Many-Hued Verse

I wrote a few sidlak poems over the past few days. This form, which has 4 lines of 3-5-7-9 syllables and concludes with a fifth line that is a color, has been fun. I found out about it from Abigail Gronway, who also wrote a nice one. Shared with the Tuesday Platform.

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“Antique”

Black coffee

In a library,

On antique, sturdy table —

I sense the musty smell of old books

Mahogany

 

“Royalty”

Poetry:

Proper meter? Rhyme?

Freedom in form anytime.

Word queen of my poetry world, hued

Purple

 

“Fight”

Depression,

Anxiety fight

Oppressing like a devil,

A cardboard box, sent, undelivered:

Black.

Inside A Book

“The perfect hideout is inside a book.”

 

The perfect hideout is inside a book,
Is is a grand adventure too, although
It may not seem that way, and it may look
Boring, it’s not — my fellow readers know!

For One Liner Wednesday and JusJoJan day 9. Join in here!

Clothes Make Many Selves

For JusJoJan day 8, our prompt word is “self.”

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Clothing expresses so many aspects,
Facets of myself:
There’s the karate uniform
Which I haven’t worn in years,
And the color-guard cotume
Which saw the antithesis of tears,
There’s the bittersweet
Black Homecoming dress —
For the first time I felt like a beauty —
There is no room to express
All the existing sides of me.

Puente

Inspired by this weekend’s prompt at  Real Toads, I wrote a “puente” poem. Puente means bridge in Spanish because of the middle line, and I wanted to incorporate the idea of a bridge in my poem. Yesterday, my mom and I decorated our Christmas tree, and the ornaments were bridges between the past and the present. 

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My mother and me,

Adorning the Christmas tree

With ornaments, including

A white and blue ball

 

~ bringing it close, inhaling its scent ~

 

It still smells like

Grandma’s house

Over a decade ago,

Echoes of smoke

Leaving

At Real Toads, we are invited to write about wistful sadness, or in Japanese, mono no aware.

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I will let you pass through the checkpoint.

This is your flight, not mine.
Only those with a boarding pass may enter.

I have no pass; it is not my time.
But one day it will be my flight.
One day I will leave behind unknown others.

Waste Not the Days

Inspired by this prompt from Real Toads and based on a true story. I was on vacation for Thanksgiving this past week and actually felt much happier with more limited internet access, but coming back to everyday life, it is hard not to fall back into spending too much time online. 

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On vacation, sans the internet,

I spent the days exploring, playing games

With those I love, but coming back I set

Myself in front of my laptop, the same

As I had before done — a waste, a shame.

Personality

In the Imaginary Garden, we are writing nonets. This form has 9 lines, beginning with 9 syllables, then 8, then 7, all the way down to one syllable in the last line.

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How to explain personality?
Multifaceted, not able
To be succinctly defined,
Always a new surprise.
Taking countless words
To well describe
“Who am I” —
So I
Write.