Midnight at the Oasis – Infographic Artwork

Dread Death Come

A #TwistedNurseryRhyme mimicking “Are You Sleeping”

Secrets keeping

Dread is creeping

Hope is gone

Death has come

Hear our dirges singing

Mourning bells are ringing

Ding dong dead, dread Death come

 

Darkness streaming,

no more dreaming

Hope is gone

Death has come

Death knell is a-ringing

Mourning bells are ringing

Ding dong dead, dread Death come

© 09 September 2019, by D. Denise Dianaty

Sketch artwork by D. Denise Dianaty

A Mother's Tears

This poem was composed for the “Flash Tales” prompt, for the week of 26-31 August 2019, moderated by Toni Keif, in WE PAW Bloggers group on Facebook. The prompt: 500 words or less and the #writingprompt is “Standing on the shore of the Salish Sea.”
Her eyes brimming with tears
from a heart broken for years
The final pain sealing her fears
Of his tragic end alone

Bent by age, crushed by woes
Recalling his sweet button nose
of twid’ling his sweet little toes
potentiality prone

Silvered hair, wrinkled face
In his life, she had no space
Hope now lost of finding a place
Never again coming home

A shining son dimmed, lost
Only son shed by cru-el cost
Into the wide sea of death crossed
He found no meaning owned

Ash tipped from golden urn
In the Salish Sea now churn
With salty tears her cheeks burn
A mother’s tears sown

Bent by age, crushed by woes
Mother’s love lost to fame’s woes
Bent by age, crushed by woes
Mother turns, heads home alone

© 30 August 2019, by D. Denise Dianaty

Eamonn Doyle’s “Shapeshifter” from his series titled “K”

Façade

Self-convincing deceptions
We make and accept in Life

Each one pricks as a tiny cut
An almost imperceptible wound

We wound our deepest self
To choose what lie we will

Tending gardens of our hearts
As the nightingale weeps a lonely song

The flowers are melancholy
That content, we lose the dream

Bleeding drawn by pricking thorns
With putrescence we cultivate roses

© 14 August 2019, by D. Denise Dianaty

Fear Her… Fear Liberty

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

“Fear Liberty” – Multimedia artwork, 12 July 2019, by D. Denise Dianaty

Fear her… Fear Liberty
Once upon a time of hope…
Liberty shone her light,
welcoming unto the world
Proclaiming covenant…
The America she shown upon
Now dims… now hides her light,
unkind… harsh… unwelcoming…
Denying covenant…
No quarter for those tempest-tost
No hope they may breath free
No more the Mother of Exiles
Covenant is broken…
Your huddled masses turned away…
Her lamp, not lifted… shuttered.
The Golden Door is dross.
Fear her… Fear Liberty.

©12 July 2019, by D. Denise Dianaty
This words of this poem, like so much of my poetry, were inspired by the creation of the artwork. The poem flowed from the process.

Cruelty is the point

Another child died in custody
A brown babe looked upon distrustfully

Demonizing refugees crudely
The point is unrelenting cruelty

Ripping babies from their mothers’ arms
Locking them in cages, increasing harm

Gassing caravans to stem the flow
Of families fleeing tyranny’s woe

Tell soldiers to use lethal force
Hoping they’ll kill those caravans, of course

Look upon Liberty’s abject shame
You’re seeking asylum? J’acuse! We blame

© 25 May 2019, by D. Denise Dianaty

Original Infographic created c.2016, by D. Denise Dianaty

Breath of a Sigh

We are our own angels…

if we only remember we can fly. 

A true partner in love… 

is the wind lifting us back to the sky-- 

To be our wings for us…

when our own strength cannot lift us high.

Alone we may falter.

Together we soar on the breath of a sigh

© 04 July 2018, by D. Denise Dianaty

Curse of the Bark

Graphic created by D. Denise Dianaty

He startled her with a roguish pinch

Ignored her feral smile and angry squint

In a fine-china cup she served him tea 

Made from the bark of the wolf-willow tree

Too late he learned in the moon high dark

The gypsy curse of the bark in the bark

© 08 March 2018

by D. Denise Dianaty

Acrostic poem: My Forever Valentine

My Forever Valentine

My forever Valentine

You will always be in my heart

Fidelity and loyalty are my pledge

One heart of love laid bare for you

Reverently made an altar to Love

Endowed with sanctity by your devotion

Veracity writ in your every glance

Enduring loyalty and sustaining love

Reverently offered in your gentle touch

Valentine’s Day and every day

Are ours ever and forevermore

Love plucked down from the stars

Entwining our two hearts in one

Nestling here in our embrace

Testifying God’s great gift to us

In gentle, softly whispered kisses

Nature blessed our noble hearts to

Encircle our souls united across all time

by D. Denise Dianaty

© 04 February 2015

Pick up your own copy of my first book of poetry at My Life In Poetry

Words

A poem about the power of words giving birth to poetry. Words matter. They have the power to tear down, to destroy; words can cut deeply. But, words also have the power to heal, to create, to uplift; words can be a beacon to a better future. 

The beauty in words…

Even through darkness…

Dark words seek… find light…

To carry light out of darkness.

Words to hurt

Words to heal

Words destroy

Words create

In the space between…

In the mind’s eye…

Wrenched from the void…

Forming reality of words…

Words to hurt

Words to heal

Words destroy

Words create

On flight of words…

On the precarious summit…

On the razor’s edge…

That’s where poetry is born.

by D. Denise Dianaty

© 05 September 2014

Joseph’s Angel

Daughter, sister, wife, mother… friend
She gave loyalty for loyalty to the end
Her flame-kissed hair shinin’ like a halo
That gently teasing turn of her lips, just so
Losing Dawny cuts deep to our hearts
A little piece o’sunshine torn from hearts

With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of a kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’hell

Joseph’s Angel, mom to the fiercest degree
Gone from us now with the Lord to be
Laughing eyes dimmed in pain never more
Gone home, sharin’ stories on the golden shore
Lookin’ down on her Joe with hopeful sighs
In our Lord’s bosom Our Dawny now lies

With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of a kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’hell

We see her now with little tricksy pranks
Laughter for all in Heaven’s ranks
We’ll miss Joseph’s Angel while we rejoice
God called her forth with His wise choice
To with the Heavenly Hosts her stories regale
Dawny’s gone Home, made new, hearty and hale

With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of a kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’hell

I never imagined such a world or day
Where she wasn’t just a phone call away
Joseph’s Angel always found the laughter
In every situation of the joke she was master
She told our stories, rendered humorously
Showed us not to take ourselves so seriously

With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’Hell

RIP Dawn Dell Dever Connell – my sister and my friend. [11 July 1967–30 November 2016]
I never imagined a world where our Dawny wasn’t just a phone call away. When you went Home, Dawny, a little bit of sunshine went out of the world. I don’t weep for our Dawny. There’s no more pain and suffering for her. She’s gone Home to the Lord’s embrace – for that, I will celebrate. However, for now… and for a long time to come… I weep. I weep for Joseph and Wayne. I weep for our parents and sisters. I weep for myself. I weep for a world without our Dawny… without Joseph’s Angel to make us laugh.

D. Denise Dianaty
©23 July 2017

My Life In Poetry

My first book is available for purchase on 

Amazon.com at My Life In Poetry

(Please click on the above link and buy the book)

Much of my poetry is auto-biographical. The photography in the book, including the cover photo, is my own. I write of love, marriage, motherhood, passion, poetry, romance, Faith, and more.