Distant smoke rises across the hills
a ring of the warning bell
cuts across the still village
The bill of a stark blue cap
breaks through the border limits
lined with aged living oak and cedar trees
A sharp ring of the trumpet
list notes set to key up men and horses
who wish they were anywhere but here
Those who care know they do not fit
here among these people fleeing
into the silky haze of the mountains
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
Poet Warriors
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 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
Gypsie’s Wonderful World of Words 