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So very happy and honored by Spillwords Press and Chief Editor, Dagmara K. for choosing my poem, Winter is Coming for publication on April 10, 2026 at 2 am (EST).

Thank you Dagmara and Spillwords!!

In response to Bartholomew Barker’s answer to Robert Lee Brewer’s prompt for Day 2 of the April Poem-a-Day Challenge prompt to write an express poem.

hurry up to grow up
leave childhood behind
quickly jump into adulthood

fast find the one to whom you belong
fasten the ties tightly
hasten entering life’s journey

suddenly pain and misery
replace everlasting love
unhappiness slithers into paradisiacal ideals

barreling towards life’s ending
unable to stop or change
the original plan

it is better to die quickly alone
than to die in agony
amidst anger and strife

A chapbook has been released!!

New Arrival! “Reflections of a Woman’s Life” by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Available on

Prolific Pulse Press LLC

Amazon

Kindle

BOOKS*A*MILLION

Poet Warriors

By David and Gypsie-Ami

db–poet-warrior
sword dripping with foes’ dark ink
pens mightier words

gaof-words to save broken nations
chaos wrought by one spoiled child

db-borrowed wizard hat
brooms slosh through the marble hall
master still away

gaof-hallways void of life
empty rooms bleached of morals
the king’s throne vacant

db-termites raise earthen towers
authority of mere dust

gaof-poet-warriors 
raise your swords, smite the insects 
let words defeat doom

---

Rengay?

Rengay is a form of linked verse created as an alternative to Japanese renga or renku. The form was devised by Garry Gay in California in 1992. A rengay consists of six thematic haiku verses and is normally composed by two or three poets, although solo and six-person rengay are not uncommon. The main goal of rengay is to have a theme that unifies all six verses. The form for two poets is as follows: A-3, B-2, A-3, B-3, A-2, B-3, with the letters representing the poet creating that verse.

One weed pulled
and then two,
It’s then I realized
that was all I could do.

Before I could plant
a full bush or a tree,
Years ago I never realized
it was then I was free.

Today as I tried
valiantly to stand,
I looked down
at the spade in my hand.

Slipping it back
into the waiting flower pot,
I had to turn and say goodbye
but I loved you a lot.

You were my shelter
the rocks that formed my foundation
were lain by you

A step along the front line of defense
against the ravages of my flesh
leaving little more than a messy ghost behind

You rose to the fight
refusing to settle for the mere scrap
of woman I had become

You left unwillingly or perhaps willingly
who will ever know
not I as I lay here on the edge and tremble

He asked her to place
his most favorite plant
in front of his headstone
on the grave where he would lay

She remembered as she sprawled prone
upon the grassy hillside
of the aged little cemetery
how he’d looked into her green-gray eyes

How he’d implored her to put the bush just here
where it would grow so well
requesting that a year after his death she gather
a flower bouquet to deeply inhale it’s fragrance

In this way he explained with love
and utter undying devotion
she would remember him truly
and together they would be again

As the world around her darkened and she could
no longer feel the green grass at her back
she thought of the lovely Snowdrop blooms
still clutched in her stiffening hands

What’d he’d said was real and true she now knew
as she faded into darkness she found him waiting
standing at the door to eternity holding a tuft
of poisonous Snowdrop’s in his hand

Paying attention
no cell phone
no texting
no drinking or eating
and still it happened

Not speeding
not swerving
not daydreaming
not tailgating or rough-shodding
and still it happened

A flash of brown
then another
then a sickening thud
then a screech or a cry I’m not sure
and the beautiful doe now lay dead

Cruel are these contriving manipulative fates
deciding life
deciding death
deciding who or what can go on
and leaving the rest here to wonder why

It draws me in
it’s sparkling white powder
beckoning hungrily

Just a little – it taunts
a taste that is all
it lures me with it’s deceptive spell

The twisting begins
low in my stomach
the wanting and then the needing

Tortuous waiting
knowing failure
stalks me upon each hour deprived

Within the darkened kitchen
tucked into the corner cabinet
the clear baggy awaits retrieval

My fingers tremble
in desperate anticipation
reaching to grab my treasure

Only a nip or two
I tell myself but soon
the entire contents are devoured

White powder sticks to my lips
I lick my fingers clean
the sugary donut is gone –

diabetic coma be damned
that was good!