The Versesmith

dVerse Poetics   Launch: light and truth of painting Today for Poetics, I thought we might write from a selection of Rousseau’s artwork. Choose one of the paintings in this post and let it be your muse. Additionally, use the above epitaph as a launch point to describe where the painting takes you, the viewer. Oops... I jumped into it after reading just the first sentence, neglecting to read " Choose one of the paintings in this post ..." until I'd already written to this painting, The Equatorial Jungle .   image You do well to stay hidden. Man comes. Everything he touches, everywhere his feet roam, where his eyes wander, he desires to Conquer. Dominate. Crush. ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #237 For your optional prompt this week, please return to one of your favourite Friday Writing prompts of the past, and to that same prompt write something new.  My choice is: Friday Writings #105: ‘Starry, Starry Night’ from December 1, 2023, which I did not do then. ...your optional prompt this week is to be inspired by the song, ‘Starry, Starry Night,’ and/or by Vincent Van Gogh himself.   The Starry Night:  Wikimedia Commons The stars are spinning. My head is reeling, drunkenness sans drink. T he stars accelerate, spiraling, whirling, gaining speed. Or, it it me, racing 770 mph* through space, laying stationary on my back, staring up at the wheeling stars? I once read, The s tar s are in constant m otion. Barnard’s Star, 4 th nearest Earth , will bridge the diameter of the moon every 180 years. A century, a millennium, to notice change in the constellations....

  It's Quadrille Monday at dVerse .    Pen us a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), including some form of the word puff. Rather than puffy things, like clouds, puffball fungus, or puffins, I though of those who are puffed up with pride. THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES He doesn’t walk, he struts, or strutted years ago, now slowed and stumbling, unsure of where he is. Always proud though. T hat hasn’t changed. If anything it’s grown with puffery shouted from the dwindling crowds. Do we pity? I don’t. He  pitie s no one. ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   #dVerse #quadrille #44words#poetryprompt

 Poets and Storytellers United  Friday Writings #227  ...be inspired by one of the following quotes (or any quote) from The Princess Bride ... I chose two quotes, shown in italics. Detail of a postcard showing a Diamond Back Rattlesnake VENOM Why waste your venom on me ​? I'm much to o large to eat, too full of fat. ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹  ✹ ICE WARNING Not so very long ago, we kept our distance from those unmasked. Now, the world's been   flipped, tur ned upside down. Words to the wise in these unwise times, People in masks cannot be trusted. ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

dVerse Poetics : Names of the Rose  Please choose at least FIVE rose names from the list below. Or choose  your own FIVE words or more from this huge list. If the rose name is more than one word, you must use both words.  There is one stipulation, you can NOT use the word, “rose” in your  poem! I chose the following words, which I have underlined in the poem: Restless Seafoam Tangles Golden Gate Windrush Summer Song Peace I’m restless . I walk the tideline on Baker Beach, kicking tangles of kelp and seafoam . The fog is heavy, nearly concealing the Golden Gate Bridge. A windrush gusts; my hair briefly covers my vision. I sit on the cliffs hidden from the commuters above. The sound of waves and gulls, my summer s ong. The damp fog and incoming tide, my peace . ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

Bloom is the prompt word for today's dVerse quadrille.  Write a quadrille (a poem of EXACTLY 44 words, not including the title) AND include the word “bloom” or a form of the word within the body of the poem. A synonym for bloom does not fulfill the prompt. It must be the word “bloom”, or a form of the word, for example “bloomed, or blooming or bloomin’”. The bearded iris started blooming last week. Purples first, then the orange. “Mango Passion” it’s called. Fancy! My purples were free off a curb. They are the nameless mutts of the garden. Beautiful none the less, like the proverbial rose by any other name. ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   Mango Passion