DMC: "Disssgusssting" by Bridget Magee

DISSSGUSSSTING

​I lie here
among the
dead grassesss,
crunchy leavesss,
withered ssscrub.

I am minding
my own
busssinesss
sssoaking up
the sssun,
basssking in
the heat.

Then I feel
them...

thud, thud, thud

- the legged onesss -

coming clossser...

THUD, THUD, THUD!

I ssslip,
I ssslither,
I ssslink
away.

But ssstill
they
ssscream,
"Snake!"

Disssgusssting.

© 2016 Bridget Magee. All rights reserved.


Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration TOMORROW, Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers:

DMC: "After the Water" by Ellen Leventhal

Today we're marking a one-year anniversary. On May 25, 2015, the first of two devastating storms hit Texas, with floods that turned Ellen Leventhal's world upside down. The second flood hit just last month, on April 18th. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ellen, her family, and her entire community.


AFTER THE WATER

My fur feels sticky
like when Jack dropped me
in his bath.
Everyone laughed then.
The bubbles tickled and warmed me.
But now I shiver and shake.
No Jack, no laughter.
Nana lifts me high, high, onto a shelf.
The noises over, under, and around me
are loud and scary.
Except for Nana’s sigh.
It’s soft and sad.
I look around from my high perch.
and wrinkle my nose.
No sweet soapy smell.
Something different.
The room fills with water
brown and cold.
Big hands covered in plastic
scoop me up.
Nana looks at the man
and shakes her head.
Sorrow spills from her eyes,
dotting the white mask covering her face.
With a whoosh, I am thrown outside.
I fly through the air,
touch down on a pile of memories,
and become one myself.

© 2016 Ellen Leventhal. All rights reserved.


Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers:

DMC: "Cossack Song" by Doraine Bennett

COSSACK SONG
   
Old Hesselberg, half dead,
mans the helm.
Scurvy is our master.
Waxell gives no orders.
Bering lies helpless on his bunk.
None listen to Herr Stellar.
The ship drifts, deadwood in a tossing sea.

Never will I carry
Anya to the Cossack crug, 
nor have their blessing
to call her wife,
will not raise sons
faithful to serve my tsar,
teach them the ways of war, 
share their prayers at evensong.

A Cossack should die in battle,
not drowned in the sea.
What else to do but sing?

“Stormy clouds delirious straying,
Showers of whirling snowflakes white,
And the pallid moonbeams waning—
Sad the heavens, sad the night.”

© 2014 Doraine Bennett. All rights reserved.


Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers:

DMC: "Jake + Kate" by Mindy Dolandis Gars

© 2016 Mindy Gars Dolandis. All rights reserved.

Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers:

DMC: "Chagall's Muse" by M. H. Barnes

Bella Rosenfeld Chagall, Shalom Books

“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist palette, 
which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”
 
                      ― Marc Chagall


Laura Shovan has challenged to write a persona poem this month. (Read Laura's post about how to write one, HERE.)  In response, I've written a love poem in the voice of Bella Rosenfeld Chagall.  Although it was inspired by "Bride with Fan" by Marc Chagall (1887–1985), I'm dedicating this post to my own true love who, in just a few short days, will be my husband of twenty years.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.

(Surprise!)

"Bride with Fan" (1911) by Marc Chagall
This image is in the public domain in the United States, published prior to 1923.

CHAGALL’S MUSE

At the moment we met
I don’t recall breathing–
your eyes were so blue
and vast as the sky.
 
Mine lowered in silence,
I heard our hearts beating
and knew my forever arrived.

You gave me your vow,
your soul and your secrets,
a fan made with feathers,
so gentle and white.
 
And now, like a cloud
passing over your canvas,
with every breath, I sigh.

© 2016 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

Send your persona poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer. Other poems featured this week were by Jan Godown Annino, Suzy Levinson, Brenda Davis Harsham, and Michelle Kogan.  Brenda is featuring another persona poem on her blog today, Margaret Simon and Violet Nesdoly are featuring persona poems on their blogs as well.


All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of Laura Shovan's fantastic verse novel for middle grade readers: THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House, 2016).

Jackpot!  Margaret Simon is featuring a persona poem today AND hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup. Come to think of it, there's always something to inspire, celebrate, or be thankful for at Reflections on the Teche.

DMC: "Madame de Pompadour" by Michelle Kogan

Madame de Pompadour, portrait by François Boucher

MADAME DE POMPADOUR

Come closer dear and sit beside
my lyrical harpsichord.
An interruption never you,
with music we both adore.

The keys will dance around the room,
enrapturing our senses–
music only nightingales sing,
without any pretenses.

You’re whispering my confidant...
My play, yes I’m preparing;
there’s nymphs, gods, and enrapturement,
tis light and not despairing.

Oh yes, dear king, I’m engraving,
a secret gemstone for you.
A precious stone fit for my love,
and our private rendezvous.

© 2016 Michelle Kogan. All rights reserved.


Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers:

DMC: An excerpt from "The Children of Privilege" by Brenda Davis Harsham

"Essie, Ruby and Ferdinand, Children of Asher Wertheimer"
by John Singer Sargent (1902)

Essie
I will never live this down,
painted with my kid
brother and sister
when I should be dancing
at balls
or singing
in an opera
or traveling
the continent.
Instead, I will forever
be stuck here,
turpentine
stinging my nose,
with no way
into the world.

Excerpted from "The Children of Privilege" 
© 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers: