Tag: Poetry
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2104: The Liturgy

Liturgy for Market Day at Vienne(where the living bargain and the dead witness) I. The Uneven WorldThe stone setts are uneven,not worn smooth by time,but accusing.Each misstep a reminder:you do not belong here.Your feet have not learnedthis city’s particular limp. Felreil’s boots slip in the persistent drizzle.My hems drag through muckthat smells of horses and…
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AprPAD — Day 20

No More Salt the windows are steamed. the kitchen smellsof roast turkeyand Brussels sprouts. mum is wearingone of my aunt’s aprons. “I’ll bring my ownnext time.” mum frownsat unnamed stains, at stiff rufflestoo close to her chin. she stirs the gravy,wipes her hands. adds another stain. and adds more salt when nobodyis looking. Written for…
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AprPAD — Day 19

Peanut Butter and Bananas when you’re seven years oldwith an upset tummy, and your father makes youa peanut butterand banana sandwich, he should expect you’ll throw upall over the kitchen table. Written for Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge for April 2026. Prompt word: Family. Not all images are created using Midjourney, but all writing is my…
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AprPAD — Day 18

Myth and Mythology we live in his mythology,his bread. our butterspread thinner. a safer world by his myth.but mythsneed memory.kneading. daily, another mythology.by morning —forgotten. hands, praise.hands wring. ‘what am I supposed to do?’about this manwho might be Nero. Written for Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge for April 2026. Prompt word: reconsider Not all images are…
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The Old Woman With No Cat

Where is the Old Woman?” …the cat demands,pacing the length of the kitchen,tail held high like a sceptre of injustice. “She is late.My bowl is half-empty.My sunbeam is un-warmed.This is negligence.” The crow, from the fence, offers:“Perhaps she’s writing poetry?”The cat scoffs.“Poetry doesn’t fill stomachs.” “No shit!” agrees the robin. Just then—the back door opens.There…
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AprPAD — Day 17

Thoughts on the Way to the Garden Centre and again —that ringing.ears. lyrics?what lyrics, there aren’t any. still,something keeps timejust out of reach. no source.no voice. only the senseof being addressed. it comes and goes —a wordalmost remembered. I don’t follow it. but it follows. faint as breathat the edge of hearing. not sound,not silence…
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AprPAD — Day 17

At the Window, Late there’s something in the glass — not outside,not in. a shapethat moveswhen I don’t. I look straight at it,nothing. look away,there. again. it could be reflection.but of what? the room behind medoesn’t hold that outline, and the garden,too stillfor that kind of shifting. light changes it.or makes it. I can’t tell.…
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AprPAD — Day 16

Eyes Closed, Garden sensory mapping it’s a new way of seeing.eyes closed. flagstones, rough through the soles.the first before the first is loose.then three.then level — eight even paces.four steps up.grass. lavender, a breath from my right,held high. the birdbath beyondfuller than yesterday.rain speaks in levels. I map the morning in scent:apple blossom; April wind,Cox…
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AprPAD — Day 15

A CHILD OF DRYADS she faces stormslike rigging in a north wind stillcalmcloth drawn taut she watches waves water that oncedragged her under she remembers the taste the sky above it bitter, unmoved dragons in the water —white-scaled, pebbles gaspinginto mist she knows what lives below the wavesbreaks on shore and keeps her footingwhere the…
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AprPAD — Day 14

Day 14: write a poetry form and its anti-form (I chose poetry form: haiku 5-7-5 and reverse haiku 7-5-7) Haiku:hidden from my viewhoofbeats stitch the morning air sunlight listens in Reverse Haiku:ghost hooves, hear them echoingthrough the falling hushwhere only dawn dares to rise Written for Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge for April 2026. Prompt word: form…