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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”

Shaggy Attic Craft (poem)

February 13, 2024February 15, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry13 Comments

So a new dVerse Poets prompt was this here in this link to the site and the latest challenge … to write something maybe imagined being written in stone, to write a poem, as Rita Dove was commissioned to do for the Folger in D.C. (again, check the link for explanation) for a walled entrance that addresses and welcomes visitors into a space of your choosing … if necessary, give us a couple of lines prefacing the poem as to what type of space the poem is welcoming us into.

Well, this is from the buying of a house 16 years ago with an ex and the Attic of the place and what was left there and what eventually became my blog. Not that I hadn’t written anything before, obviously, but I just hadn’t found a spot to house them yet, literally Frankenberry’s Attic to start with then ..

Shaggy Attic Craft

Its carpet was old

shaggy

littered with left beads

bits of string and cloth

leavings surely missing

what their sacrifice had become

for new cloth

in the Attic of an old house

bought with new promise

once

someone created here

as soon did I

In this Attic of an old house

bought with new promise

once

but faded as love can

move on

though Attic

remained

then

to any place

where words continue to create

themselves

like crafts

with beads

bits of string into whole new cloth

did

once

just now where this shaggy mind’s

Attic would find them

take them

with

to talk in craft

of words

littered with beads of thought

bits of letters, simile’s, synonyms, allusions, delusions

above the shag

strung into whole new cloth

Flat Earth (poem – song revisited)

February 7, 2024February 8, 2024by Stephen J Frankenberry7 Comments

So, another poem prompt at dVerse Poets, this one from Merril, about boats and boating.

“The prompt for today – write a poem about boats/ships, boating of any sort. You may write and ekphrastic poem using one of the given paintings for inspiration. There is no set form, write in free verse, write a haibun, Golden Shovel it, write a sonnet, a cinquain or a ballad”

We have a production music website that my boss and I use at work (I am a radio production guy) and sometimes I will come across instrumentals that catch my ear, maybe not quite right for the commercial I’m in the midst of trying to build, but some things that I just like and then save for future “borrowing” reference as I will sometimes write some lyrics to them and then do a bit of “songing” and producing (along with song parodies, though serious topical things, not silly ones).

Well, I couldn’t really come up with anything new for this prompt (sorry Merril) as I became stuck instead on something from a couple of years ago where I did what I just mentioned, write something to an instrumental I had saved for myself and then some “songing”. I tried to equate things that have weighed on me, still weigh on me, with the heaviness of the sea, drowning and a one filled with sea monsters as I’ve always been fascinated with the stories of myth and legend of sailors and their sea monsters and even fears of sailing off the edge of the earth …

I thought to maybe take the lyrics of this and pare them down some into more of a “proper” poem but then I thought maybe it was already poem enough, just in tune.

I know this is a bit outside of the prompt but it still does involve the sea so …

Flat Earth

I looked out onto the water

To a horizon that’s always just one crest away

It keeps stretching getting further

With every stroke ta-ken

Till soon a-gain

Soon

Just

Another day now

To leave me wonder

Do I even know what I want there

If I swim out

To the edge now

Skirting sea demons

But still fall off of this flat earth

Into space

What would I hope to find

—

Maybe a lover

From my immortal days

One blithely left behind to fend her heart’s ways

Maybe my father and a proper goodbye

Say sorry for not being there not looking to the

Sky

Or maybe Mother have her wake from her daze

And maybe recognize the world once again

Or am I just treading waves hoping they hold

Long enough

To skirt more demons

Before I fall

—

I looked again now

Onto the water

Horizon still always just one crest away

It keeps stretching getting further

With every stroke ta-ken

Till soon a-gain

Soon

—

Maybe there’s still more air to gasp

Grasp and flail swim up from beneath the heavy waves

Back from off the edge of a flat earth

From space

And swim back

Take on sea demons face to face

Raven’s Night (poem)

January 24, 2024October 31, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry26 Comments

(Note: August 28, 2025. I haven’t posted anything to an Open Link Night at dVerse Poets since I discovered the site a year and half ago, but I’ve been reading some of my older things recently, often just to reset myself a bit, get in the right frame, while working something new and was reminded of this one, the second response to a prompt I contributed after my dVerse discovery. It was the coolest of prompts)

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So, at a newly found for me “Poet’s Pub” of a site, dVersepoets.com, I came across a post that had a prompt to write what it refers to as a poetic Quadrille, a 44 word poem (not including the title) but in this prompt it said you need include the word “pinch” in any way you saw fit.

This I did and it is the most recent post in the Attic here, “Don’t Pinch Me”.

Well, came across another poem prompt yesterday that asked that you write a prequel for a character from literature.

Write a poem that is a prequel to a particular character from a nursery rhyme, Aesop’s fable, book , mythology etc.

And the responses that I have read thus far to this prompt are so imaginative and colorful and haunting that I can’t wait to finish them all.

But for me, after running through a few possibilities in my head, I thought to Edgar Allen Poe and the Raven and of the Raven himself.

Raven’s Night

I am not dead nor demon to be read or written of

I implore you open your door

or window

shutter’s curtains

flitting

with welcome inside out air

and any manner of candlelit care

with which to let me see your floor

please

just to walk that floor

or even alight that door

that I implore

again

you

to open

outside no place for me tonight

in weary last vestige of now blustery light

that casts shadows that scare me from flight

and I don’t scare

for I am Raven

confused of crow brethren

curse-ed cousins

but stronger than they even as they crow foot in a murder of friends

what they needs simple

with simples ends

while I seek only solitude and to depart nights

now

tired of taking flight in dark

reputation

just a me to be me but I am scared of he

and what I no longer want see

in the dim

even eves with path clear in crisp moonlight

but worse on nights like

these

this

this one

this night at hand

and I see your light

window

harks

a place maybe to land

and

I will make amends for this slight into

your solitude

For I am Raven

I can build things from sticks and stones

peck and grab and stab and stack and foot place just right

or even

build things from thoughts and words alone

to assist you

in candlelight

I just don’t want to flight

in dark

any longer

and

not this night

in most order

I just need walk a floor

or alight a door

allow

please

me bring inside

at least

for

this just one night

Don’t Pinch Me (poem)

January 23, 2024September 2, 2025by Stephen J Frankenberry22 Comments

So I came about this cool site, dVersepoets.com, of poets who gather together at this online Poet’s Pub to enjoy some fine food (especially the desserts it seems) some drink and the good company of other writers sharing words around tables or from atop barstools.

Well, the first word prompt in my new discovery here is “Pinch” and it comes with these instructions:

Greetings, poetical powerhouses! De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) here, happy to be presenting today’s Quadrille – that tiny poem of just 44 words (including one word we provide) that packs a powerful punch.

Today, I’d like you to cinch your wee poem together using some form of the word pinch.

You can use it as a noun, verb, or adjective. Let your piece rhyme sublime, or sprinkle in a pinch of prose. Just be sure your poem has a total of 44 words (not including the title), and some literal form of the word pinch is included.

So, prompt taken then.

Definitely save me a seat in the future by the way.

Don’t Pinch Me

Don’t pinch me to ask me of dreams

The ones we don’t wish to disturb

The ones of colors and stories and peoples vibrant

That you squint and laugh away reality’s wake

Don’t pinch me to tell me that I’m dreaming

I’m good