Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Breezy - #TankaTuesday #acrosticpoem #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! For this week's #TankaTuesday Poetry Challenge, Willow invites us to pick a word associated with spring and write an acrostic poem for it. I chose the word BREEZY and decided to use a double haiku to write my poem.

(image created by Microsoft Bing Image Creator)

Beautiful spring day
Red kites somersault in air
Eager hands hold on

East winds create crests
Zestful waves dance on the shore
Young kids build castles

Would you like to write an acrostic poem today? Join us here.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Queen Cat - #FFFC #dVerse #quadrille #cats #poem #poetry #poetrychallenge @YvetteMCalleiro



Hello, beautiful readers! Today, I am combining two prompts. The first is Melissa's Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge, where she asks us to write a poem inspired by the picture below. The second is dVerse's Quadrille #333: There's no alternative. Punam challenges us to write a poem using the word alter within our quadrille. A quadrille is a poem with exactly 44 words. I've bolded and italicized the words I chose.

(image from Viktorya Sergeeva on Pexels)

Queen Cat

feline exalter
spoiled beyond belief
queen of the comforter
shares her space with her human
purrs with pure contentment
sassy at times
playful when it suits her
demands very little but
expectations must be met
sometimes aloof yet
her loyalty never falters
worthy companion


Would you like to participate in either of these challenges? Click the links below:

Melissa's Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge

Monday, April 21, 2025

Nature's Beauty - #WDYS #tanka #haiku #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity #nature @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! For this week's What Do You See? prompt, Sadje provided us with two images and invited us to let them inspire us to write a poem. I decided to write a tanka poem for the first image, which is a poem of five lines with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic pattern. The third line tends to be the pivot point and lends itself to both the first two lines and the last two lines. Then, I wrote a haiku for the second image. A haiku is three lines with a 5-7-5 syllabic pattern and usually focuses on nature.

(image credit; Alan Bajura @ Unsplash)

bright, crisp fall morning
white smoke lazily rises
water calmly drifts
until turbine pulls it in
soothing, trickling sense of peace


(image credit; Zach Heiberg @Unsplash)

focused perception
notice what is important
mother nature's gifts

Would you like to write a poem for one of these images? Join us here.

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Feed Wisely - #XplorationChallenge #haibun #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! For this week's Xploration Challenge #377, Reena shared a list of book titles to choose from and asked us to choose one title from the list below to use in our piece.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While (Paul Rogat Loeb)
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison)
Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All (Laura Ruby)
No Filter and Other Lies (Crystal Maldonado)
Unpregnant (Jenni Hendricks and Ted Caplan) 

I decided to go with Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby. I chose to write a haibun, which is a paragraph of prose and a haiku. I also added a word within the title though, technically, the rules didn't say we couldn't. 😉

(image courtesy of Microsoft Image Creator)

Feed Wisely

There is a Native American folktale about two wolves that reside in each of us. One wolf is considered the good wolf and represents the positive attributes within us: joy, love, and kindness. The other wolf is considered the bad wolf and embodies the negative qualities like anger, resentment, and fear. Humans, though, are more complex than that. We are not two-dimensional creatures. We are much more multi-faceted and complex. Still, the lesson holds true: We have the power to choose where we spend our energy and what energy we share with the world. Choose wisely.

see thirteen doorways
wolves (linger) behind them all
choose which to nurture

Would you like to write a poem for one of the titles listed above? Join us here.

My Uncle's Legacy - #haibun #FFFC #poem #poetry #poetrychallenge @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! Happy Easter, for those of you who celebrate! For this week's Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge, Melissa provides us with the photo below and encourages us to let it inspire us to write a poem or flash fiction piece. I've decided to write a haibun, which is a paragraph of prose and a haiku.

(image courtesy of Jay Brand on Pixels)

My Uncle's Legacy

My uncle used to take my cousins camping when they were little. Once his children became adults, he bought a camper and trekked across the country, mostly on his own. When he passed away, my cousins began camping in his memory and invited all the cousins to join them. My sister and I joined in on the fun, taking our kids with us. Every time we went, a cardinal would visit our campsite. My cousins told us the cardinal was his favorite bird and believe it was his spirit coming to visit us. My sister and I still go camping twice a year, even though our kids are grown. Now, it's more like glamping or "cabining" instead of tent camping, but my uncle's passion still lives on within us.

crisp, sunny morning
cardinal songs lift spirit
welcomed visitor


Would you like to write a poem for this photo? Join us here.

Saturday, April 19, 2025

The Magic of Candles - #tanka #WDYS #dVerse #magicalrealism #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity @YvetteMCalleiro



Hello, beautiful readers! Today, I'm combining prompts. The first is the What Do You See? prompt where Sadje provides us with two images to use as inspiration. The second prompt is dVerse's Poet's Pub. Grace invites us to create a poem focused on magical realism in her MTB: Magical Realism challenge.

I chose the image below as it called out to me. I wrote a tanka poem, which is five lines with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllabication pattern. The third line works as a pivot and should apply to the first two lines as well as the last two lines.

(image credit; Marko Blazevic @Unsplash)

leaves fall silently
stillness suffocates the space
night's darkness descends
flickering, waxen candle
magic arrives, fairies play


Would you like to write a poem on these prompts? Click the links below:

Friday, April 18, 2025

The Mirror - #W3 #butterflycinquain #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity #insecurity #lowselfesteem @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! For today's Wea've Written Weekly prompt, Ooko Tonny invites us to write a poem that gives voice to what is usually left unsaid. She encouraged us to speak for what the world tends to overlook. We could write from a personal experience, an imagined lens, or the voice of an inanimate object.

I chose to write from a mirror's perspective. Many people suffer from low self-esteem. I have struggled with this for decades. I am much better now because of therapy, but I still slip into those old thoughts every now and then. I decided to write a double butterfly cinquain. A butterfly cinquain consists of nine lines with a 2-4-6-8-2-8-6-4-2 syllabic pattern.

(image courtesy of @StockSnap on Pixabay)

The Mirror

you stare
into your eyes
empty, sad reflection
unable to see your beauty
hidden
underneath vitriolic words
residing in your head
discard those words
shine bright

believe
in the beauty
emanating from you
embrace your uniqueness, your strength
stand tall
see your loveliness as I do
share your true self freely
love all of you
transform


Would you like to write a poem for this prompt? Join us here.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

How the Mighty Fall - #dVerse #shadorma #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! Over at dVerse-Poets Pub, Lisa brings us dVerse's Poetics Tuesday - Busted! She challenged us to create a sculpture of ourselves or to write an ekphrastic poem based one of the busts she included in her post. As I am not artistically creative, I chose to write a poem about one of the busts in her post.

I decided to write a Shadorma, which is a six-line stanza with a syllabic pattern of 3-5-3-3-7-5. 

("Last Man (Guardian of Forbidden Books)" by Leonid Lerman)

How the Mighty Fall

his hubris
needed attention
a bust made
to praise him
until people saw the truth
now, a paperweight


Would you like to write about this prompt? Join us here.

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Diamond Dewdrops - #haiku #MoonwashedWeeklyPrompt #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity @YvetteMCalleiro


Hello, beautiful readers! For this week's Moonwashed Weekly Prompt, Eugi shares with us the beautiful image above as well as the poem below and asks us to allow them to inspire us to write a poem. Here is her poem:
fanciful schemes
never one and done
orchestrated by nature

I chose to write a haiku, which consists of three lines with a 5-7-5 syllabication pattern. I also used her image and some of her words, which I have bolded and italicized.

(image courtesy of Joe on Pixabay)

diamond dewdrops hang
orchestrated by nature
morning's little gift


Are you inspired by the image or words to write a poem? Join us here.

Wildflower - #prosery #dVerse #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity @YvetteMCalleiro



Hello, beautiful readers! For this week's dVerse's Poets Pub, Sanaarizvi invites to participate in Prosery: In the words of Lisa Bellamy. A prosery is a short piece of prose that tells a story in less than 144 words. For this prosery, we must include the following quote by Lisa Bellamy's "Wild Pansy" poem: "As a seed, I was shot out the back end of a blue jay when, heedless, she flew over the meadow." So, here is the fictional prosery I created.


(image courtesy of @suloka on Pixabay)

Wildflower

Life hadn’t always been easy. My birth mom was a Blue Jays fan. When I was old enough to understand her abandonment of me, I’d tell people that as a seed, I was shot out the back end of a blue jay when, heedless, she flew over the meadow. She popped me out in an alley, behind a garbage bin, and went on her merry way…without me.

Luckily, it was summer, and some kind passerby heard my wails and found me. Social services took me in and found me one home after another. Not too many couples could handle a drug addicted baby who never stopped wailing. Eventually, my seed got planted in a garden full of nutrients and sunlight, and I began to blossom.

Today, I’ve created my own seeds, and I’m growing them in my garden while showering them with endless love.



Would you like to write a prosery? Join us here.