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dVerse Quadrille #27
I Dreamt That I Woke on the Bottom of the Ocean I love the sound of rushing water, whether it’s in rivers, or over rocks. Noisy and giggling as a burlesque show. Uncharted, free and evergreen cold. But I have no such ear or affection for that sound when its tune comes from my refrigerator.…
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Mardi Gras with Miz Quickly
I should’ve looked up the word “Krewe” before grabbing a pen. I wrote, then looked up the word, and realised I’d written something that didn’t at all suit Miz Quickly’s prompts. C’est la vie. Mardi Gras 1968 I knew a girl who wore a cross around her neck. Hand-carved. Opal. It had fire that hypnotised.…
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Twiglet #12 “Even the Ducks”
It’s one of those sticky bitumen days when even ducks sink like stones… written for The Twiglets #12 “Even the Ducks“. Poetic Form: American Sentence (17 syllables)
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dVerse Haibun #31
Those Free Absolutes This morning’s sleep fell away into a different sphere, upward like grey smoke or fog lifting off an icy sea. And there was coffee, its scent humming through the air, and I grew more awake, stretched my clattering bones as the clock ticked away with cold clarity, in steps, by steps, by…
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Sunday Whirl #287
And Then She Said “It’s just you and your idiot hope. The sky’s invisible,” she said, “it’s gas – like a filled balloon.” But I knew what I saw, and it seemed the real deal to me with its jet streams and vapour lines. Its noon blues and morning reds and migrating birds and flying…
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“Simply” Miz Quickly
And All Those Things Quite simply, I don’t remember the last time I saw an ashtray in a restaurant. It used to be the norm, like salt shakers with a piece of Saltine cracker in it, or laminated menus, or never having to ask a waitress for a glass of water, and as a treat…
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They Slip, and Are Slipping Still
They Slip, and Are Slipping Still I wake. Go for my pen. Capture your dreams, I was once told. This day is a wrought iron oak, black enamelled, slick as shine. In a town on the coast, hills fall to the beach into pebbles rushing on waves. In a museum, with tin prints of nude…
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dVerse Quadrille #26
I. Living In a Quiver I remember your mouth, soft and sea salt sweet, awake as a scattered melody. Lighthearted and revealing as the moon’s careless truth. Our buried whispers. We moved through the years, lost happily in a quiver. Those memories are ghosts but we’ll pretend we’re forever. II. Up In Smoke He’d…
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Sunday Whirl #286
This Morning’s Walk was a winter’s song, a white-faced bracing melody, and I heard a robin’s rag and all that jazz, singing half note suburban charms. And as the wind bit stiff and grey, I saw snowdrops clumped below, deep-rooted, cold and thorny bare, a resounding challenge for a bird. So flit little robin, perched…
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Dreaming for Miz Quickly
If I Could Remember My Dreams This Poem Would Make More Sense I have dreams that barely scratch the surface. Unpronounceable by morning. Forgotten like a throb from yesterday’s headache. And my narrative (primal) voice, just where does it go? Does it slip into some middle distance, or in-between parallel seams? Intuition. Not hardly, but…
It's Still Life 