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[images in this collage; courtesy dVerse Poets pub]

 Celebration: the bloom of fireworks sounding night sky,

Statements: louder that birds whistling-in the day,

And yet: a purple weed is bowing low,

In solemnity: of a life spanned that once was aglow,

You must have had: a yellow center imaging the sun,

That was when: life was full as pregnant moon,

Oh wait: are those sparks to light the dark,

Really: can the night ever lose her charcoal,

When: can the question of blooming be parallel to soul,

Maybe: when futures meet again

Revisiting the past: in prophecy of tomorrows.

© gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With
 Poetics: A Tale of Two Images 

  

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1419

A two season clime, we look toward Rainy Season and Dry Season. And now-a-days, folks will tell you these seasons are less clearly defined, since climate change is now the norm.

Still, here in Trinidad and Tobago🇹🇹 solstices are defined by the sun's maximum tilt, marking the longest and shortest days of the year. Because the islands are close to the equator, daylight differences  are less extreme than in higher latitudes. The longest day of the year yields about 1 hour and 15 minutes more daylight than the shortest day.

And too, here, solstice is more so a nuance, and something, realized by those of scientific or meteological minds

coolness of morning -

through the opened window

bird songs and whistles

© gillena cox 2026

NOTE: I googled for info on the solstices as it would apply to Trinidad and Tobago

Blog Hopping Today With
  Haibun Monday 6-22-26: First Solstice  

  

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 Blue Blue God Loves You

Sky is a wild party wooing grace

Look to prayers jetting into universal space

Responses chirp in morning twitters

Newness is a carnival of emotions

Maybe just maybe an astronaut

Is returning to our planet blue

Where what is old and what is new

Parallel the highways they traverse

© gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With
  Get Out Your Crayons and Come Color with Me! 

  

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[image composed at Picsart]

Green Face Man

Succesfully as a belt for whooping,

Was 'de green face man' 

Parent-wielding myth,

All about the town at night,

Was he a supposedly frightful sight,

A calypsonian sang:

"De greenface man is all about

De devil in de town so hush you mouth."

© gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With

Quadrille #250 - Mything Poems

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LISTEN TO THE CALYPSO HERE

1416

 Mountain range view from St James,🇹🇹 

Who dares crop the mountain,

Not me maybe you not i,

Bulky bulge enormous insane,

Clouds can sit in passing by,

Giants jealous of passing rain,

Shelter with umbrellas and sigh,

If you raise your mind to gain, 

Out of respect to the higher guy, 

Buzzards pass watch  you strange,

Crazies! on the mountain range.

Hoping they will bring about change

© gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With

Legs Eleven 

  Writing in the form:

2. The Eleventh Power by Christina Jussaume,

11 line poem

1 stanza

11 syllables per line

rhyme scheme of abababccddd or ababababccc,

an uplifting theme

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1415

 When the morning opens and

The moon shies herself in fadng moods

When the sky takes back her box of crayons

And roostings wings flutter

Then beaks wide open sing songs of rebirth

That is when 

Earthworms wiggle beneath the surface

For they have no need of azure skies

Theirs is the gift of dirt and how to shovell it well

But the winged ones

Those are the event bringers i celebrate with

Birdsongs are prayers to the newness

The thanksgiving chants for

Waking to another day

 © gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With

Unpunctuated

  

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[image from Picsart]

 A terribly hot day. Even so we still deceided on a hike. Back packs secured, our sneakered feet started walking, up the hills so dry, so dense the underbrush, that where I pushed my way the giant hush was changed to soft explosion of hurrah we can do this.

And so we walked on through scrub and trees we could not name, until the forest darkness changed to light of sky. This is certainly the most successful hike ever

 © gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 

 Prosery: A View from the Hills 

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[Kiskadee image from google]

kis kis kadeee

everyday at sunrise

these birds pass

on the baton to another

day of destined living

© gillena cox 2026

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 

Open Link Night #409 

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[image from Pinterest, edited at Picsart]

Something

Something old - those photos faded now, seem strange and somewhat awkard, faces disappearing within past times

Something new will perhaps be so, for mere moments; time and technology in a fierce battle of existing and continuing. 

Something borrowed - does anything really belong? is anything even really owned? Food, clothing, rites and rituals

Something blue like the sky, which scientists report is not coloured so but only appears thus. Not to be confusing. So don't overthink it

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

Poetics: Something Borrowed, Something Blue

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[photo from Pinterest]

 A most embrassing moment,

Why did he accept the challenge?

The band leader shouted,

Blow boy!

He put the horn to his lips and  with all his might.

He blew.

The horn is not his instrument.

What he grew up playing, is the pan

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 Q 249 Toot Toot!

Write a quadrille, prompt horn

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[AI generated image]They twinkle the night sky,

Lift wishes heavenly high,

How time has ticked

a heaven round the stars,

Hope is the thing held up high.

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 Taking a Fine Line Down”

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Let  Them

Let them smirk

I will write

Let them whisper

I will publish

Let them laugh

I will read to delighted children

Let them rag

I will read my poems to adult fingers snapping

Let them sink low

I will rise, rise, rise

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

“Let Them” Write Poetry

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1408

Down the concrete steps.  I would sit in the outside kitchen, in a corner, on a wooden stool. And you standing in front of a hot stove, stirring your pot. You would share your stories of growing up, without a mother, who died early  in your life. Leaving you like a mother  to your brothers and sisters. But these stories were told in  a matter of fact mood. That was how it was. There was neither anger nor regret intoned.

how lucky am i

to be privy to your life -

now you too have left

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

  Haibun Monday 5-25-26: Remembrance

Link any poem of your choice

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[image from Pinterest]

He said he could play the flute

I thought he was being cute

And what of steelpan

He said of course he can

With his sister playing the lute

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 OpenLinkNight #408

Link any poem of your choice

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 Please, Behave!

When he picked her up,

Tossing her above him,

Ovehead held there,

[Marc Chagall, La promenade (The Promenade) (1918), oil on canvas, courtesy  dVerse Poets Pub]

Her only thought was,

Please please,

Don't let my bloomers show,

My father would never approve

This kind of behaviour,

Please please,

Oh wind oh wind, behave!

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 Don’t box me in

Write an Ekphrastic poem about one of the given paintings

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 Shane

My pet of high school days,

Would stand by me in so many ways,

He walked me to the bus stop,

And waited my return,

How did he know when i would be home,

Shane - my pet my dog my pal,

What a pal!

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 Quadrille #248 – This One’s Gone to the Dogs 

44 words poem

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 [The Dreamer,” an oil painting by Caspar David Friedrich from the period 1820-1840, ]

To Sleep

Night is generally for sleeping

I toss and turn

Close my eyes, then open them; peeping

Again pull up the covers; durn

If its too hot like; roasting

I pull them down again; stern

My opened eyes espy; the dark's  in

I think may be a nightlight; kerne

Or a glass of water; pouring

Or a dream; yearn

But first to sleeping

For there are no daydreams at night; learn

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 Unlock with lists 

Writing List poems

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[image courtesy dVersePoets Pub]

Childhood friends those two

When everything spelt anew

Stood at the window

Observing all below

Never was their laughter few

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

  Poetics Tuesday: What art says 

artworks by Indian artists given ; to write a poem inspired by any one

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     [image Frederick Carl Frieseke (American, 1874 – 1939), The Bird Cage courtesy dVerse Poets Pub]

A Bird In A Cage

That song, that mesmerising song. Some things are just not good for an unsober head, carrying a mind of non direction, crazed in booze, and too bold women, and the faint perfume.

From its chalice steals, the sacred blend of dignity, divinity, deep serious contemplation and remorse, by morning glare. When did it occur to them to look for him, to ask about him.

Weren't they drinking buddies? Weren't buddies supposed to look after one another? It is a sad day went a friend goes missing, like a phantom,  out of the night. When a friend's wife is left alone; to listen to the song of a bird in a cage.  

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

 Prosery - Paul Laurence Dunbar 

Write a prose, using a line given from Dunbar's poem - Sympathy; the same poem credited for Maya Angelo' s poem title "I know why the cage bird sings"

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[image courtesy dVerse Poets Pub]

Roses In Conversation

Afternoon delight,  bordeaux

Tangles summer song;

Windrush, sea foam, penny lane and white wings

Sound on a brass band;

Restless, queen of hearts

Signs: No surrender!

Peace! shouts a mermaid at Golden Gate;

The Eiffel Tower is in France;

Ebb tide is upon us Desdemona,

Pass the cayenne pepper please, dear Quicksilver.

© gillena cox

Blog Hopping Today With

  

  Poetics: Names of the Rose 

Write a poem using at least 5 names of roses from a given list: 

Afternoon Delight. Bordeaux. Brass Band. Cayenne. Desdemona. Ebb Tide. Eiffel Tower. Golden Gate. Mermaid

No Surrender. Peace. Penny Lane. Queen of Hearts.vQuicksilver. Restless

Sea Foam. Summer Song. Tangles. White Wings. Windrush

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