The Versesmith

 Poets and Storytellers United  Friday Writings #244 : If the Glass Slipper Fits For this week's optional prompt I'd like you to write something from the point of view of a fairy tale character. image Oma made me a coat of red wool. With a hood. She said it was for her “little Mäuschen.”  She called it a riding coat, yet I don't have a pony. I sure would like a pony though. Papa says “No, meine Schatzchen, no pony.” I tried to convince him my pastry deliveries would be ever so much quicker on ponyback, but no. It’s not fair. Papa says kinder always say things aren’t fair and to “ Live with it .” As for my coat? Oma doesn’t know me at all. I hate hoods. Wool makes me itch. And I don’t even like red. I hope I outgrow it soon.  ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved

dVerse OpenLinkNight #415 "Please consider this quote by Gloria Steinem to inspire you :" When you’re lucky enough to have lived a long life, as I have done, your role is to remind us how far we have come. –Gloria Steinem We were doing well. Now our steps forward are blocked. A change is needed. We came too far to forget, some live to impede freedoms. ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 Quadrille #255: X marks the spot Write a poem of exactly 44 words in response to the prompt. Your poem must contain the word xenolith . image source Here I a m, stuck. Stuck slap dab in the middle. Middle of this family. Family of proverbial mule- stubborn souls. Souls stuck in stone-set routine. R outine precise and rigid. Rigid, each tedious family dinner harder. H ard er than a mantle xenolith. Both near impossible to break. ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

dVerse - Poetry Form: Discort   The writing challenge is to write a descort. "The descort differentiates itself from other forms by differentiating its lines from other lines within the poem. That is, the main rule of descort poems is that each line needs to be different from every other line in the poem. An undeniable twist from the norm ."   source One summer long ago, my family went to Crater Lake. Nothing to see. I may have well stayed home. I saw only fog. But on a bright-blue-sky sunny day? Prettier than a postcard. Only a day trip away from me now, I never go. ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 Poets and Storytellers United  Friday Writings #241: Change Your optional prompt this week is to tell us about change, whatever it calls to mind for you just now.  Or serve us up something you’ve previously written on the subject. ©2026Lisa Smith Nelson The geese sense the change. Still August, yet they take flight. Bleak winter ahead? ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 dVerse: Compounding the Stem So for today’s prompt we are turning our attention to compound words and... a prompt... that is the Compound Word Verse...  a poetry from invented by Margaret R. Smith. 15 lines 5 stanzas 3 lines per stanza rhyme scheme a,a,b meter 8/8/3 last line of each stanza includes a compound word using the same stem the poem’s title includes the stem word appearing in the east tonight reflectin g through the trees its light the moonrise luminous in the flower bed towering over roses red moonflowers in my hand held up to her beam I sense a calmness, as a dream my moonstone the glow and play of light within remind me of the light akin to moonglow later on, through curtains of lace celestial light that shines from space a moonbeam ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   In Roman Mythology moonstones were believed to be the tears of the goddess Diana, who was the personification of the moo...