The picture tells the tale: a railway out of town...

Sepia Saturday posted this wonderful picture from 1910 of the booking office for the London & North Western Railway Company in Waterford, Ireland.

It brought to mind Edwardian era ladies in long dresses and men in suits and duster coats, arriving and departing for a world of different purposes or reasons.  In this, I saw a story - and one fellow's letter (written in the poetic form Novelinee) tells the rest of his tale.

Summer Evening

Image courtesy of Magpie Tales/'Summer Evening' by Edward Hopper, 1947

At a Summer Evening’s End

Why did dates often have to end like this,

with him tongue-tied and me shy? Who knows why?

Still, I wondered…would it end with some bliss

or would he just smile awkwardly?  Big sigh.

No.  This time, I wanted…something…a rush…

more than a peck or a clumsy goodbye.

I felt myself blush – so obvious:  Crush.

I wasn’t ready to bid him goodbye.

Well, at least, not yet.  So I kissed the guy.

###

Notes:  The form is Novelinee.  

When I looked at this Hopper painting, I could [almost] hear the Gershwin song, Summertime, playing in my head.  I thought about it for a bit - and in a case of misconstrued lyrics, I changed the words from "Summertime, and the livin' is easy..." to "Summertime and the lovin' is easy.."  Shortly after that, I realized my error, but the idea for this poem was born.

Blueberries

Monday's Child Prompt - Illustration by Clara Burd

Blueberries

Bunnies love blueberries, and so do I.

I picked plenty this morning, so I’ll share.

Maybe I can save enough for a pie.

(Somehow I doubt I’ll have any to spare.)

Bunnies…would you pick more berries?  Come on,

and I’ll show you how.  It’s easy as pie.

We need more blueberries ‘cause they’re all gone.

They tasted so good, we ate our supply!

Let’s pick more tomorrow.  Bunnies, goodbye.

###

Notes: The form is Novelinee.  The illustration is a sweet gentle picture that brought to mind a small child sharing his bucket of blueberries with some of the forest animals.

***

As you may have noticed, I have not been around much in recent time.  There is a reason for that, but it is actually writing-related:  I am working to complete a middle grade historical novel.  

Because I attended a NJ SCBWI First Page session with two editors from know publishing houses, back in mid-April, I was given a three-month window of opportunity for submitting the finished book to those editors.  But...unlike previous sessions I had attended in past years, this time I only had the story sketch and the first page written.  (In the past, I've had entire books already written.)

Yikes!

Therefore, I have been researching and writing like crazy to get the book written (and polished) by the mid-July deadline.  I think I'm in the home stretch right now - so please keep your fingers crossed.

And after mid-July, I hope to be back in the proverbial saddle again, posting (and reading) poetry!  ☼

Triptych

Wow. This was one mega-challenging challenge.

In honor of the Chinese New Year, We Write Poems put forth the plan that all of us savvy writers should make a triptych (or three diverse columns) which are to be headed: Heaven, Earth and Man.  Then, we should write a list under each category which may be comprised of words, ideas, phrases, thoughts, etc. which interconnect them - and when we have enough of these notions on our lists, create a poem from this cryptic, elliptic triptych.

For reasons that I can't explain, I started listing things beginning with the letter 'C' as you can see below:

and my idea was to list Heaven as divine foods, Earth as veggies or fruits which come from the earth, and finally, Man as stuff that men and women have invented or manufactured (for better or worse.)  They're pretty cool lists, if I do say so myself!  But anyway, from these lists, I chose one from Column A, one from Column B and one from Column C - and wrote a triple Novelinee poem.

Heaven, Earth & Man

Cannolis are…

…pastries loaded full of Italian cream,

often with chocolate chips (just an add-in.)

Some people think they’re a pure, divine dream,

a gift from the gods, designed to gladden.

I like to eat mine with cappuccino

that’s dusted with a dash of cinnamon,

topped with whipped cream and a maraschino.

I know these treats won’t help me to stay thin

but cannolis are my heavenly sin.

Cucumbers are…

…long skinny tubes of this green seeded veg

which you can slice or dice for a salad -

it’s tasty when tossed on a lettuce wedge

and Kirby and English are cuke-valid.

Some like it on bagels with cream cheese, lox

and onion and a smidgen of smoked fish.

You can carve ‘em and sculpt ‘em into blocks

or any other shape that you might wish.

Yep, cucumbers rock as an earthly dish.

Crappy is…

…cringe-worthy reality TV shows

like The Bachelor or Wife Swap.  Man, they bite.

Every ‘real housewife’ just seems to expose

how boringly trivial, and how trite

television has gotten.  Still, we watch.

The Marriage Ref along with Jersey Shore

have me wishing they’d kick it down a notch.

The Kardashians are a crashing bore

Reality TV? Man, who wants more?

###

(I'll be back later with another post based on inspired prompting from Three Word Wednesday, Sis/Few Miles and Poetic Asides.)