\"Writing.Com
*Magnify*
    August     ►
SMTWTFS
     
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Archive RSS
Printed from https://webx1.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2222258-Promptly-Poetry/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/2
Rated: E · Book · Activity · #2222258

A poem a week for a year.

Anything to break the drought...
Previous ... 1 -2- 3 4 5 6 ... Next
April 13, 2021 at 5:45pm
April 13, 2021 at 5:45pm
#1008461
Nomad Song

Three Rubicons crossed,
a pair of bridges burned,
a single soul sedentary
spurred beyond settling,
takes the open road,
a new horizon opens,
the unknown beckons,
miles pass by like years,
the familiar fades,
change becomes the norm.
Roots torn from moorings
entwine with alien soil
the heart embraces faces,
friends on other shores.
Until the next bridge looms,
home flourishes again.



Line count: 16
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 46
Prompt: Photograph of a bridge.

April 6, 2021 at 12:34pm
April 6, 2021 at 12:34pm
#1007883
Reflections on If and Only

If, only seventy-two years ago,
I’d been born someone else,
you’d not be reading these words.
If only I’d been as rich as Croesus,
the bills wouldn’t be as flocks of birds.
iPhone-ly they wander,
in strange conversations, asunder.
I phone, lie my head off,
hoping that this will be enough
and yes, I’m fine, thank you,
while trusting that you are too.
Somewhere, someone else is talking,
expounding on wooden ship caulking,
a subject I never could love,
which, for me, would really be tough
if my first “if only” were granted,
making me a humbug and phony.

“If only” is only desirable
if reality remains on the table.



Line count: 19
Weird rhymes unpredictable
For Promptly Poetry, Week 45
Prompt: Write a poem that starts or ends with "if only..."

April 4, 2021 at 8:00pm
April 4, 2021 at 8:00pm
#1007751
Reverie

Like the Beagle
that carried Darwin to discovery,
full-sailed for the Pacific,
and the Galapagos,
there to find the creatures
that fed the seed of imagination,

or the beagle hound,
on the trail of the fox,
red-coated hunters following on,
he raises the haloo cry,
runs with the pack of adventurers,
and so to the goal,

and as Peter Beagle says,
we wander from vision to daydream,
searching for the culmination
of our secret desires.
Without a dream,
we perish.



Line count: 18
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 44
Prompt: Write a poem inspired by this quote: "But I'm always dreaming, even when I'm awake; it is never finished." ~ Peter S. Beagle.

March 24, 2021 at 10:06am
March 24, 2021 at 10:06am
#1006988
An Unforgettable Tale

A book that begins in near despair,
a sad situation, unwanted companion,
relieved only by a painting on the wall,
a harbinger of hope and remembrance.

Then comes the magic to rescue all,
as fantasy grips and transports elsewhere,
first in the sea and then on a voyage
in a new world with dream islands to find.

Adventure sails from one isle to the next
and makes a friend of an enemy,
stars fall to earth, the lost are retrieved,
and in the end a glimpse of heaven perceived.

The Narnian tales are famed and regaled,
even today the young relish these books,
but the one that held me then and still now
is the one titled The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.



Line count: 16
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 43
Prompt: Write a poem based on a classic children’s story. I chose The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.

March 15, 2021 at 11:07am
March 15, 2021 at 11:07am
#1006431
A Paean to Change

The pills, the day is coming
when I’ll no longer need ‘em.
The pills, the tablets, capsules,
constant companions for so long,
some day they’ll fall away
and I’ll be free
for eternity.

The stream winds its way down
from Inyangani,
brooding horizon hulk.
Chattering in youthful glee,
the water runs and plays,
clawing at the rocks and gone
in a moment,
hurrying down to the gorge,
mighty Pungwe,
where it will leap into space,
a sudden bridal veil
draped to the valley below,
lost in blue forests of distance.



Line count: 20
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 42
Prompt: Write a poem in two sections about two completely different things. Have the title link both items today in a surprising way.

March 9, 2021 at 10:53am
March 9, 2021 at 10:53am
#1006070
Emigration

The flight from Africa
to the land of my birth
on a cut-price, elusive itinerary,
Eight hundred miles in the wrong direction,
Johannesburg on the first day,
and a plane, Belgian in colours,
Afrikaans inside,
so to Nairobi in Kenya,
midnight concourse, sleeping Asians,
benches filled and none waking.
Then to the upper air,
dawn breaking over the endless Sahara,
and landfall in Athens
but stay in the plane
before the sideways step,
islands speckling the blue Mediterranean,
and Madrid airport, a bite to eat,
with grim-faced policemen attending.
Here the plane empties,
most of the passengers,
protesting but ignored,
their luggage strewn upon the tarmac,
off in some coach to Portugal,
maybe,
and we remnant ensconced in space,
aloft and bound for fog-laden Belgium
as night falls over Europe.
Diverted to Luxembourg,
disembarked into frozen air
and piled snow in corners,
bussed to the station
and a train through the darkness,
countryside racing past the windows,
Frenchmen breathing in the smoke
and an underground station in Brussels.
A brief sleep in a tatty hotel,
a stale sandwich in haste,
and so to the airport
and a wait with the sparrows
under the glass dome of patience
brings us to the home comforts of British Airways
and Heathrow, city of the dazed
and jet-lagged
to find the right bus
flying over the chimneys of the horizon
of an ancient and tired capital.
Thus to a vast and echoing station,
a brief train ride to Kent,
a taxi and final arrival
in the frost and snow before Christmas.

Three days and nights of relentless journey,
we suffered for our need for home but,
like most things,
it was all for the best.



Line count: 54
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 41
Prompt: Write a poem about a physical journey you have been on.

March 5, 2021 at 10:39am
March 5, 2021 at 10:39am
#1005855
Recognition

A voice from the crowd
addressed to you
and turning, you know the face,
an old old friend,
the companion of
such youthful times of fun.
You smile and greet
with joyful words
turning to dribble on your chin.
Oh no, it’s happened again,
you can’t remember their name.



Line count: 11
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 40
Prompt: Write a poem about a time you forgot something.

February 27, 2021 at 10:30am
February 27, 2021 at 10:30am
#1005389
Vengeance

Angarad the Forsaken
sharpens the knife of his ambition
on the whetstone of his ills.
Abandoned by all in the moment of need,
alone in the wilderness of Grym,
he practises the ritual of memory,
counting the score of betrayals
and focused only on revenge,
enthroned now in his purpose.
So fills his life with the bitter gall of hate,
his friends now his enemies,
prisoner to whatever may befall.



Line Count: 12
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 39
Prompt: Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like: knife, ritual, throne, befall.

February 16, 2021 at 8:31am
February 16, 2021 at 8:31am
#1004589
Surreal Café

Dream vision of geometric café,
I do not trust you. That harsh, clear light,
pinpointing your precise walls and corners,
glowing colours reflecting your face,
the regimented tables and chairs
arranged as linear defence at your feet,
doors and windows closed against
the possibility of custom. No, I don’t believe you.



Line Count: 8
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 38
Prompt: Illustration of brightly lit exterior of a café.

February 8, 2021 at 12:45pm
February 8, 2021 at 12:45pm
#1003985
The Brit Secret

On the playing fields of Eton?
Nah, that’s where the donkeys are bred.
It was what the lions were fed
in the teeming crowds of Asia,
the sun-hazed African plains,
remote fastness of the antipodes,
forgotten islands far from home.
That burning in the belly fired the heart
that stood its ground at Rorke’s Drift,
and drove the Light Brigade to charge,
held Gordon steadfast in Khartoum,
while Captain Oates went out in the white waste.
In all of these, the heat that kept them true
came from inside, the food of the cubs
so soon to form those unbending ranks
that marched where ordered and fought as one
in foreign fields of empire accidental
and died with not a word of protest,
controlled by asses, yes,
but raised on Marmite.



Line Count: 20
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 37
Prompt: Write a poem inspired by your favorite food or beverage.
Note: This is a Brit poem containing Brit references and Brit quotations. If others are interested, I can explain its various allusions.


55 Entries *Magnify*
Page of 6 10 per page   < >
Previous ... 1 -2- 3 4 5 6 ... Next

© Copyright 2025 Beholden (UN: beholden at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Beholden has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

Printed from https://webx1.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2222258-Promptly-Poetry/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/2