The Versesmith

 It's Haibun Monday at dVerse.   The prompt is " Write a haibun that references Halloween ." Starting in early October, the neighborhood ghouls and witches appear.  Mostly inflatables, but a growing number of gigantic skeletons as well.  Where do they the residents keep those during the off season?  These things are 12’ tall!  Maybe they leave them up.  I saw you can get Santa outfits for them on Amazon.  It will be interesting to see if Easter Bunny ears will be available come spring, or Uncle Sam hats for July 4th.  Come to think of it, patriotic garb on a skeleton is a good representation of what’s been going on.   You know... the Death of Democracy.  bones reach for the sky  as children screech on the porch feeding sugar-highs  ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

  Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #200:  "...write something about, or including, the number 10. And/or write a 10-line poem." I have written a 10-line poem using the word  decimate . Decimate : to destroy, to  remove one tenth f rom the Latin decimus, meaning ten image source  Rebellious ones in the Legions of Rome, be afraid. Decimation is upon you for your cowardice. Gather by tens for judgment, shake in fear. Pick your stone, and beg Fortuna her wheel pass you by. Her fortune is random, the odds in your favor. Spare you she may, y e t nine throw the ston es , n ine raise the ir clubs. Shared guilt, a lesson in obedience. ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

  dVerse Prosery : Oh, Umbrellas  For your prompt today, I’d like you to use the following lines in your Prosery: “What will I do there without my hands upon your summer face?” lines from the poem, Oh, Umbrellas, by Jeffrey Hermann Write a piece of prosery of up to or exactly 144 words, including the given line in the order in which it has been given. You may add or change punctuation, but you may not add or delete words. 144 words rainy city scene on newsprint, by Mary Pedri, in author's collection       S ummer was ending. I was told I was going to go to school in the city. I didn’t want to go. For all the glitz and glamor my mother insisted I’d enjoy, I knew I wouldn’t. I hate the city. It was noisy in the city. I preferred the country. The country… melodies of meadowlarks… chirping of crickets at dusk… f rogs in the pond (my brother called it The Lake ) croak ing to one another. In the city you couldn’t hear a bird to save your life. Tr affic, ...

Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writing #198: October Writes "...write poetry or prose from the point of view of October. Let October write and tell." Ahhh… to be the warming months of spring to welcome bud and blossom with heady scents of jasmine and the buzzing of the bees to hear the joyful cries of children sporting in green meadows deprived by long white winter No... instead of one last summer bird song one lazy afternoon my lot’s to bring a bitter breath a freezing death to flowers mere nodding heads on drooping stems come morning Alas… my displays of color (gone the greens) ocher russet gold and crimson last too short a time then f a l l in drifts unwanted raked and burned blown into grungy gutters Ahhh… to be a gentle April the month of poetry and prose to hear the multitude of cheers “ Spring is Here !” on eager tongues and know they cheer for me ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

  dVerse #233 : Bring on the Boo!  "...just 44 words, including some form of the word boo." I was having so much fun with this one I forgot it was to be only 44 words!  It is now...   On Hallowe’en night when the Goblins appear, window glass rattles, we cower in fear.  Ghosts and Ghoulies  moan “ BOO ” up the stair s , dragging their chains into human affairs.  In the dark hallways,  Ghouls and Wraiths wait, while Banshees and Hellhounds howl at the gate.  ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 Poets and Storytellers United  Friday Writings #196 " ...for today's optional prompt, I invite you to write poetry or prose inspired by Autumn (rituals, foods, colors, celebrations… or anything that makes autumn memorable and/or special) ." ©2021 Lisa Smith Nelson summer's last hurrah  has come and gone, once again brisker nights arrive one more blanket on the bed  long sleeves and socks for morning  ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #autumnpoetry #autumntanka #poetsandstorytellersunited #fridaywritings #syllabicpoetry

Poets and Storytellers United  Friday Writings #195 : Revisiting Old Favorites "... for today’s optional prompt, I invite you to revisit one of our old prompts. Maybe one you missed? Or one you could explore again ?"  I have chosen a prompt from 2022, one I'd missed. I have " subverted " the prompt in that the narrator is not a stranger to the person she is writing, but they are both strangers to me, although one's name isn't unknown. Friday, November 25, 2022 Friday Writings #54 : Writing to a Stranger “...write to a stranger. Not just any stranger, but someone specific you have in mind, whether observed or imagined.” (Don't forget, you can always subvert a prompt too – by doing the opposite of what it says, or by writing about why you refuse to write to it, or by deliberately misunderstanding it, or by going off at a tangent....) Georgia, my dearest friend Georgia, Does it disappoint to know the public sees you  as “ that woman ” who paints those m...

  dVerse - Prosery : T. S. Eliot and J. Alfred Prufrock To write a contribution you will have to incorporate the given line into a piece of prose of no longer than 144 words (including the given line but excluding the title).  You may punctuate and divide the line as you want, but you cannot insert any words into the line.  public domain license      T. S. Eliot… Could it be?      A prompt based on Eliot’s line from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock , “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes”?      A great line, a great metaphor. As to be expected by a great poet. Although his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is bizarre!      T. S. Eliot… one of my favorites. I incorporated or quoted his work in seven of my own poems on this blog. That ties with Edna St. Vincent Millay, another favorite.      Eliot’s The Wasteland is a fertile field of inspiration! Oh, the characters he...

 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...

dVerse #229 Just pen us a poem of precisely 44 words, not counting the title, and using some form of the word jabber . image public domain Stop your jabbering, chattering drivel. When in public  you must speak civil.  You run off at the mouth, babble and yak. You sound like a duck the way you quack. You mummer and mutter all the day. Stop the yapping, you’ve nothing to say! ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved    #quadrille #dverse 

  Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #189: The Most Important Step "...for today’s optional prompt, I invite you to write poetry or prose which explores the same question: What’s the most important step a person can take? "   Perhaps the hardest step to take, yet the most important, is the first step away from a toxic relationship, be it romantic partner, family member, or employer. Those on the outside may find it easy to give the advice, “ Leave, just walk away .” Easy to say, hard to accomplish! But, once that first step is taken, the next steps become easier. Step away. Step away. I know it's harder to do than say. I was young once, and in your same shoes. I didn't step away and I'm paying my dues. Step away. Step away. I know it's harder to do than say. It's better now than in a few years, before there are children, who will add to those tears. Step away. Step away. I know it's harder to do than say. Take the first step. Hold onto my ha...

Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #188  Rather than the optional prompt, I've gone with a triolet .   The summer days are long this year. Our garden planted dry as bone. With scorching sun, the skies are clear. The summer days are long, this year I miss you more than last, my dear. I tend our garden all alone. The summer days are long, this year our garden planted dry as bone. ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved