She’s on a Business Trip

Prompt: Whimsy Gizmo at d’Verse Poets ask us to write a 44-word verse (a “Quadrille”) using a form of the word “cheer”.

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She’s on a Business Trip

My woman was gone,
I felt a small cheer
leaving clothes on the floor,
I guzzle my beer.

Dishes unwashed
cupboards ajar.
I toked up a nasty cigar.

Then sadness replaced my cheer
because the love of my life
wasn’t here.

Sabio Lantz, December 2018

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Average is Overrated

The Prompt: It is Open Link Night at d’Verse poets. And tonight, relaxed by a few drinks, I have written a not-so-average “poem” and made a graphic.  Unfortunately, only those with statistics backgrounds or people who actually click that link and read will understand the poem. Others will be average, and rightfully only leave a quick comment without further thought. LOL!  But if you get it, please leave a comment hinting so.

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Average is Overrated

The average is just one measure of central tendency.
And to the mathematical naive,
“the mean” is what they mean
when they say “average”.

So, if you are one of those,
who struggles to stay average
thinking average is safe
like a fish or gazelle clinging to the crowd,
’tis better to understand that the mode is the safer place.
So don’t be mean!

by Sabio Lantz, November 2018

Wide Open Eyes

Wide Open Eyes

With our hearts in hopeful open readiness, my brothers and I were waiting for Santa Claus to come. I saw his reindeers’ feet go by my window just before my brother ran into my room telling me he heard his sleigh bells. And sure enough, when we ran into the living room, the Christmas tree was loaded with gifts and the cookie was eaten.

Many years later, on a cool late autumn day, at our Christian commune farm in New York, we were doing adult baptisms. I waited to be laid back into the pond water and receive God’s holy spirit.  Like others, I had hopeful expectations to emerge from the water with the sign of success by speaking in tongues. And sure enough, I came out blessed and babbling.

wet salty breezes
a boat full of wide open eyes
a whale leaps upward

Flavors of Heartache

Prompt: Frank, @ dVerse Poets, tasks us to write a poem “vaguely inspired by the thought of frustration or heartbreak”.
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Flavors of Heartache

Your heart may squeezes
when you lose something:
a dream, a person, an object.

Your heart may tremble
when another is hurt,
in whom you have poured your yourself.

Your heart may break
when these overpower
the hope that preserves us.

— by Sabio Lantz, September 2018

 

City Music

Prompt: Kim is hosting at Open Link Night at d’Verse poets.
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City Music

Twilight —
and the musicians brighten the bar.
Coasters shift, ears are bent
and substance settles into cords
sliding out the evening door.

— Sabio Lantz, July 2018

 

Christmas Eve Clear Memory

Prompt: Lillian, @ dVerse Poets, asks for a Haibun made from true prose about a room in our youth and ending in a traditional season Haiku.  I hope I kept within the welcomed strict guidelines.

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Christmas Eve Clear Memory

My childhood room was bigger than I needed, while my little brothers shared a bunk bed in a smaller snug safe room. Atop my room’s outside wall was a one long narrow safe window which could not be opened or entered. But I was not totally safe ever since camp counselors scared me with ghost stories the summer before; the space under my large wooden bed that my Dad had used as a child and the narrow closet constantly harbored potential danger from monsters.

But it was Christmas eve, and monsters were not on my mind. Hours after we’d all gone anxiously to bed, and I woke in the wee hours to see the bright moon pouring in the long window. I heard my bothers stir in their room. I looked up at my window and there I saw Santa Clause’s reindeer’s feet fly past. Just then my brother burst into the room, “Did you hear Santa’s bells?” “No, but I saw his reindeer,” I said. And when we ran out into the living room we found his presents and a half-eaten cookie.

Wind chased memories,
flighty flakes of certainty
splashed in Santa’s laugh.

by Sabio Lantz, July 2018

Itches We Indulge

Prompt: Grace, at d’verse poets,  asks us to write a 44 word poem (“a quadrille”) about “itch”.

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Itches We Indulge

An itch is just this side of pain,
we indulge it so as not to go insane.
And though the doctor says not to scratch,
we all tend to be a little bit brash
when it comes to things like sex, drugs and fame.

— by Sabio Lantz, July 2018