At d’Verse, the pub for poets today, to Meet the Bar, Laura Bloomsbury  would have us write a simple etheree about “Christmas tree(s) imagery, meanings, memories etc., or Conifer/Fir tree(s) imagery, mythology, memories etc”. I am partial to balsam firs, but stopped after two etheree trees. Head to the Pub for more info, more poems, and to leave a link to one (or two) of your own.

It
is said
that fir trees
are protectors 
watching over all
these sapient ones guide 
us even through dark and cold
earthbound roots hold ancient knowledge 
winter winds recount their epic tales
in the moon’s drumming circle the firs sway
and pray
for us.



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I
know a
balsam fir
that overlooks
forgotten quarries
off alone way up there
yet adorned in colorful
assortment of decorations
for any and every occasion 
every day a celebration of joy
when with
that tree

Quadrille #213 at d’Verse is hosted by Lisa this week. Her prompt was to: Write a quadrille (a poem of EXACTLY 44 words, not including the title) that includes the word “with” (or some form therewith) within the body of the poem.  Find more quadrilles at the Pub.

Without by D. Avery

Search and seek and cast about

constant hunt and gathering

All she’s massed, persistent doubts,

echoing from the awful din

She leaves those she’s traveled with

circles back to where her path begins

seeking there finds inner bliss

her way lit now from within.

At the dVerse Poets Pub, Haibun Monday our host, Frank J. Tassone would have us write a science-fiction-themed haibun. I am late but I am in. Go to the pub to link your haibun and to read the others and to learn more about scifaiku.

“Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.” –attributed to Isaac Asimov

the present comes and goes
Spaceship Earth spins on
Wind ripples the lake


When the unbelievable happens we might say, You can’t make this stuff up. 
Or maybe you can.
14th century scribes would have been hard pressed to believed that one day books would be produced en masse and would be affordable to the masses. Within a mere four centuries of Gutenberg’s revolutionary mechanical invention, science fiction novels were being published and read. Fast forward another century and the works of Jules Verne didn’t seem so farfetched, but weren’t they science fiction in Verne’s day? 
By my time television and movies as well as books were taken for granted, as well as some of the content. I recall seeing something on our black and white TV about Orson Welles’ 1938 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Broadcast on the high tech media of the day, radio, the fake news broadcast intended as entertainment was not as unbelievable as the good people of Mercury Theatre on the Air had imagined. Since that infamous broadcast, the fear of alien invasions has continued to fuel many a sci-fi story, whether in print or film, with the non-earthlings almost always the bad guy. But we hold the invasions in our hands. 
We routinely use devices that were hokey science fiction gadgetry in the Star Trek television shows, another example of fiction becoming factualized. The scary thing is that these devices are routinely used in the fictionalizing of facts and to disseminate disinformation. 
Never a big fan of science fiction, I find the genre to be more palatable if aged; distilled to characters and narrative, it’s really just the same old stories.
So what about now as we write and read on these Star Trekkian screened machines that reach across time and space at warp speeds? What stories do we tell ourselves? What future do we imagine? 


inner space
piloting my craft
centered fugue

Quadrille #212 was posted this past Monday at d’Verse , hosted by De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo this week. Her prompt was to: Write a quadrille (a poem of EXACTLY 44 words, not including the title) that includes the word “what” within the body of the poem. Why not What? I’m a little late, and a might dark, but what the heck, this is what came to me. The narrator could be but isn’t necessarily a Coyote; borderlands are everywhere. Find more quadrilles at the pub.

Borderlands by D. Avery

What’s the cost?? What’s it worth to you?

What do you mean, you don’t have enough money?? What else do you have?

What are those tears for?? What did you expect?

What did you really know about freedom?? What chance did you ever have?

What the hell is a paradelle?
What the hell is a paradelle?
Some sort of joke? A Halloween hoax?
Some sort of joke? A Halloween hoax?
A paradelle is a hoax— some sort of hell— 
what the Halloween joke!

At d’Verse, the pub for poets, Grace has brought back a parody of poetic form first wrought by Billy Collins in 1994. Go to the Pub to find out more. I wanted to try it, and as it is a tongue in cheek form, for paradelle parts, I used a cheeky poem I’d already written.

Could Not, Should Not  by D. Avery

If I could grow a goatee
If I could grow a goatee
My poetry would be taken seriously
My poetry would be taken seriously
If seriously taken I would grow
a poetry could be my goatee 

I should insinuate deep malaise
I should insinuate deep malaise
Dress in tweed, words laid bare
Dress in tweed, words laid bare
words I should dress deep insinuate 
in laid malaise bare tweed 

I should write in tones that plead
I should write in tones that plead
With twisted tortured similes
With twisted tortured similes
Similes plead with twisted write 
tortured in tones that I should 

a twisted deep goatee tortured
bare tones in poetry grow my tweed malaise
could be I plead 
similes taken with seriously
laid words that would dress in if
should I insinuate should I write 

Seriously? by D. Avery

If I could grow a goatee
t’would improve my poetry
or it’d be taken, leastways,
	more seriously.

If I insinuated deep Malaise
in murky revelatory phrase
with twisted tortured similes;
	My poems would get more praise.

If I wrote in tones that plead
then readers would want to read
recognizing ‘twas a poem there
	though on its meaning they’d disagree.

I should dress in tweed; Words laid bare,
me, with practiced lost-in-thought stare
that conveys how poets bleed
	on private pages that they share.

For how could a Poet wearing flannel, or fleece
follow inspiration wherever it leads?
joining words that sing, dance, and laugh
trusting that 
	Poem and Poet, in each other believe.

This is all I’ve got; I take what I get
some poems work, some aren’t there yet
I don’t take my poetry too seriously
	And whilst true I’ve no goatee— 
		I’ve no regrets.