Frank is the host of dVerse today. Frank says:
The word for the quadrille today is “troll” or any variation or arrangement of it somehow in your poem. So. To get to the point, to participate write a 44-word quadrille using some variation of the word “troll” in the poem.
Frank, I took your advice today. Closing my eyes, I got myself into “the zone” and just started typing what percolated to consciousness and stopped. Then I pared down what had been typed into 44 words. I think it turned out amazing. THANK YOU.
Hunger
Cold mountain depths,
darkness, slimy walls,
amidst scattered leftover bits.
Troll listens for toe taps
Tip toeing the bridge –
they make the tenderest morsels.
Nostrils as big as baby chicks,
sucking air, climbing.
Meals never run fast enough
to escape my grimy calloused paws.
Tao Talk 
Ha… what a chilling image of a troll.
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Thank you, I did my best.
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Now that’s a scary thought.
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Thanks Linda. Saying I’m glad you were chilled sounds weird, but I’m happy it had its intended effect :)
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Those last two lines pull it all together really well. A bit of gruesomeness to finish!
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Sarah, thank you!!!!!
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Delightful description with this nice line: “Meals never run fast enough” I’ll have to keep that in mind when I’m bothering trolls.
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:) thank you, Frank, so glad you enjoyed it
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You sound like my cat Trixie :)
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:::laughing:::
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You shouldn’t be. She’s a black devil.
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She does what she does very well ::wicked laugh::
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Too well. Protecting the wildlife from her is mission impossible.
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Have you tried putting bells on her collar?
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She does have a bell but it doesn’t stop her catching little rodents. She squats for hours in front of their homes until they can’t stand it any more and come out.
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The patience of a cat…. Rodents are good prey for cats. Birds tho…. :(
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She rarely gets birds. They hear her coming. I hate it when she mortally injures something like breaks its back and slaps it about. Even voles feel pain.
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Oooo!!! I got the willies, i could see this. Nicely done!
Pat
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Thank you Pat. Glad you were willified :)
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😊😁
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Nostrils as big as baby chicks! Arghhhhh 😳 Fun quadrille Lisa 🙂💕
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:) Thanks Christine
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Love your poem… you give a whole new meaning to trolling!!
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Thanks Dwight. This is more of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale type troll. The kind more of archetype than a rascally cartoon.
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Yes, I agree!
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Thanks for conjuring a bad boy troll; too many nice ones out here today. Trolls, by their nature, are cannibals, right?
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I would say they are consumed, one way or another, yes! Insightful, Glenn, and glad you appreciate the foul ones.
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I don’t want to meet YOUR troll on a dark night, that’s for sure! Well done.
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Thank you, Beverly!
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Delicious dark and spooky!! ❤️
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Thanks sanaa :)
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Very good poem!
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Thank you, Sadje!
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You’re welcome 😉
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Hey Jade,
I really, really enjoyed this. I fantastically painted a picture of a child’s nightmarish grimy troll — to be feared and avoided. And the “meal not fast enough” was sadly gruesome and wonderful. LOL
Since you are one of the few who does not mind feedback, knowing it is just my impression and of no objective value, I offer two.
1) I’d change coldest to cold, since nothing is compared
2) I personally do not enjoy the large spaces you put between each line. I’d save those large spaces for stanzas. To me, it breaks up the flow of the writing and yells “I’m important”. But that is just me and my silly trollish thoughts.
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“[S]adly gruesome and wonderful” is high praise, thank you Sabio. I changed coldest to cold, as it makes sense, thank you. I am not sure what is up with formatting on WP but it insists on those gaps on some and not on others.
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There are two ways to handle that spacing in WordPress for poems:
(1) When going to next line, hold the shift key while you hit return.
(2) Compose in a plain text editor and then cut and paste into WP.
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Thank you for the tips. I rarely compose in WP, and strip all formatting from the text editor, and cut and paste. It doesn’t make a difference for some reason :( I will try #1 next time withing WP and see what happens.
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BTW, I replied to the comment you made on my poem “Tantric Troll”
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meals that never run fast enough – shudder!!!
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Ah the poor meals….
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You so easily evoke the smells and character, so potent, love it.
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Thank you very much.
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Pleasure :)
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Yikes! Could you please disclose the location of this bridge so I might avoid being a meal? I know I don’t run too fast. ;)
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lol Linda. Up in the mountains, so hoping you don’t live near there!
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Love the Cold Mountain reference–and its juxstapositon with a hungry troll!
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Thank you for reading and the comment. Sabio is to be thanked for the “Cold” of the mountain! I had coldest. Now that you say Cold Mountain isn’t he a poet from way back? I may have one of his books of poetry.
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He is, indeed! :)
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Han-Shan yes? Just looked him up. Legendary figure? I just looked in my “The Jade Mountain” anthology, intro by Witter Bynner, and don’t see him in there…
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Red Pines published a translation of poetry attributed to him:
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Ah, ok. Thank you. I read Road to Heaven by him.
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A totally nasty, ghastly troll…you nailed it!
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Thank you, Lynn!
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