Use the good china
let your hands linger
on the smooth, cool curves
of each translucent cup
light those candles
wear your prettiest dress
set the table with the silverware
the fragile glasses
you’ve been treasuring
don’t let your pleasures
gather dust
A quadrille for Merrill – the word tonight is “set”. Set off for the dVerse bar, poetry on tap…
The extinction
of the last light
will leave us
alone
afraid
in the dark
we blew out each candle
each flame
each lamp
and now we reach out
fingers touching
tip to tip
and we whisper our fear
in the cold
and endless night
Quadrille night rolls round again. Linda is behind the dVerse bar tonight, asking us for 44 -word poems including the word “extinction”.
And now I’m wondering
just what a nick is –
the quivering pause
before the axe falls? –
the aching silence
before the second ticks? –
that shimmering slow-mo moment
when suddenly everything is clear? –
and I’m hoping that nick
is big enough
to hold us all.
Another nick quadrille for De at dVerse.
My boy has always been a thief –
well, not a thief exactly,
more like a blackbird – fingers always there
nicking a slice of apple or a crumb of cheese
bright eyes, cocked head, and then away
knowing the first thing stolen was
my heart
Another quadrille for De at dVerse. As De says, you can use “nick” to mean “steal” or “pinch”. It can mean “arrest”, too, so you can be nicked for nicking something. Love that.
If you nick that,
you’ll know it
the stink of it
hand in, now, take hold of it,
pull
spillage of faded velvet
pink as a wilting rose
from a faked corsage
and the crop
nobbled with corn
and the smell of death
Apologies to any vegetarians/vegans out there.
It’s quadrille night at dVerse tonight, hosted by De, and our word is “nick”
Oh, all the lovely freckled things
the speckled things,
the thrush’s breast
and the trout’s belly
and the blue egg
nestled in mud and feathers
and your sweet face
and the sunlight on the water
and the dancing shadows of the leaves.
A quadrille for Mish at dVerse. The word is “freckle”.
Gobstopper sun
rolling sticky down the sky
hot lemon
wayside sprinkled – tiny suns –
piss-scald suns –
tooth-leafed, bright-maned
and the light too heavy
to move quickly
just honey sticky smear
slowly spilling
under the door
through every crack
can’t keep it out
A quadrille for dVerse – our word tonight is “sun”, and a quadrille is a poem of 44 words, including the prompt word. Grace is hosting tonight.
There was a dragon
in the valley, curled
like a white cat:
each scale a pearl;
each breath a cloud
of soft white silk –
’til the whole valley
was a bowl of milk –
as the sun brightens
with the coming day,
such dragons fade.
De – the wonderful WhimsyGizmo – is hosting at dVerse tonight, and here be dragons. Our quadrilles are infested with the pesky things…
Here the soil
is rich red,
rust red, blood –
so that where
the turf is torn away
it bleeds
like peeled flesh,
and each white flint
a shard of white bone
and that green grass
and those flowers
a veil of decency
over that nakedness.
“That’s rich,” she mutters, “That’s rich” –
brooding on grievance, like a fat hen.
“That’s rich”, and switches off the telly,
folds the paper, lets the curtain drop.
All that richness sours her,
curdles her stomach, carves deep lines.
It doesn’t nourish her.
It’s quadrille night, 44 words, one of which is the prompt word. Tonight Kim is our dVerse host, and our word is “rich”. Lovely.
