The Versesmith

 dVerse #231  :  Making Much of Poems  Pen us a smallish poem of just 44 words, including some semblance of the word MUCH.  image credit   Like scattered pieces of child’s puzzle, I shattered. Missing the most important piece, right there, where the ragged hole in my heart is. Nothing fits to fill it. So much left unsaid. So much left undone. You died much too early. I wasn’t ready. ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   #dverse #quadrille 

 Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #193: Tell Me Something Good “...for this week's optional prompt, I am requesting that you tell me something good .”  I hear the sparrows’ chirp cicadas’ buzz smell the neighbors’ barbecue I see the clouds above floating gently by feel breezes in my hair I pick a warm tomato ripened in the sun ...a taste of something fine the dog is belly up wriggling on the lawn his carefree joy contagious ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   I've just had a taste of something fine. Jackson Browne, Something Fine #poetsandstorytellersunited #freeverse #jacksonbrowne #atasteofsomethingfine #fridaywritings

For  dVerse MTB : cinquains revisited The American cinquain "... is a... five-line poem with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2, but there are plenty of variations . You may use this form as a single stanza, you may reverse and/or do it as a mirror. When done well it also bridges into concrete or shape poetry, as it may be shaped as an arrow, you may even want to use it as the poem of a haibun." I have chosen to write a Butterfly Cinquain. 2-4-6-8-2-8-6-4-2 centered my Queen of the Garden saved from the neighbor's trash now stands regal in the garden golden armlet, a crown upon her head amid a scent of herbs among the bees she reigns ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  #americancinquain #butterflycinquain #dverse #syllabicpoetry 

dVerse   MTB: Ubi Sunt and that Where, Oh Where?   And our MTB prompt today is simply to use this Ubi Sunt motif in your poetry as such: title your poem with the question – where are the/they… use the questioning within your poem, even with repetition DO NOT ANSWER it though – the questioning is rhetorical employ concepts of mortality, the transience of life, a sense of nostalgia ubi sunt is a term meaning "where are they??" taken from the Latin phrase "ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt," or "where are those who were before us?"   Where are the friends who promised forever? Who vowed a cradle to grave? Where are the sisters who pricked their thumbs? Who undying kinship gave? Have they forgotten those carefree days? Broken our childhood pact? Have they forgotten we were as one? Ignoring our solemn act? Where are the friends we used to know? Those we held so dear? Where are the ones on whose sides we stood? W...

 dVerse Prosery   Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words,  including the given line from this poem.  “ The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree: Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape .” From the poem “ Time and the Garden ,” by Yvor Winters dead zinnias 144 words      It’s been a long summer, so long I’ve given up on the garden.      The Shasta daisies once tall and proud, now tall and brown, crisped by the August sun.  I’ve let the pluots drop to the ground.  I’ve no energy to haul out the ladder to pick the ones past my reach.  Keep my distance, out of sight is out of mind.        Did I say no energy?  Yes, that, plus I just don’t care anymore.  After illness a few springs ago the garden’s gone to seed, to weed, to pot, as it were.  Nothing was weeded that year.  Last year their seeds grew wild, too much for me to handle, this spri...

  Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #190   I went with the way the prompt was worded last Friday. So, it's not quite a summery spooky Summerween (which I have never heard ov) poem.  Just a scary summer thing.  " ...we’ll invite you to write poetry or prose inspired by Summerween (or scary things that happen in the summer). " Scary things that happen in the summer around here are wildfires. In recent years too many weeks of the summers have been spent indoors avoiding the smoke that fills the valley (there haven't been any this summer, knock on wood).  In 2020 Portland, OR had the worst air quality in the world due to the wildfires across the Pacific Northwest. The air quality in my city broke records for the worst air quality ever.   2020 was the most destructive wildfire season in Oregon on record. In early September, 2020, an arsonist (still unknown) started a fire that grew to destroy nearly 3,000 structures, leveling entire neighborhoo...