Quadrille

Placid Waters ~ quadrille

/ rivrvlogr / 41 Comments

Placid Waters

Wild only in its freedom,
there is no white water here,
just a paddle caressing
its surface, a stillness
marred only by ripples
of trees dancing as they reach
from the bow of a kayak
to the shore that holds
steadfast their stately canopy.

This is my response to Quadrille #96: Wild Monday — the prompt from Kim at dVerse, which is to use the word keep in a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme.

Image: Ellicott Creek, Amherst New York
(click image for larger view in new tab)

Despair ~ quadrille ~ prose poem

/ rivrvlogr / 23 Comments

Despair

This spirit that holds me, this answer to my trials, answers to no one, its unremitting darkness consuming all desire to seek a way out of its depths, no light strong enough to wrest me from a grip that drags me ever further down.

This prose poem is my response to Quadrille #93: Spirited Poems
— the prompt from Kim at dVerse, which is to use the word spirit
in a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme.

 

Lost Keepsakes ~ quadrille

/ rivrvlogr / 42 Comments

Lost Keepsakes

Do you still keep those memories
we once held dear, now that we have
nothing else to share? The one thing
we could not divide between us
dwindled away for me, once we went
our separate ways, leaving nothing
but faint memories of memories.

This is my response to Quadrille #91 – Keep — the prompt from Kim at dVerse, which is to use the word keep in a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme.

Fading Glory ~ quadrille

/ rivrvlogr / 50 Comments

Fading Glory

Which color is more true,
the rust of leaves that turn
their back on gaudy display
as they cling to an oak in October,
or the vibrancy reflected
in the stream below, shouting
the grandeur of its passing?
The sun will set on both, before long.

This is my response to Quadrille #89 – Are You Set? —  the prompt from Merril at dVerse, which is to use the word set in a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme.

Image: Sunset on the Missouri River at St. Thomas, Missouri

This Bitter Pill ~ quadrille

/ rivrvlogr / 25 Comments

This Bitter Pill

That the cure is our demise
lies between hope and fear,
dear though we hold our home.

Are we the plague,
the ague that chills all hope,
the dope that drains all life?

To achieve tranquility,
must we become dust?
Must we be gone?

This second quadrille for the prompt from Lillian at dVerse … the most beautiful words are … (to write a quadrille [a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme] using tranquility) – came to me after Merril’s comment on Till There Is Nothing – “I hope Earth will live as the Blue Planet, even if we make it uninhabitable for ourselves.”

Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Earth seen from Apollo 17)

Till There Is Nothing ~ quadrille

/ rivrvlogr / 16 Comments

Till There Is Nothing

Must it be, to find tranquility,
our search must be beyond
the reach of hands that spoil
the land till there is nothing
more than barren waste?
We hasten our demise, the seas
and forests soon like the moon,
little more than a dream.

My mind immediately turned to the Sea of Tranquility when I saw the prompt from Lillian at dVerse … the most beautiful words are … which is to write a quadrille (a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme) using tranquility.

Image: full moon, 22 November 2018

Different Drummer ~ quadrille

/ rivrvlogr / 35 Comments

Different Drummer

You hear the beat,
but do not follow,
your voice your own,
in a world where too many
let others speak without
questioning the merits
of a drumbeat too often
exclusionary, delusion
carried to extremes,
out of step with reality,
right to the end.

This is a response to Quadrille #85 – Raising our Poetic Voices, the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse, which is to use the word voice in a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme.

Image source: YouTube (USC Trojan Marching Band performing “Tusk”)