Slice of Life – A Snowy Sidlak

Denise Krebs10 Comments
18 November 2025 TwoWritingTeachers.org

I woke this morning after a rainy night, with Mt. San Gorgonio peeking through the clouds at its base. I’ve been writing a new poetry form called a sidlak, which is a five-line poem with a color in line 5. Syllable counts in lines 1-4 are 3/5/7/9, and any syllable count you want in line 5. (I wrote more sidlaks last week and shared them here.)

Ode to you,
San Gorgonio,
your snowy peak sings, rises
above and through the clouds this fine day,
white cap of grace.

Here is more about the sidlak poem:

A sidlak is a 5-line syllabic poem that includes a color word. The first four lines are written in 3/5/7/9 syllables, with the syllable count of line 5 left to the poet's discretion. Line five includes a color that portrays the whole poem or the writer's feelings without any syllable count restriction. 

Poetry Friday – A Rainbow of Sidlak Poems

Denise Krebs13 Comments

It’s Poetry Friday and Carol Labuzzetta is hosting with a poem and photo of this week’s Aurora Borealis.

Submission Opportunity

I wanted to share a fun submission opportunity with everyone. Tyger, Tyger Magazine‘s next edition will be children’s poems using any poetic form on any topic. The sample poems Rachel shares are great inspiration.

A Series of Sidlaks

On another note, here is a new poetry form that Tricia shared with me. (See more here.) A sidlak is a 5-line poem with syllable counts of 3/5/7/9. The fifth line includes a color word and the number of syllables is up to the poet. These have been fun to write this week.

Can we please
grow through the wild sea?
The sea of indifference?
What will it take to heal in this dry
and thirsty land, so brown and sad?
Phoebe, did
you know something sad?
The brokenness of this life?
I thought you would live long after me,
so pink and hopeful.
Aurora
Borealis, you
are showing off your colors.
Even down south from my desert porch,
your red stretches here.

Clutching your
poems, embracing
you through snail mail sharing of
life, makes me want to share myself too;
blue feelings rise to the surface.
Not what I
wanted, but what I
ordered. I meant to say, “Chai,”
but when asked, I read the counter sign:
“Matcha”–so, green tea today.

Poetry Friday – I.C.E.

Denise Krebs9 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday and our host is Patricia J. Franz at Reverie with a Tahoe Tanka and a wonder walk through the forest for Write Out.

ICE Agents Storm My Porch

by Maria Melendez Kelson

The Indiscriminate Citizenry of Earth
are out to arrest my sense of being a misfit.
“Open up!” they bellow,
hands quiet before my door
that’s only wind and juniper needles, anyway.
read the rest here

I appreciated reading Kelson’s poem with all the descriptive, beautiful, interesting images like “a lock of my natal dust”, “fluttering fiber of lacebark pine” and “Undergoing re-portation.”

I watch the news these days, with the destruction of the White House and the daily vulgarities of I.C.E. in America, and I can’t write poetry anymore, but I keep trying even if I just record history. Like this week, having called the I.C.E. office four times and only getting the runaround, this was my poem for today.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

I.C.E.
Real ice is transparent,
lets the light shine through.
and doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not.
I.C.E. is Incompetent, Cruel Exploitation
with their masked men who refuse to show IDs,
their jumping people in the streets,
(and snatching people from homes)
their detaining citizens and green card holders,
their refusal to answer questions
and won’t pass on messages to the supervisor
who authorized the kidnapping of Rocio,
their jackboots on the neck of America.

Slice of Life – A Little Bit of This and That

Denise Krebs12 Comments
21 October 2025 TwoWritingTeachers.org

It is autumn in the Midwest, such a favorite time of the year for me. I have lots of good memories from the nearly twenty years I lived in Iowa and Michigan. This weekend I got a taste of the fall again.

It was baby shower weekend for our family. My youngest is having her first baby in December. We all flew to Minneapolis and put on a big party! It was delightful. These two and their future baby are loved and supported in a special village; we are ready to help them raise this little one.

The day before was No Kings Day.  There were scores of protests in the Minneapolis area, and we walked to the nearest one. I was wishing I was a photographer and could take portraits and interview individuals. I was struck with how American, how everyday, how beautiful each person was in their commitment to be there, to be in community, to protest what is going on in our government. These people were not “whacked out” at all, as our president described them.

Speaking of our president, I read some quotes this morning on neutrality. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “An individual who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” Here is my poem for the day, a found poem using seven quotes about neutrality.

Which Side of History?

In situations of injustice
we must take sides.
Exploitation and oppression
demand speaking out the whole truth.
Washing one’s hands of the conflict
means to side with the powerful.
You can’t be neutral
in times of great moral conflict.

Lines from quotes by 1) Desmond Tutu, 2) Elie Wiesel, 3) Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, 4) Mahatma Gandhi, 5-6) Paulo Freire, 7) Howard Zinn, 8) Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read the full quotes here:


Slice of Life – #WriteOut

Denise Krebs20 Comments
14 October 2025 TwoWritingTeachers.org

It’s Write Out time; October 12-26 this year. Let’s all get outside and write often! It seems to be more important than ever this year–nature and writing, especially in community, can be so powerful.

I made junk journals with space to write and a wealth of prompts for later.

Six of us, ages 4-70, started out on this 2.5 hours wandering and wondering adventure. After the first hour, I had to take my sister’s four-year-old granddaughter back to her mom. Then the five of us continued.

Travis Puglisi and I led the event. Travis is a naturalist and local hiking guide. He taught us so much about the flora and fauna of the area. We also stopped at different times to write. I based my prompts on Kim Douillard’s “Let’s Go on a Wonder Walk” from this year’s Choice Board. Before the first leg of the hike, I read a short poem and asked them to think about and notice their senses. The second time, I did a reading and asked them to focus on colors. The third time would have been, a reading and a focus on questions, but we were running out of daylight due to our slow start, so we skipped this one! Our hike went from bright afternoon sunshine, through the golden hour, and into darkness. We talked and laughed and got to know each other, along with the learning, writing, and sharing. It was a great event.

Travis speculating about these small holes in the ground.
We are having an unusual October wildflower bloom.
Do you see the smoke at the base of the mountains? We had a small forest fire this afternoon. Fortunately it was contained quickly.

Here are the things I wrote while out yesterday:

I am celebrating Write Out with some desert lovers, and I am delighted.
The mosquitos are hassling me now as I Write Out on this gorgeous fall day. October rain has brought mosquitos to life.

I smell the cuminy yellow flowers and the sagey chia.
I see Ashley’s magenta hair trekking through
the desert greens and browns coming to pick up her girl.
I hear deep breaths and soft fly buzzes and earlier the crunch of gravel underfoot. It’s much quieter now that Indie’s gone.
I touch the creosote and breathe deeply, remembering the petrichor of last week.
I taste the cold water in my bag and say thank you for the life-giving
refreshment of hydration.

If I were green
I would be just one
in the desert neighborhood
of greens—silvery mint, dusty,
sage, yellowish, olive, army,
hunter, foresty pine or juniper.
How many green neighbors are there?
Standout greens dotted
with apricot mallow
and yellow sunflower highlights.
Today, I am part of this desert painting.

Poetry Friday – Thankful for Poetry Swapping and New Prompts

Denise Krebs15 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve been here; Hello, Poetry Friday friends! Linda Baie is hosting the round-up today at Teacher Dance with some Dickens magic.

I woke up this Friday morning, missing this community and thankful once again for the friends I swapped poems with this summer: Tabatha Yeatts, Buffy Silverman, Michelle Kogan, Tanita Davis, Margaret Simon, and Tricia Stohr-Hunt.

A Cento of Gratitude

Hey, have you seen
that nimble
future with sunlight?
Sunflowers’
showy petals unfold
tasting the sky
then lift me up to bloom

(lines from Michelle, Tabatha, Tricia, Buffy, and Margaret)

One of the treasures from this summer that I’ve often used this month is the wallet of prompts that Tricia Stohr-Hunt made. (She wrote about it here.) I’m including a few poems that I’ve written using these very engaging and new-to-me prompts. Thanks, Tricia, and thanks to all those who participate in the poetry swaps. (Special thanks to Tabatha, for organizing graciously and excellently!)

Kai
(A Pleiades Poem)
Kind, smart, good provider
Keeping life compelling
Kickstart a new chapter
Key to unravel doubt
Kernel of truth revealed
Kindle a future hope
Knitted closely in love

arise
(A Prisoner’s Constraint Poem)
meanness
is worse
since we
own a
ruinous
womanizer.
now we
ooze
racism,
venom,
ruin.

we remain.
arise anew.
move.

Bike Ride
(A Tetractys Poem)

rain
thunder
and lightning
coming soon, now
we rode fast, high power, beat the storm. Yes!

A Poem Without Rocio
(A Lipogram Poem)

Even when
we ban
new humans,
she wants us.
Even when we
take away the means,
take away status,
she wants us.

Maybe
she and they
stay when
we assent,
when we
get that we
need them.

Early Gift
(An Octelle Poem)

The rain whispered her dreams to me
in the early morning would be
She holds her pen to draw some
promises of spring blossoms
We will sing into the breeze
the drops trickling through the trees
The rain whispered her dreams to me
in the early morning would be

A Day at Eloy

Denise Krebs11 Comments
7 October 2025 TwoWritingTeachers.org

Sunday morning my sister and I got up early and drove to Eloy Detention Center. We got to the detention center at 12:30 before our 1:00 p.m. appointment. It took the whole 30 minutes to go through the check-in process. We needed our driver’s license and car license plate number, written on my hand. That’s all we could bring in according to the signs. We had a car key that we also brought in because we didn’t know where else to put it. They kept it for us at the desk.

This detention center is known as “the deadliest immigration detention center in the U.S.” It’s very much like a prison. We had to go through about six doors with cameras as we had to identify ourselves by name to get each door unlocked. We went through a metal detector and our shoes went through an x-ray machine. Then we were patted down.

After twenty minutes in a waiting room and a couple more doors, we met our friend. Hugs were limited to the beginning and end of the visit. And limited in duration. “Just a regular hug,” we were told when our hug lingered too long for them.

We sat at a table with a six-inch wooden barrier, but we weren’t allowed to touch over the barrier. They made that very clear when I took Rocio by the hand over the barrier.

Once while we were talking, a guard came by and told Rocio to take her hand out of her shirt. WTF? I thought. She had been touching her shoulder just under the edge of her scrubs. I immediately rubbed my shoulder under my shirt. In solidarity? I don’t know. I wondered how someone would ever agree to do a job that strips dignity and agency from humans. Will she tell me not to do it too? I wondered as I rubbed my shoulder.

No more of this nonsense. No more punishing, humiliating, and terrorizing people who try to immigrate legally. No more doing it in our name.

What can we do to make it stop?

A Lipogram
A Poem Without Rocio

Even when
we ban
new humans,
she wants us.
Even when we
take away the means,
take away status,
she wants us.

Maybe
she and they
stay when
we assent,
when we
get that we
need them.

A lipogram is a writing that leaves out a letter (or a group of letters). In this one, I’ve left out the letters in Rocio’s name.

ADDENDUM: If you would like to bless Rocio with a postcard or letter of encouragement, please let me know and I’ll email you her address. (Your email will come to me if you leave a comment.) By the way, you can write in Spanish, English or in French. She speaks them all, in addition to her native languages. Thank you!

Slice of Life – Hustle-Pedaling Home

Denise Krebs9 Comments

Today is the Slice of Life. Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for providing this place to share slices of our lives.

We got up early this morning to take a bike ride. The coming rain showers, due at 7:00 a.m., were not going to stop us. We left a few minutes after six, and had a nice ride to Black Rock Canyon, a satellite section of Joshua Tree National Park.

We saw lightning in the distance and considered waiting under the awning of the visitor center for the coming storm to pass. Instead, we decided to hustle-pedal home (in power level 3 on our e-bikes).

About a mile from home it started raining, but not too hard–just sprinkles on my shirt. When we got home, under the carport roof, it was exactly 7:02 a.m. That’s when the buckets started pouring out of the sky! It seemed magically engineered.

I was so thankful to be home! Now it’s 8:30 a.m., and we’ve had a half inch of rain. (Our first measurable rain this monsoon season.)