Qwerty or ABC

Twenty six letters of English font
In rhyme and song is how one’s taught

Once the letters securely fit
We pull each out and start to mix

How does a B find an L
Why does W merge with R so well

And silent partners Is and As
Make boats float and chairs cry “staid”

Stairs carry me up and down
And smiles quickly turn to frowns

Just because I change the character
More often might I be a caricature

An exaggeration of what I fancy
In hopes to be what another sees?

Chaos out of order cries
World order is the loudest lie

Q with U won’t make a queen
A knight will never be a king

Perhaps a lord but never LORD
Caps off to lower case his word

Beware of letters all askew
One day in time they will spell you

A fun poem while musing on the order of letters and the making of words.

Finish the Lullaby

On a pinnacle
A cradle rocks
A sullen whisper
Watch it top
-Ple-
Circuit break
-Ers-
Power out
Can hope survive
A pile of doubt?

Lead me hungry
Atop a hill
Like Satan led
By Spirit’s will
Dreams lie mute
Harsh winds assail
Like Jesus rose
Hope will prevail!

Rock-a-bye baby and Matthew 4.

A Matter of Posture

I woke to rain where sun once shone
Things planned in May now lie in wait
Inside I move with clouded gait

Seems long ago my skin was bronze
Why stuck between this then and now
Empty hands in heart my head bowed

I stretched my body head to toe
Seemed effortless no sweaty brow
Soaked I listen; no birdsong vow

No bitter chill nor brittle bone
Can calm the storm or quench the rain
Today’s loss is tomorrow’s gain

Now light bends each to mourn and groan
Tis hope embracing every vine
Wait! One day soon we’ll sip new wine

I woke to rain where sun once shone
Seems long ago my skin was bronze
I stretched my body head to toe
No bitter chill nor brittle bone
Now light bends each to mourn and groan

Dversepoets.com Thursday prompt. Bjorn says this may be out of our comfort zone. What is a comfort zone? (She asks with a smirk 🤔😘)

He explains it better than I,

“Today we are going to try our hand at a poetic form created by Connie Marcum Wong in 2007. I have tried it a few times before, but I have not found it in our dVerse archive.
This is an example of two poems in one with one short poem being expanded in a longer poem. It consists of at least 5 three-line stanzas written in iambic tetrameter (8 syllables and four feet). The first lines of each of the 5 stanzas form an independent poem (hence with at least 5 lines),
In each 3-line-stanza the ending couplets should rhyme and expand on the topic on the first line.
The internal poem given by the first lines should be reinforced by being written in monorhyme (all lines should rhyme with each other)
The rhyme scheme is, therefore: a/b/b a/c/c, and so on.
The poem should end with the internal poem.”

Recently I wrote a Spanish glosa which is similar which made it easier than I thought it would be. That is, if I did it correctly.

Falling Star

Day
Time to show
Off my cross
Walk but my sun
Burn from mid
Night dreams
Under
Estimate humongous
Caverns in
The earth
Quake of my soul

Now I cross
Walk
By a night
Light
Shining softly as
It whispers
Leave well-enough
Alone

Dverse is ompounding words. The list is to choose one or more is as follows,

crosswalk
handshake
armpit
underestimate
goodnight
honeydew
earthquake
cartwheel
moonlight
showoff
waterproof
moonwalk
nightlight
midnight
hotdog
daytime
starfish
sunburn

Will read yours when I can.

Above the Static

While sleeping
Sunny yesterday
Didn’t hear
Clouds roll in
Static in gray
Emptied into my eyes
Sing louder
Change the channel
Different Tune
Don the bathing suit
Grab the coffee
Come
Let us outrun it
Lest we spend the day
Crying
Stagnant
Static
Tears

dversepoets.com #2 offering for quadrille word Static.

Just For Fun (in honor of my brother)

I wonder if statisticians
Get caught
With static in their ears
When computing
Numbers and odds
After all
Probabilities
Offer possibilities
No promises
Within every equation
Is static

Problematic
When it takes only
One more number
To change the solution
But I do words

dversepoets.com Monday quadrille exactly 44 words excluding the title. The word is static.

I wasn’t going to do one but today is a mental health day, so this is really just for fun. I am offering another also.

Drained or Sustained (This thing called love)

You are a bird-understander
Better than I could ever be
Who make so many noises
And call them song (Craig Arnold Bird-understander)

Birds at my feeder don’t sing
They eat and savor all the sweet
Birds in need their voices raise
How dare I tell in want their praises
Won’t reach heaven’s ears

Take all my loves, my love,

Yea, take them all (take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all: (William Shakespeare Sonnet 40)

A care-less love
May care too much

So,

leave a kiss but in the cup
And I’ll not look for wine. (Ben Jonson Drink to me only with thine eyes)

If bitterness doth leave it’s scent
I’ll know ‘twas never really mine

Princes do but play us; compared to this
All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy (John Donne The sun rising)

Old potions brewed and sold as new
Will never stand the test of time

If pledge be to love alone
True love surely will survive

Napowrimo I have no idea how to follow this prompt correctly, so I did what I want. I chose lines from four of the examples given of love poems, and added my verse to each.
And the words “doth” and “’twas” make it authentically poetic.

Until next April….

“ now – our final (but still optional!) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but you don’t have to write a long one. And a good way to jump-start the process is to find an online curation of poems about a particular topic (or in a particular style), and then mine the poems for good lines to string together. You might look at the Poetry Foundation’s collection of love poems, or its collection of poems by British romantic poets, or even its surprisingly expansive collection of poems about (American) football.

Splitting Heirs

Blessed at birth
Cursed at Birth
Angels and witches
Greet me at the womb
Vie to win my adoration
Come my tomb

Fairytales written tell
Of damsels taken in distress
Gallant prince shares his kiss
Love forever
End of story
Drench your sleep
In dreams of glory

Inheritance a promise snatched
Every gift now wrapped with string
The curse a faulty compass points
To every sealed, hidden thing

Inheritance of earthly gain
Promises relief and pain
Tokens sweet till rust and loss
Leave the heir with love’s remorse

Blessed at birth
Cursed at birth
Another One did take my place
Born Again
No nursery rhyme
Opposing natures
Dwell within

Blessed at birth
Cursed at birth
Angels and witches
Greet me at the womb
Vie to win my adoration
Come my tomb

Christ already won
I’ll be home

Napowrimo prompt for Friday,

“And here’s our prompt (optional, as always). In certain versions of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, various fairies or witches are invited to a princess’s christening, and bring her gifts. One fairy/witch, however, is not invited, and in revenge for the insult, lays a curse on the princess. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.). I hope you find this to be an inspiring avenue for poetic and self-exploration.”

Initially Me

I
USED
TO
BE
BIGGER
Then
I
Started
To
(Wane)

My
Body
Chose
To
Spend
More
Than
I
Gave

Now
Nothing
Fits
Well
My
Shape
Is
Quite
Meh

Folk
Walk
right
by
And
not
know
I
Am
there

When
one
looks
at
the
outward
for
shape
and
design
how
tragic
a
loss
to
walk
by
a
mind
That
has
many
C u R v e S
D-i-Men-SIons
And
hues
But
I
Too
am
Too
Often

too
(small)
to
see
YOU!

My initials are MEH. Napowrimo prompt i am linking with dversepoets.com

Fighting with WordPress with color and fonts sizes. Did not paste the same way I copied. What is wrong with that picture!?

“Today’s (optional) prompt is to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” mimics curves, reinforcing the poem’s references to motion, rocking horses, and even the shape of a woman’s body. George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” is – you guessed it – a sonnet in the shape of a potted Christmas tree. Your concrete poem could be complexly-shaped, but relatively simple strategies can also be “concrete” —  like a poem involving a staircase where the length of the lines grows or shrinks over time, like an ascending (or descending) set of stairs.

Love’s Labours Lost (or found?)

She lingered in her lust
As dreams turned to dust

She lingered far too long
Missed the sparrow’s song

Now love’s ardent sway
Holds her fast and bids her stay

Now she lingers in its presence
Till she reaps the fruit of patience

Dversepoets.com

I took total liberty on this one. Delete me if you feel the need. I will understand totally. It will not be the end of me.

Knowing I understand less than little about Shakespearean plays, this morning I just happened to write a poem about the word linger, which has positive and negative connotations. I then saw this prompt and chose a Shakespeare title but had to look up the theme of the play. I have never read or seen it.

“In Love’s Labour’s Lost, love is the unifying force of several sets of opposites: man and woman; reason and passion; civilization and nature. The characters’ conduct of love relates to gender and class assumptions in Elizabethan England.”

The prompt instructions are,

“Write a poem based on the theme of your chosen play (be sure to mention which play you have chosen at the end of your poem, or use the play’s title as your poem’s title).Use your chosen title somewhere within your poem (you can also use it as the title of the poem, if you wish).
For those of you who like an extra challenge, you can attempt to weave several (or all) of these play titles into your poem:”