A Carriage Tale

At first the carriage sighed with
Grudging
Monday morning
Potential
Like simmering
Rebellion
Without the gumption to strike

Half-empty
Prison
And a little time to divert into
Alternative pleasantries

All too soon
The seats and aisles
Crammed with
Silent
Still life

(Actually
Pseudo "busyness" 
Indulging in
Electronic
Escapes)

But a seat
Unexpectedly
Vacated
Between the distillers of pleasantries and
Filled with
A studded revolution black vest
Armed with tattoos and
Helmeted with
Silky
Neonic
Green
Hair

Uncomfortable discord
Sizzled

The tattoos
Stroked the neonic greens
Constantly
As if being different was
A shifty business
While the pleasantries fried into
Medusa-like
Stony glares
Fixed
Straight ahead
Peripheral vision was
Negligible

Finally
The staged skit was
Broken

The neonics shuffled out at Parliament
Chewing gum
Fast

For the first time I saw her eyes
As she passed my window
They were large
And dark
And beautiful

But still life
Trained on

NOTE: Parliament is the name of an undergound train station in inner Melbourne


Linking to:
dVerse ~ The Art of Rebellion
Poets United ~ Poetry Pantry
Real Toads ~ Open Link Monday

Am I Still Yesterday?

Kite flying in the Rosebud Kite Festival held in March on the Mornington Peninsula each year.


Wings change tone and balance
Challenge
When Summer colours find Autumn

Midway in life's journey
Crossroads
Yesterday's child finds the mirror


Linking to:
Carry on Tuesday ~ Midway in life's journey...- Dante
Poet's United ~ Poetry Pantry
dVerse ~ Open Link Night

Two Faces of Summer

I was let out for a couple of hours today to enjoy a grey beach, grey waters and a grey sky in Dromana.
Even a lone seagull couldn't muster much height, fearing another icy deluge was imminent.


When tied and gagged in Winter's freezer for
Endless, bleak, misty days
We hope for some wayward sylph from Mother Nature to
Saunter by and
Move the door
Ajar

We hope for more than
Spring
(The pretty time)

We want Summer

SUMMER
WE WANT SUMMER

Aaah...
According to SOS
(Stereotypes of Summer - published by the Utopian Dictionary Press)
Summer spells:
Swimmming refreshing blue seas ~ real or metaphorical
Unifying body and spirit with the balm of holiday happiness
Mellowing ~ the mind
Massaging ~ the body into
Eternal 
Reverie

The other dystopian dictionary would have us believe
(If I can vaguely remember):
Sizzling sunburn ~ of earth and flesh
Unsightly plague of pesky flies
Manipulating ~ the patience
Masticating ~ the temper into
Everlasting 
Regret that we ever chose Summer as our dream season

But I lost that dictionary
Somewhere in the pile of melancholic leaves
I raked up
Last Autumn


Linking to:
dVerse Poetics ~ Summer-y; Dog Days/Zucchini

My Wall

Scratchy network of discordant shadows
Like yesterday's bones bathing in new lights
Nature's stark mural of fleshless hollows
Reaching for semblance of credible heights
My patchy tangles from cold listless nights
Like echoing moans churning in some sea
Of desert wasteland flung far from your sites
While I pale on walls of eternity



NOTE - This is my second attempt at a huitain.
(My first attempt was A Monk's Tale for Real Toads.)
It is a poem in a single Ballade stanza.
The verse form was most popular in the 16th century and was often used for epigrams in the 18th century. One source suggests the huitain may have begun in Spain.
The basic layout is:
Line length: 8 (French) or 10 (English) syllables
Rhyme scheme: ababbcbc
Number of lines: 8

**No websites seem to explore the association with death as an "undertow" theme in the huitain,  even though I have observed that many old examples of huitain seem to do this!
I have not noted this as a feature on my dVerse post, but I have acknowledged this theme's presence in both my huitain by suggesting the death of some old life.

Linking to:
 FormForAll - Huitain - Gemma Wiseman - My post on dVerse
Shadow Shot Sunday 2

A Monk's Tale

One summer as dawn broke the night's faint chill, 
I greeted my cell with hesitant eyes. 
No coffee today before minds are still 
And souls appreciate prayerful skies. 
Could yesterday's peak hour be a far guise? 
So here I am tasting a monk's pure sight, 
Wondering if I can live in new dyes; 
If my darkest past can suffer new light.


Inspired by:
With Britain becoming an increasingly secular society, the number of people devoting themselves to the monastic life has been in freefall. But now several monasteries and convents are fighting against the trend by offering taster weekends in the hope of bringing fresh members into the fold.
- A monk's life...but just until Monday ~ BBC News ~ Saturday 10.2.09

NOTE - This is my first attempt at a Huitain.
It is a poem in a single Ballade stanza.
The verse form was most popular in the 16th century and was often used for epigrams in the 18th century. One source suggests the Huitain may have begun in Spain.
 The basic layout is:
Line length: 8 (French) or 10 (English) syllables
 Rhyme scheme: ababbcbc
Number of lines: 8

Linking to:
Real Toads ~ A Mini-Challenge for Sunday ~ A Monk's Tale ~ Huitain form
dVerse ~ Open Link Night ~ Anniversary Week

It's a Red Island!

Can verse become Pop Art?

Get in the red

Banking curse
Prohibited

Get in the red

Only well-oiled
Fantasies
Welcome

Get in the red

Grease
The virgin pan
Freely

And heat
The beat
To the red land

Your island
Red Island

Grease
The virgin pan
Freely

Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the testing of this product
Except
Maybe one

Empty Matchbox

Poetics ~ Say It Again, Sam

He walks so low in naked woes
The moonlight films his desperate way
The trees are armed with thorny bows

The wind of fears so softly blows
The sounds of midnight crimp his day
He walks so low in naked woes

His yesterdays were jewelled glows
The sounds of dreams seemed here to stay
The trees are armed with thorny bows.

The creeping hush of winter snows
Blue summer now will turn to grey
He walks so low in naked woes.

The creeping hush of gutted rose
Our summer boat becomes my sleigh
The trees are armed with thorny bows.

No more the joy of market shows
His little matchgirl whisked away
He walks so low in naked woes
The trees are armed with thorny bows.

Trai_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_s

Poetics – Trai_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_s

It was a steam train
Sweet steam scents hustled round the carriages in the early evening light

Inside
The stiff pews vinyled in deep greens or matt black
Waited for patience to deal with them on the long journey

Our long journey was from Sydney and west to the Blue Mountains
To the gateway of the Blue Mountains
Springwood

I don't remember much about the journey
(I was just a very young child)
But the swaying motion gave me
A fickle calmness
A peace
I hadn't felt in days

Finally
We reached a station that loomed
With blaring lights
From the dark of darkness

Light flashed across my mother's face
It was marbled
Cold

Her hat
Her black
Sweeping hat
Crushed all sense
That this was my mother
Taking me on some adventure

There was just the feeling
That we were boxed here
Carted to an Auntie's home
(An auntie I had never met)

And somehow
This Auntie would
Soothe some balm
And somehow
The recent death of my father
Would be
All right

The wind should be my friend...

Wind blows the feathery foliage of a plant in the wetlands at Coolart, Balnarring

FormForAll ~ Pantoum

The wind should be my friend
An angel by my side
A time when spirits blend
A time to be a bride

An angel by my side
Realities transcend
A time to be a bride
Furrowed fears end

Realities transcend
Secrets find a tide
Furrowed fears end
Moments softly glide

Secrets find a tide
Inner questions penned
Moments softly glide
Broken dreams mend

Inner questions penned
A loving caring friend
Broken dreams mend
The wind should be my friend

Her mood today...

A tree in the Dromana Hills shedding its winter coat
Mother Nature is out and about getting ready to change the seasons!

Form for All - dVerse - Rime Royal
From Gay Cannon:
To celebrate new beginnings, I thought this week we’d look at one of the oldest forms in English, Rime Royal or Rhyme Royal. Traditionally, the name Rhyme Royal is said to derive from The Kingis Quair (“The King’s Book), attributed to James I of Scotland (1394–1437), but some critics trace the name to the French chant royal.

The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, (usually) in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a terza rima and two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or a quatrain and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c). This allows for a good deal of variety, especially when the form is used for longer narrative poems; and along with the couplet, it was the standard narrative meter in the late Middle Ages.

+ Poetry Pantry #60

Her mood today's a sparkle in the breeze

She longs to feel the colours of the earth
She haunts the textured barks and greens of leaves

And from the soul of darkness springs a firth
The phoenix cycle wheels to legend's birth

A Tinkerbell awak'ning Spring's surprise
Her mood today's a scent of summer eyes




The Poetry Pantry is hosted by Poets United

Celebrating the Opening of dVerse

Celebrating the opening of dVerse

Wine is bottled poetry.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Let the wine flow
Let the smiles glow
And share a poetry toast

Poetry can be a lonely space
Like a winter of discontent
Where treads slip on iced roads
And no one knows the event

But the warmth of a pub
Is a welcome rub
Melting the grave ice
A sign of breathing spirits
Sharing a roll of the dice

So let the wine flow
And may the smiles glow
As we share a poetry toast
All forms are welcome to
Buzz a submission

May your Muse be a friendly ghost