He feigns strength, gilds his world golden. His name. His visage. His way. Trumpian mythology built lie by lie, threat by threat. Its depth unimaginable, bottomless pit of greed, racism. So self-consumed is he, blind to his wax wings melting. Truth’s flame is invincible
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “myth” or a form of the word in a poem of exactly 44 words sans title.
Reference is made to mythology’s Icarus whose wings were made of wax…which led to his demise when he flew too close to the sun.
I recall being always happy in the early years of my childhood. Playing house with dolls, parading down Melrose Avenue in dress-up clothes, riding my tricycle, running through sprinklers and drinking from the garden hose – all with my best friend, June. As we progressed to first and second grade we climbed Mrs. Jester’s apple trees, held hands as we walked back and forth to West Elementary School, made chalk drawings on the sidewalk and played hopscotch too. I loved sleepovers at June’s house, looking with wonder at her sister Auberdene’s dressing table filled with lipsticks and perfumes. We’d sit in June’s living room and watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry on the black-and-white tv while eating a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches. Once every summer, my mom bought a box of popsicles and doled them out to June and I and other kids on the block. Everyone fought over the red ones. I always had the yellow ones to myself. I guess nobody else liked banana.
childhood memories friendships frozen in photos long faded by time
Writing this to say Happy Birthday on June 15th to my dearest childhood friend, June Zitka Trentacosti. June is on the left in both these photos.
how did we get to this place where journalists are called piggy and stupid and the one before is called sleepy joe while the one now who was also before the one before nods off in televised meetings but wakes up demanding cabinet members sling odes of praise while hiding their genuflecting knees below the conference table refusing to speak against indulgences given to insurrectionists as others under his spell fund masked men not Zorro types accosting individuals who by the way are not eating your pets rather paying taxes to raise their children who are US citizens being good neighbors attending church working jobs that need bodies who show up and care
we need Martin and Jesse John Lewis and Barbara Jordon to be here again we need their spirited tenacity to rile up cowardly sycophants to grow backbones and finally say enough is enough
meanwhile he’s playing feral tom cat lifting his leg all over DC leaving his mark so future felines and species of any kind will know he was here in his gilded age of narcissism adding his name atop JFKs and on towers and arch de trumps even as he paints the Reflecting Pond blue in the image of Mar-a-Lago’s swimming pool which as he explained with posters as visual aids is taller than any of the tallest buildings in the world never mind it’s a pool of water lying prone on the ground not a building actually standing tall reaching to the sky
he’s become an AI Master in the wee hours evidenced by his creations something no other president has or ever will be see Donald the pilot dropping shit bombs everywhere while JD warns Leo to be careful talking about theology his boss created himself in the image of Christ and it goes on and on and on like a run-on sentence with no stops no resets no commas just implicitly felt exclamation marks slung everywhere until we the people add our own exclamation mark and say NO in November
let the reckoning come
Written for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Melissa asks us to write a poem with no punctuation. Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay
Birds of a feather argumentation our game, friendship scores the win.
College debate partners from 1965 to 1969. Friendship scores over years and miles – that’s the real trophy in 2026. Just back from a wonderful visit with Karen in Sarasota, Florida.
Shared on dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe.
. . . some arranged some from love at first sight. Some wooed over coffee dates, dances, walks in the woods, saunters through town. Some too good to be true and they were.
In his imagination, he pictured her a match for his gentle soul. Someone to color his world, hues of happiness and hope. Ruby red lips, dark indigo eyes, cheerful lemon-yellow everyday dresses.
She appeared in his dreams occasionally. Magenta velvet dress swaying, complement to his black velvet tux. They danced together, high in the night sky, galaxy spinning, sparkling its approval. Their’s was a match made in heaven.
Sadly, night’s chill always ended this folly, waking him as he reached up, up into the nothingness of stark reality. His hand empty, heart aching. Would he ever find her? Or is his dream, simply out of reach? Too good to be true.
Written for Tuesdayd Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Melissa is hosting. She’s given us images of 4 Marc Chagall paintings and asked to write an ekphrastic poem using one of them. I’ve selected The Promenade, oil on canvas painted in 1918.
An EKPHRASTIC poem is a poem inspired by an image.
She’d wandered away again. Rain pelted sidewise, passersby doggedly plodded forward. Uncooperative umbrellas flipped inside out. She was invisible to them.
Sopping hair plastered her head, clothes adhered to her skin like shrink wrap over packaged chicken. Three miles away, her caregivers were frantic.
De is hosting Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We’re to write a poem of exactly 44 words (sans title) and include the word “dog” within the body of the poem. We may use a form of the word or a word that includes the word “dog” within it….hence “doggedly” in my poem. AI image generated on Bing Create.
Some days I feel as though I’m listing, weighed down by too much news. Hantavirus, gas prices, John Roberts resurrecting Jim Crow, taxpayer money gilding an extravagant, exaggerated, excessive, exorbitant, extraneous, bawdy ballroom for Mr. You Know Who.
Perhaps a blooming list might brighten my day. My favorite blooms then, in no particular order: hyacinth, cherry blossoms, tulips, daffodils, crocus, lilacs and *panties of the week.
Listing toward eighty now, purple veined hands, crepey knees, fading eyebrows, expanding girth. All changes I can live with. I can still dance the waltz, twist lasciviously, bunny hop ridiculously and show off my *bloomers doing high Rockette kicks.
So the point is, listing at my age is more than a poetic feat. It should tell you I am alive and well, not planning any time soon to take a docile back seat!
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Bjorn from Sweden is hosting.
WORDS OF EXPLANATION: 1. The astericks on panties and bloomers. Back in the day, panties were called bloomers!
2. Panties of the Week were a very popular fad in the 1950s. You bought a 7-pack of girls underpants and each one had a day of the week embroidered on them!
3. The Prompt: Bjorn asks us to write a “list poem”. He says, “The use of lists in poetry can be very powerful. You can start with a list and expand around it. Maybe even your shopping list can be made into poetry by reflecting on what the list tells you about the season. The whole poem may be a list, but you may also use a section only as a list.”
So basically we’re to write a poem that involves listing. I had fun with this one!
How do people learn to parent? Do we learn it as we go? Is it a task with diminishing returns?
We erect loving fences round our infants. Envelop them in our arms, nurture them at the breast, cocoon them in swaddled sleep. At varying degrees we watch, hover, interfere or cheer, as they crawl, toddle, run, stumble, fall and get back up again. Fences open as we send them to school. Teachers flick reins with encouragement to lope, gallop, join the race, keep up the pace. Soon fences disappear completely. Children gone more than they’re at home. Is parenting a conundrum? Love and attachment grow stronger every day even as we encourage independence, even as their days with us are numbered. Suddenly they’re adults raising their own as we look on from another place. We hope the path they walked with us was well tread, remembered fondly. We relish our memories as we wait for their muscle memory and that thing called familial love to occasionally nudge them back into our sphere again.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Punam reminds us that in India, May is a month where there will be art exhibits across many cities. She provides us with several artworks that can motivate an ekphrastic poem, or we can be inspired by one of the following names of some of these art shows: 1. Nothing Twice 2. Chance Remains of Another Time 3. Open Fences
Photo is us with our granddaughter who is now 18! How time flies!
Brought up Catholic in a rural town, crucifixes in every room of the house. Weekly traumatic recitations of sins to the confessional grate. Anne-Marie fled when she turned eighteen. In New York City she buried her head in anonymity: crowded streets and subways. Religion and family left behind, she savored freedom in the solitude of multitudes. Then came the call.
“Your father is dead. Don’t come home. It’s too late.”
So Anne-Marie simply went to bed . . . for days.
Until she found herself in a church. Walking down the aisle pushed by childhood memories. Muscle memory bent her knee in genuflection. At the communion rail, her hands appeared in front of her. Thin wafer received. Consumed. But then came wine? Since when? And the faint perfume from its chalice steals her resolve. She gulps as tears flow. Somehow, she’s back in the fold.
Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. BUT, today, we write flash fiction!
Prosery is a form created by dVerse. A line from a poem is provided and we must include the line, word for word, within a piece of flash fiction of 144 words or less. The line provided today is “And the faint perfume from its chalice steals ” from the poem Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
lillian the home poet 