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Hello to All who are gathered here today in the dVerse Universe, a site of pubtalk and poetry. This Monday is where You and Your Muse are prompted to write a Quadrille. The name for the quadrille form is taken from an 18^th Century dance, but as you may know, is also dVerse’ poetic form of just 44 words (not counting the title) and includes one word the host provides to you. Today your host is me, Lisa, back from a March-long poetry hiatus and at the ready to serve drinks and snacks from the magic cupboard.

As people, places, and things exist in three dimensions, six senses, and often beyond, the word I’m choosing for today is contour. It’s a pretty word and encompasses all-that-is or isn’t. A beautiful freedom is found in it that strikes my fancy. As I went looking for images to go with this post, I very quickly learned that the word is used in connection with make-up, but try to forget that if you can (or not) when writing your poem.

The first poem I found using contour just freakishly also happens to be a quadrille. What are the odds of that? I see this one as speaking to how contours can create illusion. Is it the dancer or is it the writer’s stage that is the illusion?

Confused,
by Joyce Carol Gibson

I can still see her
powder puffy tutu
Delicate pink
Lending contour
Matching ribbons
Inter-braided hair
French love knots
Trial of patience
Stage make-up
Extended eyes
Exaggerated cheeks
Round and rosy
Born to dance
Yet, she stands,
Devastated and alone
On my mind’s stage.

This next one is a stanza in a longer poem, a thoughtful existential rehash of something that must have once held great importance in the writer’s life. Click on the title to take you to the rest.

Dead Silhouette,
by Joe Strickland

…
In the realm of the living,
Where bodies dance
And voices reverberate,
This silhouette remained
Trapped in a silent tomb,
A visual testament
To a narrative
Left unfinished.
Its contours
Dissolved
Into the depths
Of my perception,
A faded hologram
Of a forgotten era,
Haunted
By the echoes
Of a forgotten voice.
…

Who could think that water could be described in such a way. This is just a bit of a magnificently wordsmithed sensory extravaganza. Click on the title to take you to the rest of it.

Water’s Lubricious Edges,
by Coral Bracho, translated by Forrest Gander

Water of jellyfish,
lacteal, sinuous water,
water of lubricious borders; glassy thickness—Deliquescence
in delectable contours. Water—sumptuous water
of involution, of languor
…

I saw the title and the first line and said, yes, this one. I love how the poet uses leaves as emotional navigation.

The Shapes of Leaves,
by Arthur Sze

Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree:
our emotions resemble leaves and alive
to their shapes we are nourished.

Have you felt the expanse and contours of grief
along the edges of a big Norway maple?
Have you winced at the orange flare

searing the curves of a curling dogwood?
I have seen from the air logged islands,
each with a network of branching gravel roads,

and felt a moment of pure anger, aspen gold.
I have seen sandhill cranes moving in an open field,
a single white whooping crane in the flock.

And I have traveled along the contours
of leaves that have no name. Here
where the air is wet and the light is cool,

I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,
I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,
I am living at the edge of a new leaf.

The source of the poems are found at the title link. Learn more about each of these excellent poets by clicking on the link of the poet’s name.

Once again, we have come to the place where you put your proverbial pen to paper and warm it with your poetic spirit’s will in words.

• Pen us a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), including some form of the word contour.
• Post your Quadrille piece on your blog and link back to this post.
• Place the link to your actual post (not your blog url) on the Mister Linky page.
• Don’t forget to check the little box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Please visit other blogs and comment on their posts!
• Have fun (but only if you want to!)