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  

  Friday Fictioneers   "The Challenge: Write a complete story in one hundred words of less." Mine worked itself into a story-poem. photo prompt © Roger Bultot 100 words Please don’t. I said, don’t ! Turn off the TV! You know the dog is afraid of boom-booms, why would you add more when there are enough outside right now! Look at him! It’s not funny. He’s shaking and drooling and won’t go outside to pee before bed. No, I won’t drag him out! I’ll clean up his accidents. You’re cruel. I wouldn’t force you to face your fears, and you understand what’s happening, he doesn’t. You are a jerk. I hate you. I really do. Yes, I love the dog more. Go, or I will. And, I’ll take the dog. ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved Only two things in this are true.  My dog, Mickey, is very afraid of fireworks, which are, unfortunately, legal (with exceptions, but people ignore that and bring the banned ones from out of state) in Oregon from June 23 through July 6.  He also will ...

  Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge: Photo Prompt For this week's Challenge " you’ll be writing syllabic poetry inspired by the following photo ."  I have written a  senryū. ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson  glory days so bright in his mind faded star   ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #tankatuesdaypoetrychallenge #tankatuesday #photopromptpoetry #senryu #syllabicpoetry #syllabicpoem 

Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge: Javanese Poetry Shalom, Friends! For those who may not know me, my name is David (‘ben Alexander’) Bogomolny, and I’m really happy to be hosting this week’s #TankaTuesday challenge. This week we are going to try a new (to us) poetic form. So, this week’s challenge is to compose a ‘Sekar ageng’ poem of your own, according to the following rules, as laid out by Murisopsis: Sekar ageng – This Javanese form is traditionally recited as a song. The modern form is comprised of any number of quatrains (4 line stanzas) with 17 syllables per line. Each line is divided by caesurae (breaks) after sections of 4 syllables, 6 syllables and 7 syllables in that order. potato soup / a simple winter meal / warm with crusty sourdough bread not my tubers / my neighbor shares with me / I'll save a bowl in return along with bread / it's the least I can do / to repay his gracious gift at the window / I watch the snow falling / grateful the day's chores are...

 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

  Friday Fictioneers  " The Challenge: Write a complete story in one hundred words or less. " photo prompt PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz 100 words       If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, and it probably has been a hundred times, don’t leave that creepy toy on my chair! I don’t see it until it squawks when I sit on it! Then I’m startled, and dog comes barreling into my office to grab it back.      Yes, I said “creepy”! He’s one weird fella!      You do know he ended up in prison? And that was after he got psychiatric help!      Not the kind of toy I want Goose to play with.      EWWWW… it’s slobbery! Get it out of here, and keep it out!    ©2024 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved

 I am honored to have one of my haiku accepted for publication on Pure Haiku.  The theme was this image prompt.  The link to Pure Haiku became live today, and the haiku is below. https://purehaiku.wordpress.com/2024/02/09/2-9/ credit: Elisa Ang 2 – 9 the gods are absent freezing snow falls with no check the shrines all empty © Lisa Smith Nelson 2024 The gods being absent, and the shrines empty, refer to the Japanese season of early winter (in November), and the kigo phrase " the gods are absent ."  This is the season after the harvest when the Japanese gods have finished their duties and have left the shrines for a well deserved rest.  They gather to celebrate at the Grand Shrine of Izumo, one of the most important and ancient of the Japanese shrines, leaving all the others empty. 

 Tanka Tuesday  Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 318 " This week, using the painting as your inspiration, please write either a syllabic poetry form or..." The Expected One 1860 painting by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (Museum: Bavarian State Painting Collections) I have written a triple tetractys.  The tetractys was invented by Ray Stebbing and is a five line poem with the syllable count of 1/2/3/4/10.  It can be written with more than one verse, but with an inverted syllable count in each verse.  So, mine is 1/2/3/4/10/10/4/3/2/1/1/2/3/4/10 My belov'd, All Sorrow shall be my name ere we meet again in heaven.  Belov'd! I crouched, posy sweet at hand, a surprise to win your love, to pledge my troth.  Oh! Belov'd! A startle. A short stumble. A long tumble down the perilous rocks. ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #tankatuesday #tankatuesdayno318 #syllabicpoetry #syllabicpoem #tetractys 

 Friday Fictioneers  "The Challenge: Write a complete story in one hundred words or less." photo prompt ©Miles Rost 100 words Every time I see a laundromat I am transported back in time to 1981. I was pregnant, had just moved into a rented house with no laundry facilities, necessitating a trip to the local laundromat. One day, as I sat crocheting the coming-home blanket for my baby, a woman came, sat next to me, and opened a can of sardines.  There are some odors a pregnant woman cannot handle; for me it was that smell of oily fish.  She started picking them out with her fingers, tilting back her head, and slurping them into her waiting mouth. Oh, the nausea! ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights #storyprompt #fridayfictioneers #100words #100wordstory 

 The Sunday Muse #248 photo prompt  photo  You say girls can't play chess? It's too complicated for our pretty little brains? Think again, boys.    ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #thesundaymuse #photoprompt #poetryprompt #writingprompt 

Friday Fictioneers "The Challenge: Write a complete story in one hundred words of less." It's not a story, it's a poem.  But, the poem tells a story.  The story of a relationship in peril, all because of a baseball loving partner who just doesn't listen. photo prompt ©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields 100 words You told me there’d be a surprise. To be patient, shut my eyes. You led me to seats. You promised me treats. But, now I hear multiple cries.   I told you never do listen! Do you see my eyes start to glisten? You know I hate crowds, (and these have the louds), and also how heights give me frission.   I never liked baseball, I’m going to go AWOL. Your inconsideration’s a sting, since sports is just not my thing. I prefer a lovely pub-crawl!   To make matter worse, and I could just curse, the seats are right in the sun! ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #storyprompt #fridayfictioneers #100wordstory #100words  ...

 Tanka Tuesday Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 308 Ekphrastic Prompt "This week, using the painting as your inspiration, please write either a syllabic poetry form   or   a freestyle poem, including a syllabic form   (both poetry forms on the same post) ." Portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1865-1932) by John Singer Sargent, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons I've written a sequence of three American Sentences. I fear I am not well, nor have been in years, I languish, I grow weak. I pose in a chair of floral chintz, in a gown of lilac chiffon. It may be worth it in the end, this portrait will add to my prestige. ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #tankatuesdayno308 #syllabicpoetry #americansentence #ekphrasticpoetry #ekphrasis,

 Simply 6 Minutes photo prompt: photo credit 85 unedited words Never ask a cat where he’s going. He won’t ever tell.   Never ask a cat if it knows where he’s going. A cat always knows, very well.    A cat on a mission holds tail up high.   A prance in his step as he trots his way by.   Not looking to left, nor looking to right. His goal is a secret One he holds tight.   Up stairs and down stairs throughout dark of night.   A cat knows just what he’s doing, keeping you awake until light! ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #simply6minutes #writingprompt #photoprompt #catpoetry 

Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings prompt:  "...write poetry or prose inspired by the title of the first book we read, are reading, or will read in 2023."   The Sunday Muse #243 Photo prompt of a burning house.  I'd written my response to the Friday Writings prompt, then saw this photo prompt for The Sunday Muse.  How could I not use it for a poem inspired by Light in August?  So, I did, and wrote an accompanying haiku. the burning farm house  shines brighter even than  the light in august ©Jocelin Carmes This August sun scorches, baking the rutted track beneath my bare feet. Each dusty step a blistering reminder of how far I’ve come, of how far I’ve yet to go. Only once in a while do I step into the scarce shade the droughtdry buckeye offer on the verge. Not often, for I have miles to go before fulldarkness, and my burden grows heavy under this August sun. ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #inspiredbyfalk...

 Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge No. 301   Choose two Synonyms words: new & experience   Mindlovemiseries Menagerie Photo Challenge #447 Image credit  https://unsplash.com/@codyhiscox No skill of humankind e're carved these unfamiliar walls, in shadows deep and damp, where echo words of god.   ©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved #tankatuesday #kouta #mindlovemiseriesmenagerie #poetryprompt #syllabicpoetry #photoprompt #japanesepoetry #fourlinepoetryform 

  Friday Fictioneers " The Challenge: Write a complete story in one hundred words or less. " photo prompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields 100 words Oh… My… God… Why you are only now telling me about this place? It’s been here for how many years, and you didn’t tell me?   Why?   What’s wrong with you? You know this is my kind of place !   It’s heaven!   In fact, if it were mine, I’d name it “ Heaven on Earth .”   I could never own a place like this though; I’d never want to sell anything!   Maybe those eyeglasses.   You may as well go get a coffee next door, hang around on your laptop.   Look busy. I’ll be here a while. I can’t believe you kept this from me! ©2022 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved This would  be my actual reaction if I was shown such a wonderful shop! Some might say I have a thrift  store addiction.  I do go often, and on my other blog share my treasures each Tuesday! #storyprompt #fridayfictioneers #100wordst...