovel or pen
counted trees as reliable friends, up until the end 
beneath the trees.

W3 Prompt #170; A Donsy of Gnomes

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake / 28 Comments

Wea’ve Written Weekly

So here’s how I ended up posting a poem for the current W3 Wea’ve Written Weekly challenge. I didn’t think I’d come up with anything for Poet of the Week, Dennis Johnstone‘s prompt, which is to use the word “donsy” in a poem that’s 20 lines or fewer. Apparently donsy means “a gathering or group, especially of small beings—like gnomes!” (Depending on your dictionary it also means unlucky and ill-fated.) Dennis also provided a picture to respond to:

Always ill-fated, outside looking in.

I was reminded of this prompt when I saw Ann Edall-Robson’s Writing Challenge which is to respond in a five word sentence to this photo:

Now I had a main character, so here is the tale, mostly, in a series of quintilla. But the series went on too long, so stop reading after the first four as that’s the limit for this W3 prompt. Go to The Skeptic’s Kaddish to read other responses and to find out more about this unique weekly poetry prompt.

Gnome More by D. Avery

Despite the cap, Don was no dunce
but had no luck, not even once
always felt outside looking in
Till one day Don heard a loud din 
emanating from the tree’s trunk

Spied a knot hole, cleared it of punk
saw a scene that cleared his old funk
You might well ask, what did Don see?
saw a donsy inside that tree!
Then his high hopes once again sunk

Don who had been always alone
saw before him numerous gnomes!
Also found himself once again
stuck outside, alone looking in
He leaned back and gave a great moan

The donsy heard, ceased partying
they would help him, there was no doubt
gnome’s code they were embodying
With compassion regarding him
Don couldn’t get in— they’d go out.
                 ****
Four quintillas, twenty lines spent
without concluding how this went
You can imagine how it ends
Don gets help from his new-found friends
In the donsy, Don was content