rhyming poetry – Susan Joy Clark

Creative Life, Poetry

Jukebox Jive, #Monday Quadrille

Oldies were new on the jukebox,

In the decade of the doo-wops.

Couples would jitterbug and jive,

Terpsichorean footwork’s drive.

Couples rocking around the clock

Keeping rhythm with the jukebox.

Rockin’ robin both night and day,

And rock and roll is here to stay.

This was written for dVerse’s Monday quadrille challenge, with the requirement of using the word “juke.” A quadrille is a poem having just 44 words. “Terpsichorean” is a great word, but it was also thrown in there in desperation to get exactly 44 words to fit my form. 😛

Creative Life, Poetry

Artists of Yore, #Paint Chip Poetry, #Ubi sunt

Where are the artists now of yore,

Talent oozing from ev’ry pore,

Who made out of Scripture’s pages,

Art that lasted through the ages?

With great skill and brushes of gold,

In manuscripts rare and now old,

they worked out illumination,

which now with much rumination,

we wonder in awe at their craft,

Studying letters’ fore and aft.

Anonymous Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Where now are the Renaissance men,

Like Leonardo was back then?

Even his sketches in graphite

Are an extraordinary sight.

Now, his drawings of his machines,

his Vitruvian Man long and lean,

Are kept under glass for our view,

Preserved in peachy sepia hues.

They then continue to amaze,

All those who upon them will gaze.

Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This was written for Linda Kruschke’s Paint Chip Poetry challenge, where we were challenged to write an ubi sunt poem featuring three of the paint chip words. A few of these words like “octopus” were a bit strange this time, but the words “illumination” and “graphite” immediately struck me as having artistic applications. I thought I could work “peachy” in there too.

Below is a paragraph taken from Linda’s page, which she took from John Drury’s poetry dictionary on the ubi sunt poetry form.

UBI SUNT (uh’-suhnt’, “uh” pronounced as in “put”; Latin, “where are”) Poetic theme in which the poet asks “where are” certain people, where have they gone. The theme began in Medieval Latin, with the formula ubi sunt used to introduce a roll call of the dead or missing and to suggest how transitory life is.

The best-known ubi sunt poem [is] François Villon’s ballade whose refrain is “But where are the snows of yester-year?”

Creative Life, Dog poetry, It's a Doggy Dog World, Poetry

The Dreamers, #Poem

Here, we drift, floating quietly,

Along a dreamy, silver sea,

All my six furry friends and me.

Max, he dreams of his buried bones,

Rupert dreams of the hearth at home,

Chance dreams of bacon of his own.

George dreams of Frisbees in the air,

Winston dreams of old boots, a pair,

Rex dreams of an old comfy chair,

And we slip adrift on a pillowed cloud,

With only pleasant dreams allowed,

All seven of us — a small crowd.

Into a book’s pages I fell,

Dreaming of the stories I’ll tell,

My pen dipped into my inkwell,

And we fly along an azure sky,

‘Til our siesta passes by,

Me and six furry friends of mine.

I’m sharing this with dVerse’s Open Link Night. I was looking through my picture files for poetry inspiration and found this copy of artwork by Lisa Finch. I just love it for several reasons. Many of you know that I have an animal care business, so that was one reason. I love the glamour of the female character here, the fact that she has fallen asleep with an open book and the title of the artwork which is also “The Dreamers,” which seemed to speak of imagination and creativity.

Lisa Finch has an Etsy shop where she sells some of her work on canvas and also prints and note cards. I perused it and found so many more pieces that I enjoy. Animals seem to be a common theme, not just pets but wild and exotic animals as well. Many of her pieces seem to have a sort of female Dr. Doolittle character. She has some fantasy and almost surrealistic scenes with some old Hollywood glamour combined in there. I almost feel I should revisit for an art-themed post.

Creative Life, Poetry

Great-Uncle’s Birthday Bash, #Light Verse

Doves were bathing in the punch bowl,

Flapping up a serious splash,

One of many strange happenings

At my great-uncle’s birthday bash.

Outside, the weather was all fair,

Except for the chaos that reigned.

Guests were flinging pieces of cake

At a crooner that entertained –

With a voice like a tortured cow.

Cake was sinking out in the pool,

Where swans were swimming all around,

Some old, wacky, besotted fool

Belting show tunes at top voice

In a nauseating duet,

With that crooner whose presence

Every guest had come to regret.

A party hat stuck on its face,

The blinded dog was running wild,

All through the mud in the garden,

Then knocking over a small child.

Inside, some of the younger set

Somehow organized a mosh pit

And my great-uncle in his wheelchair

Was riding over top of it.

A week ago, my great-uncle,

Who’s now a centenarian,

Had a discussion with Grandpa,

An old nonagenarian,

They discussed the celebration

Of great-uncle’s hundredth birthday,

But as both are hard of hearing

The discussion went far astray.

“Don’t make a fuss,” Great-uncle said.

“Did you say to rent a party bus?”

Grandpa took very active notes

And relayed all he heard to us.

Great-uncle said all he needed

Was fam’ly, friends and tons of love,

But somehow this translated

To renting party swans and doves.

When it came to hiring singers,

Great-uncle approved of all that,

But with his acute hearing loss,

A smile and a festive top hat

Was impression enough to hire

That talentless, crooner in rhyme,

But in the end, at least, it seems,

Great-uncle had a real good time.

This was written for dVerse’s Poetics prompt in which we were asked to pick one of several Ernest Hemingway quotes for inspiration. I chose this one, “It is very hard to write this way, beginning things backward…” from The Torrents of Spring (1926.) I’m pretty sure though that Hemingway wouldn’t appreciate being the muse for this one, but perhaps Shel Silverstein or P.G. Wodehouse would nod their approval. A while ago, I saw a prompt to write a story backwards on Reedsy. I didn’t act on it then, but I had the thought to start out with chaos and then rewind to some explanation of it. Of course, I decided to start out with comical chaos.