There’s something about being over exposed That changes perception The way others see you and the way you see yourself Even in the plainest of things You see them differently When they are laid out too long in the sun The light shining too bright, too long upon the eye
A field of simple cattails, browned by the passage of time Their season nearly passed Nothing remarkable, you’d not look twice as you drive by Much as you drove by me, time after time Yet when exposed The light reveals as much as it takes away The details fade but the contrasts shout
You notice things you did not before Much as you noticed me when naked upon your floor The small tufts of white upon the black fuzz of their heads Now stand out, blown by the wind saying hello Simple black and white When you said everything is a shade of grey Shows more than all the greyscale conversation shading
So I sit here, among the weeds Exposed by your soliloquies Lies told and truths unclothed Showing the black among the white All blending together The foreground clear against a background black Still unsure if you can see me
Am I Overexposed?
This is for a dVerse prompt: Your poetics challenge today is to incorporate a landscape or cityscape into your poetry that either mirrors or amplifies your interior landscape (or lack thereof).
When reading the prompt I knew I was going to use one of my pictures as inspiration, as I tend to take a lot of landscape photos. I chose this picture of a field of cattails. The original picture is a field of brown cattails on an winters pond. I edited the photo cranking up the exposure and making it black and white to get the picture above.
In exploring the picture and incorporating an interior landscape the poem becomes a bit of an ekphratic poem in that it not only uses the landscape but describes the picture which all together describes the interior landscape of the narrator. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! 😊
44 birds fly in the sky. Did you ever stop to wonder why? Why don’t they fall? Why 44 in all? Whatever the reason is, let it be. For 44 birds in the sky is reason enough for me.
Fly birds fly. Good bye!
This was for a dVerse prompt: This one’s for the birds! Just sing us a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), including some form of the word bird. Hope you enjoy! 😊
I hate seeing you with another In the arms of some false lover His arms around your waist Your lips on his, so sweet the taste I cringe, draw back in fear How can you be with him with me so near?
This feeling new through my heart tears No longer do we share life and heart's cares No more memories shall we create You were supposed to be my love's fate
This is how we end? After all I've said, how can I be just a friend? To be left all on my own After all the seeds of love we had sown Go on, one on one Don’t seem like fun
I should accept it but I can’t My feelings I can’t supplant I need you to be alone If I can’t have you at my home
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You love me and I love you The sugar to sweeten my yuzu
We even think the same There for each other time after time
My love, heaven sent Even in darkness you’d be my light
This is for a dVerse prompt: we are writing in two lines stanzas as rhyming couplets thus:
Poetry Rules:
Write at least 12 lines of poetry in couplets separate the poem into couplets of 2 line stanzas the couplets must rhyme but only using half or para rhymes [see examples below]
Poetry Options:
write about a specific or imaginary couple written from the perspective of they or we or choose the notion of two as a topic
Photo by Barbara Burgess on Unsplash. Edited by Me
To the beat of the drum We do march to the bottom
The end of cold nights and black afternoons I would see the rise of morning suns
In like a lion with the blood of the lamb Tops round and spin, a rock rolls from a tomb
Daffodils sprout green shoots Blue pills swallowed, no comments
Little warmer then back to cold Not yet brittle ice for the swimming cod
Spring break, kids are free It becomes a thing, like shouting fore
Time to march again, love was last month No rhymes or gifts just feet that march
Hey April!
This was for a dVerse prompt: we are writing in two lines stanzas as rhyming couplets thus:
Poetry Rules:
Write at least 12 lines of poetry in couplets separate the poem into couplets of 2 line stanzas the couplets must rhyme but only using half or para rhymes [see examples below]
Poetry Options:
write about a specific or imaginary couple written from the perspective of they or we or choose the notion of two as a topic
I wrote this but didn’t notice the second part about the poetry options. So I had redo it to the prompt. But I liked this one enough that I’m putting it out there too. So go read my second attempt We/Them but enjoy this bonus as well! 😁
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In a word Or two Just the sight of you I can’t believe Just you and me The flowering trees Bloom, fragrant as sunshine As loud as the rolling seas Crash into me Make me move The beating of your heart The whole not just a part Seems as such That there is Nothing missing When I’m with you
This is from a dVerse prompt: Today we’re going to write in only phrases. The style and format of poem is up to you. I hope you enjoy. 😊
Space, empty and black Travelers through nothingness Death is a journey
The plush faux leather chair made noise with every movement. They didn’t understand his fascination. They being everyone. He even had the smell of leather imparted into the fabric. Dead cow. He remembered the words said in disgust, almost like a slur, from the ambassador’s interpreter with a smile. He loved the chair and the reactions he got.
His gaze swept along the room. Faux all around him. Faux mahogany, faux crystals, faux champagne behind a locked faux iron safe behind a faux Monet, well actually a print of a Monet but the sentiment was the same. Everything was fake aboard a starship. By necessity. When traveling through the emptiness of space and dark matter, efficiency was key. Supplies and space were limited. The banalities of the ego were sacrificed to the exigencies of space travel.
He was stalling, he knew. He was supposed to be preparing the eulogy for one of the crew. A nice young man, hard working … Blah, blah, blah. They were all hard working, nice, people. Hell, you weren’t allowed to be part of the crew if you were a lazy, son of a bitch. That so many of them were young. And no matter how nice you were, how well you took orders, how hard you worked, sometimes being young meant you did something stupid. Sometimes doing something stupid cost you. Like sleeping with a Kuthula spin mistress. The human body isn’t meant for that kind of pressure, or velocity, and to be honest he wasn’t sure if the human body was meant for that much moisture either.
“Dammit, I’m a captain not a speech writer!” he said to the empty room as his faux leather chair squeaked beneath him.
….
At the funeral he said all the right words. The platitudes and words of sorrow and comfort. The usual hollow homilies and recitations. And everyone gave the usual silent nods and down cast eyes, the gentle pats on the back and formal embraces. All the useless displays that did nothing to bring a person back or to help the living move forward. He felt useless. He hated feeling useless.
“He wanted me to let you know that you were a good captain and he’s sorry he messed up.”
He turned and looked into blue eyes the shade of dark calm seas.
“And you are …? Wait, you are her. The spin mistress. I um. I’m glad you came. My um …”
“He lingers here, you know,” she said, tilting her head and moving her eyes to look around the area around them.
“Uh … yeah. Yes,” the captain replied.
She smiled gently, her blue eyes softening to a richer blue. “He hopes to prepare a better place for you, if you should happen to end up,” she spread her hands, “here.”
“Uh, thank you, um him,” he said. He hoped his confusion did not come across to her as offensive. He did not believe her ideas but there was no reason to mention it. Diplomatic silence was one hallmark of a good captain.
She bowed and turned to walk off. She looked back over her shoulder.
“Dark matter is all around us. In between the vast spaces between our atoms. Look too closely and you’ll get lost; look from too far and it can’t be seen. But if you don’t look at all and just feel then you can navigate between dark and light as though they are one.”
With that she walked off into the crowd. The captain watched her as she became lost within the assemblage of people. He felt better. He didn’t know if he felt the presence of the young crew member who died. But perhaps that wasn’t the point. The point was to feel something. And that was enough.
This was for a dVerse prompt: Write a haibun that alludes to the themes of the excerpts from Tracy K. Smith’s “Life on Mars.”
The first thing that resonated with me from the excerpts was the use of dark matter. There’s a very sciency, science fiction feel to the poetry which comes from her father being a scientist and working with space. I really picked up on that and wanted to run with it but in a sort of Star Trekish campy sort of way. The heavy themes of death and losing someone also played in. I hope you enjoy. 😊
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The evening’s moon shone upon the newly fallen snow My love lay beneath it Fresh as the breath of a new dawn, pure white in color No trace of the stain of my tears I fear to tread upon it, to mar such perfect a blanket Yet the words echo The reflection of the moon’s light pales and dims in memory They shoot the white girl first.
I watched in horror from too far away in safety Yet the echo reached my ears Red drops splatter in pretty patterns across the wall Artist see art even in horror I could not run, towards or away. My feet buried in sand How I got away I don’t know Pundits in other lands called it inevitable, just another lesson History has failed us, but no matter.
The present the caretaker of our past sins, expresser of lamentations Yet my tears lay dry on my cheek The cemetery lay on flat land, headstones lined up like teeth A crooked smile of death The chill of winter lays cold and silent, not even the wind dares to disturb The tales the dead whisper I came not to say goodbye but instead to say see you soon I was looking for a quiet place to die.
This is for a dVerse prompt: “I am sharing below some short opening sentences for you to use as the closing line of your poem.”
There were several opening lines listed. I happened to use three of them, one each for the last line of each stanza of my poem as well as the closing line. “They shoot the white girl first.” Paradise by Toni Morrison, “History has failed us, but no matter.” Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and “I was looking for a quiet place to die.” Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies. I hope you enjoy! 😊
