OGDEN NASH ON MARRIAGE

 Poetics challenge is to feature a favorite poet, use his name in our title, and write something in his style.  I’ve chosen Ogden Nash for his pithy humorous poems, specifically “A Word to Husbands”  I've chosen to write a sequel.  Submitted to dVerse May 18, 2021. Here's Nash's poem:

"To keep your marriage brimming

With love in the loving cup

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it

Whenever you’re right, shut up"

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....and my sequel is as follows

OGDEN NASH ON MARRIAGE

To keep your woman happy

With love in the loving cup

The simplest rule is sacred

Don’t leave the toilet seat up

TIME TO DANCE

 

Created for the Sunday Muse, and for the Monday dVerse quadrille where Lillian asks us to consider the homograph “wound”, which we may opt to use once or twice in our 44 word quadrille.  Submitted  May 17, 2021.

                             

queen of bad choices

mistress of pain

wound tightly

tried by fire

formed in ice

wounds hidden

scars forbidden

buried past

free at last

                     new approach                     

strength renewed 

fist raised

victory signal

second chance

fierce resolve

peace at last

music heard

time to dance

EUPHONY

 Open Link #292 and Linda has shared with us the word euphony or a form thereof.   New words are always fun, and I’ve used it in a silly, jabberwockian ditty.  Submitted to dVerse, May 13, 2021

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EUPHONY

Behold! Forsooth!

There’s a raven on the roof

and he’s shouting “Nevermore”

Begone, foul bird

say nary a word

Edgar Allen lives next door.

So raven, my friend

it’s misled you’ve been

if you’re looking for Mr. Poe

remove yourself from my house

and, if she’s with you, your spouse

find somewhere else to go.

I crave a life harmonious

simple and euphonious

I’ve no patience for pretense

I want to live quietly

feel at peace nightly

yesterday, today and hence

BLUE EYES

Blue Tuesday, and Sarah asks us to write a blue poem.  Submitted to dVerse, May 11, 2021

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BLUE EYES

Blue eyes....he had blue eyes

he was a daydreamer, a night schemer

a song at dawn

a risk taker, a deal breaker

here and gone

sweet talking, slow walking

midnight kiss

skip to my lou, digideroo

introduction to bliss

a sip from the horn of plenty

left me in a flood of tears

Blue eyes

 he had blue eyes

MIDNIGHT EPIPHANIES

Weekly Scribblings.  Magaly has asked us to write from the point of viewof a character hunting or being hunted.  I'm the hunter, always hunting inspiration for a worthwhile poem, usually at night when I'm trying to get to sleep.  Submitted this in error at Writers' Pantry.  Here is it in its proper place!  Submitted May 12, 2021

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       MIDNIGHT EPIPHANIES

I’m a dreamer by day and a thinker by night and, 

when I lay me down to sleep, will-o-the-whispers 

wander in and out of my thoughts in a rustle of 

satin and silken swish, flinging words and phrases 

like tangled skeins spun by some shape-shifter’s loom. 

Carousels and chapel bells, cowboy boots 

and vagabond’s loot, lamp shades and nines of spades,

ballet slippers and champagne sippers, smooth talkers 

and sky walkers drift through my mind on their way 

to some future poetic adventure.  Occasionally there 

springs from this abyss of word salad, a midnight 

epiphany worth recording in my bedside journal, and

turning into what I hope is a poem of interest, making 

for a happy hunter.

Ah, bliss!

 

 

THE LIMBERLOST

THE SUNDAY MUSE #159

This week's image brought to mind one of my favorite books as a child..."The Girl of the Limberlost" by Gene Stratton Porter, and the legend of Jim Miller who became lost in the wetland of northern Indiana called Loblolly Marsh.  Jim was known as Limber Jim, and the area became known as Limberlost in memory of Jim's fate.   My poem is loosely structured around Jim's fate

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LIMBERLOST

.Deep in Loblolly Marsh the creatures

gather to converse

to consider Limber Jim’s fate

they say he’s lost, or worse

They follow the blazes on trees

Jim left to mark his way

hoping someone would find him

before his very last day

But his fate is lost to mystery

the creatures’ memories dim

In the land of Limberlost 

they say they still look for Jim. 

RIVERHOUSE

 Wednesday Scribblings and we're to feature a place that is special to us.  There's one place that will always hold a special place in my heart, enfolded in memories throughout a long portion of my life. In autumn, when the leaves begin to turn, my heart goes to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and my favorite place.   Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, May 5, 2021.

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For more than 30 years, my three good friends and I spent a week every autumn in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.  Creatures of habit, we stayed in the same room in the same lodge for all those years.  It was our favorite place.  The Riverhouse Lodge sat at the base of a mountain beside a gurgling little river called The Little Pigeon River.  We spent long hours on the balcony over the river, and slept listening to the sound of its tumbling progress over the rocks below.   We played rousing card games, snug by the fireplace, with the bounty of our shopping sprees lining the perimeter of the room.   We shared our lives, our joys and tribulations, and marked those long hours with sometime tears, but always with much laughter.  

The years have passed, and the other three of our foursome have passed on to what comes after.  I was left with my memories and the hope of returning to the Riverhouse one more time, but it was not to be.  A couple of years ago, a careless spark ignited a dreadful fire that swept down the mountainside and burned to the ground the lodge we loved so much.  I was bereft.  One day soon, I thought, I’ll follow my friends, and we’ll all be gone … the four of us, the lodge, and the balcony where we shared our lives.  We’ll all be but a blip in the passage of time.  A new lodge will replace the old, and new young housewives will come for their annual girlfriend getaway.  But I wonder, I just wonder,  if our spirits may not linger in the green hills above, and the sound of our laughter be heard faintly as the water tumbles over the rocks below.