The Versesmith

  Tanka Tuesday Halloween Poetry Challenge: Witch's Brew Poetry Colleen tells us " Witches and their potions are synonymous with Halloween. Let’s create a spellbinding poem. (longer syllabic forms work best). You can write freestyle, but you must include a syllabic form too! Write a syllabic poem about a witch brewing a potion. Include vivid descriptions of ingredients and their effects.  You can make the poem a rhythmic chant or incantation, enhancing the magical feel of your words. The idea is to have fun, so humor works! Feel free to use end rhymes on forms that don’t usually have them. Please let us know the form and if you’re using end rhymes. (The use of end rhymes is optional). For this challenge, if you’re using end rhymes on forms that don’t usually have end rhymes, you’re creating experimental syllabic poetry. Or, write from the perspective of an ingredient, expressing its fear or excitement at being used in the brew." A very good thing were are e...

The Sunday Whirl  Wordle #678 Prompt words in red.  P L Chadwick / Ancient & modern in the Crypt at Buildwas Abbey What a ghoulish night . The buried arise from within the crypt to spin their spells into tricks. Tricks of the un- dead . The wicked wind wrap s it’s gnarly fingers into all living beings this ghoulish night . Forced to breathe in the frigid spell s, the tricks , this night . This ghoulish night , when un- dead things under wicked spells , wrap their gnarled fingers in the cracks of the crypt , prying their freedom, to wreak havoc, to spin in the wind and feed. What a ghoulish night to be dead or alive. ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved

  The Sunday Whirl Wordle # 676  Prompt words in red.  image  This night , this Night of Night s, as the full moon rises, and the cat scratches to get in, the screeches in the walls rattle me. I stand before my kettle peering into its depth, into the simmering elixir within. The vessel is black with age, and ceased being shiny a century, at least, ago. Mist rises into the air, dampening the fringe of my tangled  locks . Slowly it gathers, swirling to form an image,  one long divined.   I  sigh , all my doubts allayed.  The image no longer mist, it solidifies into pleasing figures. Bird-like, yet not quite birds, my ghoulish swarm hovers, waiting for my command. This Night , this Night of Night s, we fly together. ©202 4 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved

 dVerse – Open Link Night 372 Ekphrastic Options Visitations: Majorette, Hand Stands, Gifts, A Slight Lapse of Purpose, Yea by Joseph Kinnebrew photo ©Jade Li Pixies dance by moonlight, their silhouettes to see. Gymnasts on pinheads gyrate (Acrobatic sprites!) to cricket music, the hoarse refrains of frogs. Pray do not join them, though their sport be joyful, and their music glad. Here’s the thing, up close they disappear, by daylight too, invisible. Those who follow pixies, or with the goblins dine, will find their mirth short lived. That path, deceptive, leads solely one direction, disappearing into mist.   ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #dVerse #ekphrasticpoetry #freeverse #pixiepoem #dVerseopenlinknight

 Poets and Storytellers United #150 : How High is the Moon? "For your optional prompt this week, I invite you to write about the moon." I have written a photo tanka.  photo ©Lisa Smith Nelson #phototanka #tanka #moonpoetry #poetsandstorytellersunited 

  Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge: Word Garden Lisa Fox (aka JadeLi) is host of this week's #TankaTuesdayChallenge.  She has given us this prompt. "Today I would like you to choose three (or more) words from the given list and write a syllabic poem using them. Please feel free to add plural, past tense, etc. to the words as needed." My chosen words are in red.  I have written an etheree, and a reverse etheree, separated by an American sentence.  "There's a sea bird above you Gliding on one place like Jesus in the sky"  from Rock Me on the Water by Jackson Browne close-up of a vintage postcard in the author's collection   I walk the dunes alone d own by the shore I smell the seaweed washed up with the high tide salty slippery I step into the cold surf and listen gulls cry out their sorrow one by one d o they mock me? or imitate my grief? As they suspend in mid-heaven, what do gulls care of man's  misfortunes? t he waves will ca...

 It's Haibun Monday at dVerse .    The prompt is Fall foliage or Spring blossoms. Eleven months of the year I vainly attempt to rid my yard of Virginia creeper. Come October, I’m glad I failed! The vivid crimsons, and peachy-pinks of leaves, the berries blackest blue on scarlet stems are the clear winners in Autumn’s Color Contest. the unwanted one nuisance rambling vine redeemed in autumn splendor ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #haibun #autumnpoetry 

  Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge  Synonyms Only & a Specific Form Selma has asked us to write a tanka using synonyms for Mindless and Humdrum .  After reading some of the synonyms (on  www.thesaurus.com ) I was reminded of something my niece's uncle said about the music at her wedding reception.   credit  no pleasing uncle he always criticized her down to little things called wedding music  white bread we just called him  moronic      ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #tankatuesdayweeklypoetryprompt #tankatuesday #synonymsonly #tanka #synonyms

dVerse prompt for October 8. 2024   Choose an album cover...and use it  to pen a poem! There is no specific form required.    Write a poem of any style in response to the prompt. Post it to your  blog. Fair use, httpsen.wikipedia.orgwindex.phpcurid=1198858 You sit, rocking, (pun intended). Sixteen years old and you were my favorite. Now 50 years later, what can I say? You still rock it! ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  Did you know the location depicts  Browne's childhood home, hand-built by his grandfather?      https://bigorangelandmarks.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-106-abbey-san-encino.html   #dverse #syllabicpoetry #jacksonbrowne #albumcoverpoetry 

Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge: Tanka Puente Theme: Best and Worst Moments  Robbie Cheadle is host for this first #TankaTuesday challenge in the new series.   "A Puente poem comprises of three stanzas with the first and third being separate thoughts but sharing an equal number of lines. The second stanza is the bridge stanza and is a single line enclosed in tildes (~) that acts as a bridge between the thoughts in the first stanza and the third stanza.  As this challenge is syllabic in nature, the first and third stanzas should be tankas in the standard form of 5/7/5/7/7. 1st stanza: separate thought, equal number of lines (5/7/5/7/7) 2nd stanza: one line enclosed in tildes (~) to distinguish itself from the last line of the first stanza and the first line of the third stanza. No syllable count, but keep it brief. 3rd stanza: separate thought, equal number of lines (5/7/5/7/7) The poem should be titled." I close my eyes, wish to dream, and far within sleep to chance u...