dversepoets.com

Headstone (flash fiction)

June 4, 2024July 20, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry14 Comments

Another prosery challenge at dVerse Poets.

Their prosery? A very short piece of poetry or flash fiction that tells a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It can be any genre you choose, but it does have a limit of 144 words. Somewhere within your story, you must include given lines without changing word order or adding any.

The lines to include this time around? A couple from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Sleeper”

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye

Headstone

In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily on his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.

“Are you alright old man?”

Death was startled

“What?!” as he tried to stand

“No need. Pay your respects”

“Why don’t you shudder cold at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”

“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”

“I had this inscribed in her stone I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”

The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend”

Trains Pass (poem)

May 31, 2024June 14, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry15 Comments

When seeing this prompt from Bjorn at dVerse Poets “Today I want you to use Onomatopoeia in your poem, to strengthen the imagery through its sound” I thought back to a poem I had written a number of years ago (2016) that had use of such, though briefly, and that I included as part of a post of remembrance for my dear Shoes, aka “The Big Orange”, who passed away about a year into living in a new place, along with Bella, with me single again, after a breakup.

Now this apartment, a wonderful little place, happened to be just across the Hudson from the train tracks that ran along the river. I found comfort in my two furry sidekicks but also in the sound of those trains at night and wrote about them then and my new found solitude.

Being reminded of it though, and with a new eye, I thought to a bit of re-work and to expand with Bjorn’s prompt in mind.

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Trains Pass

Trains pass

rumble and clack, clackety clack, clack clackety, clack and rumble in order, order

across a river

Pass past the meander of tugs doing silent heavy water work

only in the shoulder length soft splash – wash – splash – wash – splash wash wake

felt

in the night

in other times

any proof they were even there

They pass the overgrown cat’s couch comforter

Bella

unawares

through my tiny comfy disturbing

nothing

not even a single dining room chair

from a neighbor’s dinner

unawares

throwing air tasted

Island stereo song scent treats into every corner of this new tiny

from below my feet

familial familiar clink clink clink laughing silverware china clink clink

wishing if only for a fork and an invite

Shoes

To my left

in purr-in purr-out purr-in purr-out even cat breath measure

matches the clackety’s and the clacks and the clack clackety’s

from across a river

There’s rhythm, melody, music in trains

and scents

in the linger of a stranger’s daily

below my feet waking, cooking, fighting, living, laughing

the couch

overgrown comforter sleeps as do left bed purr-in purr-out sides

while trains pass in clackety clack clack clackety time

carrying

sleeping cats

scented hungry music

in a clackety rhythm

of strange new comfort

A Village Of Box (poem – cento)

May 22, 2024May 27, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry12 Comments

So Tuesday’s dVerse Poets prompt, “April Poems Bring May Centos”, was of two possibilities. Choose any line from any poem from those provided and write a poem including the line or inspired by it or, you could instead, try your hand at a “cento” (a poetic work wholly composed of verses or passages taken from other authors) also from any of the poems provided and to use at least two. In this case those poems provided for both were from April dVerse poetry prompts.

There were selections of poems from six different prompts and I went with the ones for “A Box Of Poems”, a prompt summarized as “write a poem of your own metaphorical box of 3 stanzas, the box, what’s in it, where’s it kept”. Then I decided to take the “Cento” route with this prompt as I had never done such.

7 poems and one of mine, also of a box, that used the prompt for inspiration but strayed from the particulars and went a different way.

So, the poems used for this Cento then . . .

Hidden In My Box – Bjorn Rudberg

History Box – Kim M. Russell

I Have Emptied You To The Wind – Paul Vincent Cannon

Empty Cereal Box – Melissa Lemay

Here Is A Box – Dora A.K.

My Master – Ben Alexander

Boxed – Punam – paeansunplugged

Cigar Box – Frankenberry

A Village of Box

The boxes are piling up

I made my box from stone

My box is made of cardboard

An empty cereal box

My box is forged of carbon steel

Made by human hands this box is

“Boxed” – I carry a bit of this and a bit of that

Here is a box (I won’t bore you)

Look-see, look-see (no you can’t see)

Inside it’s worn bent frame are crumbs and sugar dust

I filled it with dreams, ambitions of verses, ideals enshrined

Pale blue adorned with simple flowers

Pieces of a life,

Old photos, childhood toys,

Books strewn about

Images in sepia, monochrome and colour,

Higgedly-piggedly, no order

A repository of various thingamajigs

Disintegrating petal of pressed petunia

A bit of cloth, a coat of arms, from a school sweater smelling of defiance

A bundle of yellowing letters never sent

Once I held you close

an every day memory

I do not really keep my box,

So much as it keeps me

I’ve lived inside this box like a toy

Whatever you see of it, my dear,

Well, truth is, I see even less

It would have surrendered to the elements

Of mind and body by now

But I have emptied your contents to the wind

Setting me free

Marge & Henry Geese (flash fiction)

May 6, 2024June 1, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry12 Comments

A Prosery challenge at dVerse poets.

“… a very short piece of prose or flash fiction that tells a story … It can be in any genre of your choice, but it does have a limit of 144 words; an additional challenge is to hit 144 exactly. The special thing about Prosery is that we give you a complete line or two from a poem, which must be included somewhere in your story”

The line or two in this case?

“Something told the wild geese it was time to fly”

From Rachel Lyman Field and her “Something told the Wild Geese”

So to a little bit of fun then was my first thought, don’t know why, just was, a conversation.

Marge & Henry Geese

“Marge, can ya high tail it please, gotta fly”

“Hold on Henry, where are the kids?”

“They’re not here, grown and flown Marge, you know that, with little geese of their own”

“You’re gonna make me cry Henry”

“Heck Marge, the only time you DON’T cry is when I DON’T bring up the kids and then you honk at me thinking I’m purposely leaving them out of flight out of mind right before you start to cry”

“But we’re running late, why? Usually we’re right there with our sense of time” Marge flapped a wingpoint towards that sign in the roost Something told the wild geese it was time to fly

“Things are getting warmer now, gets timing off. Now can we go … and leave the Honk Sweet Home sign. Wanna catch up to the kids right?”

“Really?!! Oh, I’m so gonna cry!”

I Bella (me & steve) – (poem)

April 24, 2024April 28, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry8 Comments

Yesterday at dVerse Poets Melissa presented us some artworks of Louis Wain and his famous cats as well as some of his story.

So from Melissa was this, “the assignment”, choose one of the artworks of Wain’s that she included in her post (dVerse link above) and write a poem of it. The only stipulation being that you cannot use the word “cat”, other cat terms are fine, just not the actual word cat.

I thought, and for those that may know me here in the Attic, well, ** something about cats? Now that’s kinda in my cat guy wheelhouse.

Of the choices, I opted for the flower eyed cat in his ‘untitled’ piece as cats are indeed beautiful and magical as Wain imagined.

** link to some silly cat posts

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I Bella (me & steve)

If apple could smell of fish heads and cliché’d claw thieving seaside shanty towns

I would be that of his eye

and have name to imply

place deserved in this window’s high carpeted altar

curled closer to the sun

god

in reverence of rays that exist but only, I know, to assist

my subsist

in a second coat’s

warmth

when fish heads might not be enough to fill

It might reflect that eye’s apple

even in petal bloom artist takes

for I am fields and grass and flowers to hunt among

or lounge more daydream of this sun

god

just closer now to earth taking in the full breadth

and what my name may be

simply for definition’s sake

of me and who is me to Steve and he to me

and our world under the sun

in windows once more

back

closer again worship

though …

I would be Bella

sun god wishing to rival now

the warm I send back in naps of grand small furry feline universe dreams

on bedded altars

or in fields of adventure flowers and grass

where I wore funny float down slow earth particle hats collecting my brow

and wanting to know why he’s never been as beautiful as me

bella-window-spot-5

Talk To The Wind (poem)

April 17, 2024April 18, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry4 Comments

From dVerse and Sanaa inviting to write a poem in a Maggie Smith conversational style

Talk to the Wind

I talk to the wind that listens in selfish wispy drafts

only to float away

with other interests

I watch it disappear away from my page

personified

remnants then

in their

seasons passed

Cold clear crisp electric

Fall musty ochre sunset

Hot haze happy shimmer

Sprung earth new day

I talk to them, these

remnants

as they wisp back to reappear on my page

In their lost season

landing to ask if they are still here

in my wind, to speak for them

if I can forgive them for leaving me

behind

but keep them alive

still

under my pen

Wall (poem)

March 30, 2024April 2, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments

In response to … Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt: ‘temperature’

Write a poem of 37 words, not including the title, using the word “temperature” … no other stipulation.

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Wall

The devil and an ordinary angel sat

Reclining on

Recalling a wall

Their divide

That bordered a stream running North and South

East and West

The only gauge of which way to go

Was the temperature

Behind the Red Door (a poem – revisit)

March 27, 2024April 1, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry11 Comments

This is from last year at Mother’s Day and a response now to a dVerse poets prompt about writing something of a building.

The link explains the prompt.

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May 29, 2023

On my way into work early last week, driving my usual route, a few backroads through some pretty suburbia (one of the reasons I take this way) I noticed this one house, like really noticed it for the first time though I pass it every day. It has a striking red front door, how it hadn’t caught my eye before I couldn’t tell you but, no matter, it did on this morning.

I think it did because recently I went to visit Mom in her assisted living facility for Mother’s Day and something about this red door seemed vaguely familiar, like maybe when I was kid we lived in a house behind a red door or maybe it was a red house?

So, this then is for Mom, who lives behind her red door in a different sort of house now, two of them.

Love ya Ma

–

Behind The Red Door

It fronts a house

Once center

Village open welcome

But

Floating hazy now outskirts

As doors don’t float but do

Lost in trees tall tangle roots shoots forest grasping edge of the old gathering square

Where voices were there

Their

Songs sung in unison

Once

They did declare!

High up into the air!

—

It’s a house with a red door

Please knock to tell something

Sell something

Even

Needed in

Village’s

Villager’s stories

All shared

But

Through bay whispy window tissue thin doilied curtains now floating like ghosts gently pushed aside

(mind you move away ghosts!)

To glance out

Please knock to sell me something

Tell me something

Are you the paperboy?

Do you have the news?

Have you heard of Linda?

I worry

—

It was a house with a red door

Open

Of many room’s

Thoughts

Lived

Loved

Shared

Grand Castle with Nobles and Ladies

Knees bent

For wisdom’s grace

I have words

Had words

Want words

Can you hear them through whispy bay floating window tissue curtains now?

Through whispier lips?

Behind the red door

Kind ghosts

But ghosts still

Oh, go away ghosts, shoo!!

—

Are you the paperboy?

Have you some news?

—

It’s a house with a red door

Flashing in

Out planes

Existence moving on wheels

Now

Through tangled grasping forest root shoots long hallways

Of village

New sort

To sort through and around in time lost

Trapped

Behind the red door

And …

So many different other colored doors

So many different castles

So many doors

—

It’s a house with a red door

Closed

No, ajar instead

Instead

Maybe can you see

Through

Whispy bay floating window tissue curtains like ghosts?

Oh, go away ghosts, shoo!!

Please!!

—

Are you the paperboy?

Do you have some news?

Maybe of Linda?

I worry

Air (poem)

March 17, 2024March 17, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments

Air

I’ve been here before

In February

When it tries change color

Promising gold in a world of tin

As air doesn’t color

I’m always the fool

Air is air

It’s just there

it hovers my eyes in the bleak

but though with a wink

sits on my lips like an imp

waiting

want

halts with simple

colorless hue

and asks only my acknowledgement

until one day

Air

I’ve been here before

When it changes colors to lemon

Something air cannot do

But does defy

That

Air

One beautiful day’s eye

Air

I’ve been here before

And it’s a wonder

As winter dies

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Spring spung for a dVersepoets.com prompt

Wings Of Spring (poem)

February 20, 2024February 23, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry11 Comments

Wings In Spring

I thought I could

child’s tales imagined

believe

a sprite beyond just that

field’s last

flower

lazing petal’s slumber shade with winking wry smile

waking

they would wary

just a fragile touch of wing shared proof

with butterflies

in my hand

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This from the latest prompt at dVerse Poets.

“Hey there fellow scribblers of phraseology! De Jackson here, aka WhimsyGizmo, touching base with you today with my all-time favorite poetry prompt, the Quadrille. If you’re new or need a refresher, the Quadrille is a pocket-sized form of our own creation here at dVerse: a poem of just 44 words (not counting the title) including one word we provide.

Today, I’d like you to tangle with the word touch”