The Versesmith

  dVerse OpenLinkNight #419 Welcome to OpenLinkNight everyone. As you know, this is your opportunity to link 1 poem of your choice as this is no prompt-day. Here's something I've had hanging around unposted for a while from a postcard poetry prompt.  Memories of elementary school!   Postcard of  Gymnasts , by Bożena Grzyb-Jarodzka Did you have a playground with bars and rings? Did the popular girls do it better than anyone else, skipping two rings at a time, back and forth, no effort at all? Rubbing tan-bark dust onto their palms like chalk on a gymnast’s, those girls wore their blisters like badges. Did you have a playground like that? Were you one of the popular girls, destined to bear the pompoms and date the quarterback, your path set by age eight?

dVerse Quadrille #259: Sing It!   Pen us a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), including some literal form of the word SING.  detail of Pear and Crows in author's collection  Summer’s melody has ended, the cicadas song is done, the crickets silent once again. No birdsong, only cawing of the crows, massed as one in the crab-apple tree. Startled, they rise. I pick up a feather, glossy black, to add it to my collection. ©2026   Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 dVerse: A Haunting  Choose any of the three paintings and compose a poem of 31 lines or fewer. What misfortunes do the artworks stir in you, the viewer? I chose Rain Woman , by Svetlana Telets.  What misfortunes does the artwork stir in me?  Reading the artist is from Ukraine, I think that should be obvious.   Svetlana Telets, Rain Woman (1996) I stand on the street corner, stunned. R ivulets of rain spill over the brim of my hat, run down my neck. Shall we be abandoned to yet another bleak winter? I am chilled. Allies have turned their backs. Yes, I am chilled, yet, I am not surprised.  ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

dVerse - MTB: Imagism in 5 The Cadralor Not a form I am familiar with, the Cadralor is an invented form named for its inventors, Lori Howe and Christopher Cadra.  * 5 numbered stanzas * choose 3-10 lines per stanza (but keep same chosen stanza length throughout) * each stanza stands alone as an imagist poem (just the obliquest of connections) * 5th stanza pulls the 4 unrelated stanzas together into a poem of love, of yearning * rhymes and syllabic meter are NOT wanted I I don’t go to the far back of my yard anymore. I t’s dead; the grass, onions, parsley, gone. I let it die; its prior beauty gone, now crunchy underfoot, II T he wind blew over the fence, such as it was. I left it there, nothing to fence in, or out, except the persistent raccoons that straddle the top boards at dawn . III G eese honk overhead on their way south, the stragglers louder as they strive to catch up to the lopsided Vs of their fellow migrants. IV Autumn leaves drift down, carpet ing...

Quadrille #256 – Ho-hum, it’s time to Poem Ho-hum, it’s time to poem! Pen us a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), literally including some form of the word hum. Summer prepares to cede the stage, as Autumn a waits in the wings. H er pallet drip s with color, russet, gold, or crimson. The buzzing of the bee has ended, along with cicada’s rythmic whirr . The Hummingbird will flit among the morning glories, one last day. ©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  

 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...

  dVerse Prosery :  Luminous Accountings   The Prosery Challenge: Your prose—fiction or nonfiction—may be no more than 144 words. You must use the given line, and you may not alter the words, change the word order, or insert words into the line. However, you may change the punctuation.  The line is from King of the River , by Stanley Kunitz . . . and the iridescent image swims through a mirror that flows .” Stanley Kunitz (The Atlantic, 1970) Rogue River, OR © Lisa Smith Nelson 2026 Try as I might, I can’t seem to hold on to my memories.  They move, sliding away through my fingers, quicksilver between moments, leaving me with nothing.  No, not nothing.  Worse than nothing.  Nothing would be painless. They leave, not reflections, but vague images, faded photographs, faces silvered with age.  Yet I do remember there were once memories.  That’s what stings.  I promised never to forget.  Even your face is fading, hazy, wavering...

 dVerse Poetics:  Have You Ever Seen the Rain? Prompt from Li(sa) : Your challenge for today, if you choose to accept it, is to choose... your way with the weather. Use it as a framework. Or a metaphor. Or as a vehicle to get you where your muse wants to go. Any form or length is fine. I would love to see someone take a favorite weather song and pay tribute to its lyrics or melody. Please put attribution on your page if you choose that path. I’m very much looking forward to reading your poems. Going with the suggestion of taking a weather song, I have taken two.  One is mostly fiction, one is mostly fact. A Golden Shovel using a line from  November Rain by Guns N' Roses. And it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain A Golden Shovel is an invented form, created by Terrance Hayes.  It is written by taking a line or lines from an existing poem and using each word as end words in your poem. The words are kept in order.  Credit is always given....

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