LAMENT

       

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is Modern.

 Why do I  consider this a suitable poem for the prompt? Because I intend to show two different ways that it can be punctuated. And it will be up to you to decide which one is "modern". That is for later however.  I have already missed the dead line for Sunday Scribblings, so it can't be a genuine one, and I have been sick all week.  Good Night!

 LAMENT

 a sonnet

     They told me it was time for me to heal,

     no longer miss you through all times of day

     and so I tried to fit, and now I feel

     your absence only once an hour – their way.

     Of course they didn't know the time I spent

     within that “once-an-hour” remembering you,

     the laughter shared, the places that we went,

     our pride and worries as our children grew.

     So now remembering you can give me pleasure.

               But sometimes tears still ambush me at night.

                         Your living body should be by my side!

     Why can't I banish logic that I treasure

               and conquer mind, have you within my sight

                         not know all tales of “afterlife” have lied?

REST

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is REST

Sometimes REST can be forced upon one by circumstances such as illness or age:

THIS YEAR  a villanelle

This year as spring comes tenderly

sun beads the silver threads of rain

too frail for weight of memory.

The scent of loam and hum of bee

drift faintly to her once again

this year as spring comes tenderly.

This is the year she will not see

the blossoms bud and bloom and wane

too frail for weight of memory.

She thinks she once was young and free

not bound in bed in which she's lain

this year as spring comes tenderly.

New grasses slim fragility

mirrors her failing pulse and vein

too frail for weight of memory.

Ban hope, ban song, ban flowering tree!

Remembering brings too much pain

this year as spring comes tenderly

too frail for weight of memory.

D is for Dandelions!

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday has reached "D" in its ninth round. Please click on the link to see what other participants have chosen as their favorite "D"s.  And to see, also, what a wonderful tradition Denise Nesbitt started for our enjoyment.

These grow in my own

 yard next to the walk

Dandelions are more lush here than in any other place that I have ever visited with almost every lawn, mown or still unmown, studded with gold. When Port townsend was a place to visit rather than my home, I preferred to come at dandelion time. And, since I have lived here I have met many other residents who feel the same about dandelions as I do - glorious, golden gifts, first harbingers of spring! 

LESSON

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings is LESSON.

This may well be a lesson for me!  This is a poem I wrote several years ago, and I thought at the time that I had invented a new form of rhyme.  Knowing, however, that multitudinous rhyme forms exist, it is now hard for me to think that this is original!  So, if you are more informed than I am, please tell me about it.  That will be the lesson TO me.

TO POETS LEST THEY 

FAIL TO SAVE IT

Sing not of poison oak or sticker.

The sunlit meadow plays no tricks.

Hear note of lark or bee and sing it.

Ignore the broken wing and sting.

Reject vast emptiness of ocean.

Its rosy shells are better shown.

Man's poisoned air may choke and stifle.

Sing only of impassioned flights.

For gloomy word be reprimanded.

Don't let it slip that man is damned.

This bent brown child convulsed with rickets?

Try gentler views, more wisely risked.

Avert your eyes from floorless chasm.

Erect for skulls a smiling mask.

Though you have probably detected my rhyme strategy by now, I will pretend that this is a lesson FROM me and TO you:  

The couplets have regular four beat lines. The first line ends with one word with two syllables. The second condenses the two syllables into one word using the same consonants and, if necessary, omitting a silent vowel.  For instance, the title drops the "e" which it needed complete the two-syllable sound. In the first verse, one of the two "i"s is dropped. 

The rhyme, however, actually depends upon sounds, not spelling.  In the 3rd verse, "ocean" and "shown" are an example of this, as are "chasm" and "mask".

Lesson over!  Please turn to Sunday Scribblings to see other responses to this prompt. Do so by clicking on link.