Gnawing hunger was eating
Away at her being
He left her oh too soon
Blame it on the moon
She didn't deserve this
Unkindness clouded like mist
She should try to move on
Maybe it was put on
Like a curse
Couldn't be worse.
© gillena cox 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
Thursday, February 19, 2026
1372
Women in Carnival TT🇹🇹
Are we courting fire and brimstone?
Or, how deep are we into Hades?
Toe deep, ankle deep, knee?
It worried me for a while,
My masquerading sisters,
Playing mas so bare.
I pondered and contemplated.
You know, there was a time,
When women did not play mas,
Even though there were female roles
Men played them,
As i ponder, present day, women in mas,
Could it be, we are poems of protest?
Our energies are varied:
You know how recess time at school,
For some kids was play till you sweat,
While some more reserved will,
Go back to class intact,
Shirt in pants blouse in skirt.
So the way some women plas mas today,
Is our mind set recess time?
Then what of the spirit,
Because some folks cannot,
Look at these (ob)scenes,
Remember The Garden of Eden?
Remember how innocent we were,
Before that bite of the apple?
Then what happened?
God fashioned clothes
From fig leaves for us.
Are we poems of protest?
Is it recess time?
Will we get enough clothes sewn?
Do we need clothes in our sunfest?
© gillena cox 2026
BLOG HOPPING TODAY
Challenge:Write a poem built entirely (or mostly) from questions.
Guidelines:
- Begin with a question but don’t answer it. Let it breathe.
2. Continue with more questions that deepen, pivot, or expand on the theme.
3. Pair each question with imagery and metaphor. Let the image do some of the work of meaning.
4. Use at least two other poetic devices:
*personification
*alliteration or assonance
*contrast or paradox
*repetition for musicality
5.End on a question and resist the urge to resolve.
Let curiosity guide your lines. Let questions feel as powerful as answers.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
1371
THIS POEM IS A GLIMPSE, A SMILE AND A KISS
This poem is a glimpse
This poem a smile
This poem is a kiss
This poem is a glimpse as of
Strangers, but not so at all,
It is you, full of mischief
After our recent tryst
This poem is the smile you
Toss, at my greedy heart,
Wanting more, so much more
Of you, i swear i will swoon
This poem is a feather light kiss.
The kind that tingles and awakens
Desire, seeping through bones, to soul
Correct in effervescence
This poem is that glimpse of you, hours after
This poem is your smile, lingering through my day eternalizing minutes
This poem is your kiss, light enough to stir my soul.
© gillena cox 2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
1370
[image courtesy dVerse Poets Pub]
It is disgustingly disturbing the way lips forget. What they have kissed, become not sacred but obliterated and the taste of desire lingers like a gnawing hunger, biting into the secrets of night.
How many days must traverse one calendar before, feelings speak their truth. Before moons ripen bright in night skies for lovers to swoon over, with future promise.
The blue moons, the black moons, the super moons, all with their lights of varing orb. When is a kiss sealed, to tomorrow, still lingering in the now
© gillena cox 2026
BLOG HOPPING TODAY WITH
Challenge: To use the line "Lips forget what they have kissed"
Friday, February 13, 2026
1369
[image from google]
Enjoy The Music
Left or Right: A Fold
Walk with me, this sunny day
Let's count our strides; one
Two, three, here to there, may
Get us only to the curve, just
Barely; yes, this sunny day
Clear of the front gate, here
The Western Main Road, lay
Shall we go left, or go right,
To the market place i dare say
Not to distant, stacked with
Goodies to fetch, this sunny day
© gillena cox 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
1368
I'd Rather Go Blind?
Oh no no no,I'd rather it was not so
How do you sound colour
How do you taste dancing
Yes to the dancing feet
That i may meet
Out in the street
In colours glorious
Let these eyes behold continous
Children's carnival
© gillena cox 2026
Monday, February 9, 2026
1367
When Flowers Bloom In The Street
Yesterday was the Sunday
For Children Carnival parade
In St James 🇹🇹 near where i live
St James 🇹🇹 comes alive
Old and young dancing
Watching the children
The sun is hot hot
But nobody really cares
Watching the parade
The children enjoy
Displaying their fancy
© gillena cox 2026
Thursday, February 5, 2026
1366
[image from Pinterest]
Shine For The Carnival
The sun shines brighter
For all the brightest days
Then music can shine too
Prefacing the merriment
In the street when two days
The sun shines brighter
Then the gustiness
Carry more dust held tightly
For all the brightest days
A season so dry
Carefree and full of humour
Then music can shine too
© gillena cox 2026
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
1365
Seems the weather has deceided to behave, like a child finally, understanding the lolipop is within reach of discontinued tantrums.
Its sunny today, and bright, and gusty, and dusty, like true true Dry Season i used to know, before climate deceided to change her ways.
Carnival is a season, like Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter. Complete with its colour schemes, events, actions and music.
Carnival ends with two days of carefree costuming and dancing in the streets in groups called Carnival Bands, giving way to the solemn sacred Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten Season.
© gillena cox 2026
Monday, February 2, 2026
1364
[image from google]
blessing of candles -
ENJOY THE MUSIC
Because of today's date, in the northern hemisphere the tradition of the groundhog, will be in mind of many. Should the groundhog see his shadow, folks will buckle down to about six more weeks of winter and snow.
To spring or not to spring, that's what the sunlight will decide today.
And here in Trinidad where i live, for Catholics, the carols are finally shelved now. Today's feast is about the presentation of The Lord in the temple, the Candlemas.
After holy mass the creche/ nativity scene will be removed.
The last of the Christmas decorations to go.
hope in the light anchored
again today
© gillena cox 2026
Thursday, January 29, 2026
1363
[ image courtesy dVerse Poets Pub]
The Dream
I never knew i wanted to be a superhero,
Until the dream drew me in oh oh,
There was i then,
Solving problems this planet,
Had never done before,
My team worked very hard,
To rescue me,
When i was, captured by enemy guys,
Breathingly heavily,
Gasping all the while,
I escaped into reality.
Waking up i think,
I really didn't belong there at all.
© gillena cox 2026
Monday, January 26, 2026
1362
Paramin Here We Come
We planned this trip, thoroughly.
Leaving point, the Library.
Leaving time [9:00AM].
A stop along the way,
To visit a tiny museum.
Then, on our way to,
The Paramin lookout point.
Here we will have lunch,
And Take group photos.
The rain was unplanned.
© gillena cox 2026
Thursday, January 22, 2026
1361
[AI generated image]
She was a tawny gypsy girl,
A girl of twenty years,
I liked her for the lumps of gold
That jingled from her ears;
From: The Gypsy Girl By Ralph Hodgson at Poemhunter.com
Feet Afire
To dancce barefooted,
Must be a painful feat,
Except, a pillow of passion
Flowing tiny through veins,
Carries her higher, faster,
Enveloping air and feet hurl,
To heights unseemingly known,
Only to the vibe of dancer,
How does art develop to swirl?
She was a tawny gypsy girl
Whom sidewalk audience,
And prestige hall grew to know,
And loved her fast moving feet,
Destined for clouds, or so
One thought seeing her,
In motion throttle rhythmic fears,
Cadence carried along dreams,
Only the artiste dared to stir,
Yesterdays mattered not, nor tears,
A girl of twenty years.
Her layered skirts,
Frilled and coloured,
Patterned for sun moon and,
Roving ways through sleet and sun,
Danced a rhythm of her feet below,
For this was a sync of her and bold,
They always became a part,
Of her thrilling feat,
Those agonizing stories told,
I liked her for the lumps of gold.
Bedecked adorned for audiences'
Bewilderment, was her goal,
Always she drew them in, to
Tales of treachery, wander,
And exhausting moons
Above wagon wheels turning gears,
On dusty winding curves,
Music never dared to silence,
The clink of earring's solid years,
That jingled from her ears.
© gillena cox 2026
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
1360
[snow flake photo (2019)
Photograph by Klaus Vartzbed from Google]
New To Snow
In a time of vacation,
When minutes are relaxed,
Appetites surge like ocean waves
Waiting for godot now,
Is never piontless,
He will or he very well may not
Come what may the cold is real
And torrid weather oceans left behind
This is a move northward
Time spent away of comfort
Zone new and foreign
Anticipating snow is relevant
So when the dust of flakes
Fly to my unmittened cupped hand
Through the doorway, wow!
© gillena cox 2026
Monday, January 19, 2026
1359
Vasily Kandinsky - The Great Masters of Art - Bauhaus Movement ...from google
Eleventh Day
If i should die, before you should sleep, you should bury me. With the lies I told, you can carve a monument to debate about abstractionism.
With my truths, knit together a stone tablet of love. Remember to pen in my good deeds in a tabular form. Numbers one to eleven should suffice. Remember, i was born on an eleventh day. Shalom!
© gillena cox 2026
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
1357
[last train to San Fernando photo from Google]
One day the train
Chugged along its rails
And rested
Never again to whistle
Clank or chug
Then the buses rolled
With people kids and goods
The way things change
After long long semesters
© gillena cox 2026
##all of the railways were finally closed on December 28th, 1968 in Trinidad🇹🇹
SONG CHOICE FOR TODAY
1358
[ “Mme Kupka among Verticals” painted in 1910-11 by Frantisek Kupka. Courtesy dVerse] Poets Pub
A Look Back
She looks back
Only to see herself etched
In a canvas of colour bars
Not as tasty as candy
Much more messy
Than an artist palette
The truth triggers waterlilies
To blossom on strange
Mossy rocks
© gillena cox 2026
BLOG HOPPING TODAY WITH
Monday, January 12, 2026
1356
[image courtesy deVerse Poets Pub]
The Wonder Of A Smile
A smile can be healer
Better than a laugh
A smile can come easy
Only if you let
Meeting a stranger with
A greeting
A smile can surely help
If given happily
Heal the world
Smile today
Just one smile
Is all it takes.
© gillena cox 2026
Challenge: to write a 44 word quadrille using smile or some form of it
❧✿❧
Thursday, January 8, 2026
1355
A to Z of The Funnies
A witty thought just winged in
Better not to share it
Cause you might not think it funny
Delivery is so important
Even when it's stand up at
Five and dime stores
Garden parties or elsewhere
Hone your sport
Intent on entertaining
Jocular bites will only taste
Kosher if that pinch of jest
Lingers long after narrated
Mind you it can be short
Neither risque nor bawdy
Often tasteless content
Perturbes the listener to a yawn
Quietly think things through
Recite it in monologue
Surely its okay
To bore oneself
Until a masterpiece
Ventures in on
Wings of creativity
Xerox a few copies
Yours can start with
Zeus on the mountain resides
© gillena cox 2026
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
1354
[moko jumbies welcome us to a Sunday Queens Hall performance🇹🇹 December 2025]
SERENDIPITY
Who would be calling me this hour
It wasn't an inappropiate time of day
Just, i wasn't expecting anyone
To call me this Sunday
Hi how are you, i answer
Fine she answers
Just had some plumbing problem
But that's sorted out
Good i answer
So would you be interested
In going to the performance
this evening at Queens Hall
I couldn't believe my ears
Its a show i had wanted to go to
This has to be my Christmas miracle
Yes, yes yes, my voice echoed
I have two tickets she chimed in
I can pay for one, i retorted
Having had lunch
It was just about getting dressed
And waiting for her to pick me up
What a treat
Great singing voices,
I had been enjoying for years
Presenting a local version of
The Nativity story complete with
Enough fun and laughter
What a treat!
© gillena cox 2026
Challenge: to incorporate poet Elizabeth Bishop’s poetics - accuracy (detail), spontaneity (immediacy), and mystery (revelation) to write an original poem for today's submit
❧✿❧
🇹🇹 Moko jumbies welcome - for the performance of 'De Chile Fadder' by the Lydian Singers, Dec 2025
Monday, January 5, 2026
1353
[red ixoras from my garden, they luv blazing sunshine]
Creche 2025 at St Mary's RC Church here in St James, Trinidad 🇹🇹
Fireworks in my neighbourhood 🇹🇹
Happy New Year
The sunlight is really bright. For more than half of the day i stay away from two rooms in the house, even though they have curtained windows.
The sunlight just takes over. Besides being hot the brightness is overwhelming. What the sunlight is really saying is, it's Carnival time.
The music on the radio is hotter, saucier. The parang rythms are stored away for another Christmastime
tap tapping
my first haibun for this year
Happy New Year
© gillena cox 2026
midnight booming in 2006
