Scented Cab – Sent a Cab

Pepe le Pew (image from 4legsandatail.org)

Upstate New York.
Rural north.
Couple in a taxi.
Yes, even here!
Dark two lane.
Driver has the radio on low,
“Crossing the highway late one night….”

Into the lights.
Black and white.
Didn’t react right;
jumped up with fright.

Took

a

r – o – l – l – i – n – g

t
u
m
b
l
e

up and over the cab
spraying his scent as he went.

Screech of tires.
Doors flung open.
Three running three ways.
Carcass on the tarmac.

Half hour wait.
Luggage on the shoulder.
Taxi a total.

Wafting le Pew!
No?

∞

dVerse – Poets Pub
Poetics: Empire of Scents
Grace, doing poetics bar keeping at the pub is challenging us to “…dive into the world of scents.   Drizzle your verses with spices, if you are a lover of food.   Make us happy or sad, even lusty and sensual, to evoke memories. Fill our plate with your scented words, and fill our nostrils with emotions.”
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/28/poetics-empire-of-scents/

The Gift of the Bouquet – a Triolet

Alstroemeria.*

Your subtle scent suffuses the room,
a fragrance freely flowing fill.
In response to your fullness of bloom
your subtle scent suffuses the room.
But sweet redolence fades, I assume;
when petals fall.  Discarded; thrown out.  Still
your subtle scent suffuses the room,
a fragrance freely flowing fill.

∞

The triolet is a short poem of eight lines with only two rhymes used throughout. The requirements of this fixed form are straightforward: the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end-words are used to complete the tight rhyme scheme. Thus, the poet writes only five original lines, giving the triolet a deceptively simple appearance: ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines.
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/triolet-poetic-form

* Alstroemeria, commonly called the Peruvian Lily or Lily of the Incas or Parrot Lily is a South American genus of about 50 species of flowering plants, mainly from the cool, mountainous regions in the Andes.  Alstroemeria symbolizes friendship and devotion, and the twists in the flower symbolize the trials and tribulations of friendships.
http://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/mostpopularflowers/morepopularflowers/alstroemeria

dVerse – Poets Pub
Poetics: Empire of Scents
Grace, doing poetics bar keeping at the pub is challenging us to “…dive into the world of scents.   Drizzle your verses with spices, if you are a lover of food.   Make us happy or sad, even lusty and sensual, to evoke memories. Fill our plate with your scented words, and fill our nostrils with emotions.”
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/28/poetics-empire-of-scents/#comment-112064

 

A Short One Act Play

Florida Sunrise.  Photo by Charley

Eos with rosy fingers the curtain parts.
Clouds and mist exeunt stage left.
Key lights: indigo, turquoise, gold, rose.
Eos exits.
Protagonist ascends center stage.
Protagonist: (clears throat, scans the audience)

“Arise!  Arisen!  Arose!
A rose to each;
the beloved of all he chose.”

∞

dVerse – Poets Pub
Quadrille #12
Bjorn, our host, invites us to write a Quadrille that somehow includes “…the word rose, a wonderful flower, but also a color, a name, a verb (both making something rosy, the past tense of rise). One of the most used (and misused words in poetry… Let’s see the world in rose-tinted glasses or bring forth the thorns…”.
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/27/quadrille-12/

Havoc Played On the Roses

Lucky Jack Watches the Storm (from loriedarling.com / Pinterest.com)

The shrieking ghosts of rain
a-charging on beastly winds
rose unbidden
without hint
slashed
dashed

They raced
through our yard
– crossed the pond
with lightning jolt
Quick thump
Crack!
R-R-R-roll!

Tree arms vainly attempt
to cover un-bowing heads.

Deep breath.

Rose light breaks through.

∞

dVerse – Poets Pub
Quadrille #12
Bjorn, our host, invites us to write a Quadrille that somehow includes “…the word rose, a wonderful flower, but also a color, a name, a verb (both making something rosy, the past tense of rise). One of the most used (and misused words in poetry… Let’s see the world in rose-tinted glasses or bring forth the thorns…”.
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/27/quadrille-12/

 

 

 

Un Poco Loco por Cocoa

Photo by Charley.  Dessert at Cafe Margaux, Cocoa, FL

 

I don’t have a favorite show.
No TV set.  Seems strange, I know.
No pics on the wall of the cave.
It’s chocolate I mostly crave.

Now coffee I crave, ‘deed I do!
Nothing starts the day like fresh brew.
Last slurp for chocolate I save.
It’s chocolate I mostly crave.

Not much of a clothes horse am I.
Designer names don’t make me sigh.
Jewelry and watches aren’t my rave.
It’s chocolate I mostly crave.

Fancy houses and cars; what for?
Celebrity parties – big snore!
“Ghiradelli” will mark my grave.
It’s chocolate I mostly crave.

© 2016 by Charley Lyman

∞

dVerse – Poets Pub: OpenLinkNight #175
No prompt.  Post what you feel like sharing.  Good times!
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/21/tuesday-poetics-summer-starter/

Poetic Asides: Robert Lee Brewer challenges us to write a craving poem.
http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/wednesday-poetry-prompts-355

 

One Summer’s Night

Shel Silverstein from http://www.bustle.com

∞

One summer’s night
when I was twelve
or fourteen or more
I lay in bed uncovered
a window fan blowing
hot, steaming summer
air across my steaming
self.

Remembering winter’s
uncivilized arctic blast
did not bring consolation
but a resolve of two far
off but necessary lifestyle
changes:

Move south.
Have air conditioning.

∞

dVerse – Poets Pub
Tuesday Poetics: Summer Starter
In honor of the Solstice, we have been challenged to write a Summer poem.
We are to use another writer’s poem – a word, a line – as an igniter (my word)
to get us going, poetically speaking.  Come join us!  Bring picnic food to pass.
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/21/tuesday-poetics-summer-starter/

http://www.bustle.com/articles/40773-11-of-shel-silversteins-most-weird-and-wonderful-poems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uhyou (Freezing Rain)

A fear deeper than the coming of a blizzard.  Immobility.  Loss of power – electricity.  Trees would come down.  Lines would be down.

The rain that freezes on contact.

Behind our house hung the muddle.  Electric power lines and telephone lines for several different houses all brought together on one pole.  Itself an amazement of “engineering.”  Four fully-grown trees bunched together, crocheted into the tangle.  Huge limbs intertwined with life-giving wires.

A sub-freezing drenching.

A crack.  A pop.  Darkness.  Thank God for cell phones.

Men, hard-weathered by years of this kind of work.  Eyes that had seen everything.  Each one, in essence, muttering something like, “What the hell…?”

 

Nature assaults here
too hard to run on glare ice
move south – ice in drinks

∞

dVerse – Poets Pub Haibun Monday: 50 Shades of Rain
Okay, so I’m a day late….
The challenge is to write a hiabun on one of the fifty Japanese names for rain.
It sparked something this morning, so I followed the muse.
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/20/haibun-monday-50-shades-of-rain/

 

The Fib and the Lai

I decided to practice poetic forms (for form’s sake).  These two poems are examples of two different poem forms:

The Fib  –  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/articles/detail/68971
The Lai – http://thepoetsgarret.com/2008Challenge/form14.html

Let’s just say I’m starting easy and working my way up to the “Big Boy” forms (gender-non-specifically-speaking).  My efforts don’t represent the apex of these forms; I’m just posting my finger exercises for the fun of it.

∞

Fib – A Fib poem

Told
Mom
a fib
little white
lie.  Don’t remember
Why.  Perhaps I made my mom cry.

Lie – A Lai poem

I told a white lie.
Made my mother cry.
I’m sad.
A tear filled her eye.
She never said, “Bye”
To Dad
And I.  Saw her fly.
Doesn’t live nearby.
She’s glad.

Truth Is Changing Its Tune

Some poems just “come floating by,” to paraphrase the late poet and novelist, Jim Harrison.  Just over a year ago I found this incredible quote and the poem just floated up under the surface.  Like anyone bit by the poetic bug, I did what came naturally… I cast the net and pulled it in.

Sonnet: No Great Shake I — a poem

Since I am tasked to write in metered time,
And since I never learned to accents place
This task is burden troth and hardly kind
Seems easy but reality bears out
Tis true that poets great can easy count
A word as beaten hard which part it has
The point accented that makes two its feet
But my left footed dance with words trips hard
Not men like Fred Astaire or Kelly might
The book helpful most for a meter form
Symbols has I did not learn, in school in truth
They are but rare, odd shapes that figure not
Desire to learn meter, I burn with shame
My mind hears not the clear rhythmic heartbeat

∞

dVerse — Poets Pub:Meter-Made Mood – dVerse Meeting the Bar
Tonight we are challenged to match poetic meter with mood/tone.
It’s not playing to my strong suit, but join us anyway!
https://dversepoets.com/2016/06/16/meter-made-mood-dverse-meeting-the-bar/

Okay, since posting this I have been informed that Sonnets, technically, should rhyme.  I was so busy keeping track of the meter that… well, I don’t do math and poetry simultaneously!  Make up my mind; counting stressed syllables or over-stressed poets!  Sheesh!

(Technically, this qualifies as a blank-verse sonnet. Not every sonnet rhymes… or follows “the rules.”)