Category: d’Verse Poets Pub

Art Me

~ Candace ~ 6 Comments

Art Me

 

Sketch me a small pine tree,

scribble me a forest.

Draw a sky full of inky stars, and then

smudge a thumbprint moon.

Erase the cloudy haze of fog

that hides the owl and rabbit.

Pencil us into the peacefulness

of this charcoal world.

 

 

Quadrille #190

To Whoooom it May Concern

~ Candace ~ 13 Comments

To Whoooom it May Concern

 

I see you move silently through the trees

never touching branches or getting tangled

In swaying vines, as I move silently through

dark rooms never stepping on the bits and

pieces of a family’s life once strewn across

the floor. You are probably hunting – for a meal

or some furry morsel in the open fields,

to satisfy your hunger

I am also hunting – standing in front of

the open fridge, looking for some leftover

or piece of pie that will assuage my sadness.

I hear your call and another answers, so

I know you are not alone in the darkness,

and when I call softly there is no reply –

for now, my nest is empty.

 

With love from a fellow night owl

Poetics:For the love of letters

Tell Us

~ Candace ~ 10 Comments

Tell Us

 

Tell us your stories

so that, in the telling, we

may begin to understand

the beauty of your lives

 

Sing us your songs

so that, in the singing, we

may begin to hear the

beating of your hearts

 

Read us your poems

so that, in the reading, we

may begin to glimpse the

tenderness of your souls

 

Show us your art

so that, in the seeing, we

may begin to know the

wonders of your minds

 

 

Meet the Bar by writing from a collective point of view

Cat Nap

~ Candace ~ 3 Comments

Cat Nap

 

This poem would like to fold

itself up, like a napping cat,

curl its tail over its eyes,

block out the raucous world.

This poem is tired of scribbling

words of peace that don’t work –

lines of ink that fade before its eyes.

 

 

 

 

Quadrille #186 – Fold 

The Collector

~ Candace ~ 16 Comments
Vincent van Gogh, Window in the Studio (1889), chalk, brush and oil paint and watercolor on paper, © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The Collector

 

She collects old bottles that she

finds buried in her garden,

and places them on a windowsill.

When the sun shines in, her kitchen

is filled with a kaleidoscope of colors –

blues and greens and browns. Bottles

from old remedies for headaches and

stomach aches, laundry bleach, and ketchup.

Smooth bottles, square bottles, tiny bottles,

one that still has a piece of rotting cork

in its neck. Bottles that tell a story of hard work

and pain. She feels like an archeologist discovering

a lost way of life through the colored glass

detritus of another generation, and she wonders what

future generations will think of her when they

uncover the bits of her life left behind.

 

Haunted

Canned Memories

~ Candace ~ 11 Comments

Canned Memories

 

The days have grown shorter and

there is a chill hovering around the

last of the Maple leaves, as they dangle

listlessly from the branches that nourished them

Thoughts turn to all things warm – sweaters and

blankets and soup. My freezer is stocked with

containers of tomato soup made from the

fruit of our garden. Ripened by the sun, picked

and peeled, chopped and simmered with garlic and

basil and onion – ready to warm the body when

Winter makes itself at home, here.

But the soup that warms my soul with memories

is the kind that came in a red and white can, the one

made famous by Andy Warhol.  The soup my mother

served for lunch with small round crackers and a

cup of hot chocolate.

 

 

Poetics: Time for Soup!

Five Ways to Cross a Lake

~ Candace ~ 11 Comments

Five ways to Cross a Lake

 

1 sit on the edge of the old wooden dock

with your toes dangling in the water

until you feel nothing

but the ancient ice that

is slowly melting

 

2 let your eye find the red

eye of a loon as it glides past

as if pulled by a string –

hidden feet walking under

the choppy surface

 

3 cast your heart out as far as

 its tether allows and watch it sink

below the surface. Hold your breath

until it bobs back to the surface,

then slowly reel it in

 

4 put your thoughts on a leaf and let

them float away to become yellow hills

on the pebbled beach of your mind-

each one smoothed by the careless

touch of the waves

 

5 catch the wind as it pushes the water

to another time and place and then meet

it on the way back. Write it into a poem

that soars above the clouds and

touches down on some distant shore

 

 

 

 

MTB: Writing The Five Directions