The Versesmith

Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #239: Down to the Bone Wordle #768 Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl in red.  Coincidentally, Friday Writings this week has a bone prompt too! 🦴 In desolate temples of the underworld , spiral steps of bone weave dee p… deep… deeper into the pit . Sparks dance, fireflies of the abyss, reflected in the dark current of Cocytus . Choose. Follow the voices . Follow the screams . Or, turn. A scend the steps of bone while you still can. ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 dVerse Poetics: But no, a butterfly   Merril tells us , "So, for today, I’ve composed a list of common butterfly names taken from several online sites. People seem to enjoy these list prompts. Choose at least three of the names from the list below and include them in your poem. You may choose to use more than three for your poem. Please use the entire name, that is use “Appalachian azure”, not just Appalachian or azure." I do enjoy the list prompts! photo credit   A clouded yellow sunset glow s on golden birdwing and autumn leaf . The painted lady reflects the setting sun.   ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

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