pictured words

a simple pairing of pictures and poetry

Category: Poetic Bloomings

Come Fly with Me

from www.flickr.com

Come Fly with Me

Let’s catch us a flight
to a village in Wales
named Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.
We’ll see all the sites,
and return with tall tales
of Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.

I’d say let’s write verse,
but I doubt there’s a rhyme
for Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.
So as we traverse,
let’s be poets in mime
in Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.

© Marie Elena Good 2026

Things I Can Do For Me

Photo by Zuzanna Hoffmann on Pexels.com

Things I Can Do for Me

Teach ESL to awe-inspiring refugee and immigrant women
Hold memories close
Invest in others
Notice loveliness around me
Granddaughter time!
Spend time with those I love

Intercessory prayer

Compose well-written poems and poorly written poems
Appreciate all I can do … and all I can’t, but others can
Nod and smile to you, whoever you are

Delight in little things
Offer God my humble thanksgiving

Frame my day with time with Jesus
Open windows to smell spring’s viburnum and lilac
Roll with it

Music (listen myself, and sing when nobody listens)
ESL volunteer teacher time bookends this acrostic

not the end

© Marie Elena Good 2026

Wait, What?

Photo by Keith Cassill on Pexels.com

Wait, What?

I should be content
with my cozy home, but I
really want a porch.

You know: a front porch
that welcomes old and new friends
and has a porch swing.

Maybe wrap-around,
with pretty haint blue ceiling,
and tongue-and-groove floor.

‘Musts’ are ceiling fans,
some colorful hanging plants,
and two rocking chairs.

If I could, I would
build it myself. Believe me –
if I wood, I could.

© Marie Elena Good 2026

Untitled Haibun

Photo by K on Pexels.com

“A very little key will open a very heavy door.”  ~ Charles Dickens

Not all journeys entail physically moving via mode of travel.   Not all baggage is luggage.  Not all in our possession belongs to us.  Not all we carry on our shoulders is ours to carry.  Not all we push against, even with all our might, will budge.   Not all we move toward is best for us.

Let loose your baggage.
When the key opens the door,
you know you are home.

© Marie Elena Good 2026

In the Cool of the Day

Pexels.com

In the Cool of the Day

When God created Adam from the dust of the earth, He breathed His own life into him.  Adam had as near a perfect relationship with God as we could possibly fathom.  They walked together in the garden in the cool of the day.  They talked.  God allowed Adam to name every animal He had created.  The Bible doesn’t go into much detail about their daily communion with each other, but it leaves no doubt they had an intimate relationship.  Adam had God in face-to-face, real connection.  What an amazing thing to ponder.  We know God has a sense of humor, and that He made Adam in His own imagine.  I love to imagine them making each other laugh to near tears on the regular! I love to imagine Adam picking God’s brain when it came to caring for His creation. How amazing would it be to have been able to have a documentary of, say, a week in the life. Oh to have that face-to-face, closest of relationships with our very God!  And yet, God saw that Adam experienced a nagging and substantial loneliness that he couldn’t shake. Did God reprimand him with, “Adam! Quit your whining, oh ye of little faith!  I am all you need!”  No.  He understood and His heart was touched by Adam’s need. He made a companion and “suitable helper” for Adam.  And then God communed with both of them. 

God values our needs.
And in fact, to come to Him,
need is all we need.

© Marie Elena Good 2026

Hospital Room 314

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Hospital Room 314

Clanks outside his room
would inspire the old Gandy Dancers’
calls and responses.

When no one is in the room,
the motion-activated towel dispenser

dispenses. 

He says when he sits on the toilet,
the woodgrain in the door
resembles a nearly life-size man
sitting on the toilet
watching him sit on the toilet.

checking poking prodding in and out of the room in and out of his veins trying to get him from point A to the much-needed point B

Rest doesn’t come easily.

That tracks.

© Marie Elena Good 2026


© Marie Elena Good 2026

This is in response to our Poetic Blooming’s prompt #598: Write an on track poem. It is also about my husband, who was admitted for an acute attack of pancreatitis.

Dispirited

Photo by Tuu011fba on Pexels.com

DISPIRITED

Darkness descended
within and without.
No glint of joy.
No moon to spill soft light.

Margins blurred between night and heart
as she sat silently,
giving no voice to the shadows within.

He held her silence,
and built her a fire in the hearth.

Her eyes fixed on the flames,
as if her only solace.
He tended the fire long into the night,
until the final log was nearly consumed.

He then rose from his rocker,
split it,
and kept the flames alive.

© Marie Elena Good, 2012 (reworked in 2026)

This expresses a true event of an evening during one of my daughter’s darkest seasons and her rien remarkable act of sensitive selflessness.

Predicament

Predicament

There once was a gal named Marie
A head of brunette curls had she.
Then some became white
and, what seemed overnight,
she saw scalp where some curls used to be!

© Marie Elena Good 2026

For today’s pictured words post, you’ll have to picture it. 😉

Through My Window

Through My Windows

Antique

Old lamp’s prisms
reveal rainbows
and remembrances.



Night Light

Night’s lesser light
strikes snow’s pure white.
My bedroom awakens.



Senses

slender window
flaunts lilacs,
draws scent


© Marie Elena Good 2026

Two Poems for Mother’s Day

The Mother of Alzheimer’s

Who birthed (unearthed)
This unwelcome invasion,
Or gave it the right
To hijack each occasion
Meant to endure and assure her
She’s loved. She belongs.

It ceaselessly wrongs her,
Assassinates her senses;
Condenses her being
To fleeting moments,
Thought amputation,
Self dislocation,
And few kin.

And it will win.

© Marie Elena Good, 2016


Mom’s Passing (2018)

She began speaking
of needing to get ready
for the bus (taxi?)

that would very soon
be arriving to take her.
If she knew where to,

she didn’t tell us.
Such questions were hard for her,
so we wouldn’t ask.

We’d just pack for her,
had she asked us to do so.
For years she couldn’t.

She couldn’t decide
what to take, or what to leave.
Empty her closet.

Sleep in the guest room,
as her bed was filled with clothes
she would take nowhere.

Now she couldn’t leave.
Couldn’t get up from her bed.
She didn’t know that.

She didn’t know that
she was on hospice care now.
She didn’t know that

her last fall would be
what interrupts this disease,
and its progression.

That it would still win,
but wouldn’t finish the race.
So she would win, too.

… and the “slow goodbye”
ended in twenty eighteen,
when she journeyed on.

© Marie Elena Good 2026