(Photo: Christian Bowen on Unsplash)
She strained
Against walls which
Heaved
About her.
She tensed limbs and
Tucked her
Chin
Fighting for a
Purchase
Around her.
And still the world
Convulsed.
Impossible in
Pressure.
Till sudden
Light.
A gasp of cold
As air
Rushed
Into lungs
To life her.
For dVerse quadrille poetry challenge of: gasp in 44 words
(Photo: Ray Fragapane on Unsplash)
They didn’t know then
Or still
What track life will
Bring.
Yet they hold on,
By bootstraps
Hoping
For just enough breath with which to
Sing,
To the sun
That would rise,
To the hope
That would
Cling.
Till dawn will
Another story
String.
For dVerse Quadrille Poetry challenge
(Photo: Inbar Asif)
‘Tis the season for
Reason.
Time for soul to be
Bold.
Time to oust stale perceptions
And to justice
Uphold.
‘Tis the season for
Reason.
To let true heart
Take root
And dishonesty
Doom,
So the summers of
Tomorrow
May
Sing sunflowers to
Bloom.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: Season
(Photo: Jackson David on Unsplash)
She spun around, with arms spread wide
The tinsel spooling
From her outstretched hands.
Spilling from her golden crown,
And all about her glowing gown,
It glittered and eventually
Bound,
Her body to the very ground
From whence her heart and soul
Made sound.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: tinsel in 44 words
(Red Cardinal in Central Park – Photo: Na’ama Yehuda)
There was naught
That she needed
But a path
And some green
And a burbling stream
And wide sky
Overhead.
So she felt deeply nourished
By the flowers,
And the gift of bird
Who landed by her feet
To share
Her burden
And bread.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: stream
A girl’s voice protested. A cackle followed.
Leah kept her head down and her eyes on the task before her. There was a quota to complete if she wanted anything in her stomach, and she could make her body dead to wandering fingers. She’d learned how. The hard way. The only way.
When the foreman finally moved on, she gritted her teeth and tried to not compare slime to slime.
Not that she would ever touch the stuff. And not only because it was forbidden.
Beside her, Mandy sniffled. “How can you stand it?”
“Perhaps she doesn’t mind him,” Becca hissed. “Seeing how she never cries.”
Leah clenched her teeth, locked her knees, and steadied her breath. She focused on the fading light glinting on the blade. “No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
For the dVerse Prosery writing prompt
Prosery prompt quote: “No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” (Zora Neale Hurston, from “How Does it Feel to be Colored Me” in World Tomorrow, 1928)
Photo: Hine Lewis Wickes, The Library Of Congress https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/nclc.00919/
(Photo: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)
He wasn’t going to win this game.
He learned that much from many
That he had
Lost.
And he did not care
To have his face made pie
Against another Juke
Box.
So he played along,
As if it was all
A big
Joke.
For the dVerse 10th Anniversary (!!) poetry quadrille challenge: Juke
Dedicated to all who had to play along, because that was the safer – if fake – choice.
(Photo by De an Sun on Unsplash)
She would have gone to bed
And let the mess wait
For the morning,
Or the following
Millennia,
Had it not been for voices
That still
Echoed
From her past
To smudge shame
Onto her
Present.
She grabbed the mop
And filled the pail.
For the dVerse poetry quadrille challenge: smudge
(Photo: Owen Vangioni on Unsplash)
It wasn’t that
Which killed the cat.
Not inquisitiveness in predawn
Hours
When any decent mind
Would sleep.
Not curiosity about rustling shopping bags
Left
Fending for themselves
Whilst humans fetch more from
The car.
But urgent greed
To speed
Through
All nine lives.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: curiosity
(Photo: Rainer Krienke on Unsplash)
There is a scar ripped open
In the canyon
Of this wound.
Where sorrow has wound time
Around grief tighter than
Some
Assumed.
There are still pools
Of tears
Repeatedly
Bled
As future holds
Its breath.
To broken hearts
Peace has not
Come yet.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: wound
tucked away in the mountains
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