A poem a week for a year. |
Anything to break the drought... |
The Joy of Symmetry I wake in the night, rise and don my bathrobe for the trip down to the room of much relief (oddly enough it has a bath), tie the ends of the cord that serves as belt and walk down to my destination. Afterwards, I tie the cord again, extending the ends before me so I can ensure they’re equal in length. Then, I make the knot, checking again for equality. Most times, I get very close to perfection and there is some satisfaction in that. Far be it from me to walk around in a bathrobe with unequal cords hanging from a hasty knot. Line Count: 19 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry, Week 26 Prompt: Write about an everyday moment. |
Acceleration They say that time speeds up with age and, when we’re close to an allotted span, the years are swift and barely remembered, as though we ride a runaway train with throttle stuck and speed increasing, decades flashing by in streamlined haste, memories compressed to wafer thin, bright instants of sudden understanding, momentary islands in the general stream of lives hurrying to a destination unknown, and up ahead looms the final station, last stop on the experiential line, the period to the ultimate sentence of the last chapter in this life's story. They also say that it’s a journey, that there’s more in the movement than the indeterminate goal and so, without regard for what lies beyond, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Line Count: 19 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry, Week 25 Prompt: Include these words in your poem: chapter, time, regard. |
Rain 50![]() It is said (although it’s not true) that eskimos have fifty words for snow. The number may vary from one tale to the next, but you get my gist that, in the frozen north, the weather must be, inevitably, about snow. It explains why, in my England, we have fifty words for rain. Line Count: 8 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry, Week 24 Prompt: As per illustration. |
Cold Water Thoughts The British Isles, being on the same latitude as Labrador, would be frozen wastes were it not for the Gulf Stream, a supposedly warm ocean current that bathes their shores and creates a climate known as temperate, meaning it has few of the extreme tantrums common to the new world, preferring a moderate view of all things, including temperature. Being of a geographical disposition of mind and aware of such pontification upon the weather of the islands, I greeted the North Atlantic with the same carefree joy remembered from my days spent near the Indian version, only to discover that immersing oneself in these northern waters is not a matter to be essayed with innocent abandon, there being a tendency to freeze to the marrow a body, human or, I presume, otherwise, leading to a certain cynicism regarding the naming skills of those geographers responsible for the title granted our surrounding seas and currents. Experience is a great teacher and these days I still enter the waters, but only as deep as my ankles, emerging after a few minutes with feet blue with shock and toes as numb (and cold) as yesterday’s french fries. As Einstein would say, “Warm” is a relative term. Line Count: 25 Free (very) Verse For Promptly Poetry, Week 22 Prompt: Cold water. Notes: This alleged poem is experimental, part of a current drive I have to extend the length of my lines in poetry. Because, like Everest, it’s possible. Some might remark, with reason, that the result is more prose than poetry and they may be right. My only excuse is that it’s the best way I know to express my feelings regarding cold water. And feeling, surely, is fundamental to poetry. |
Pond Life The rumour drops as a pebble into the crowd and the word spreads, ripples on the pool, circles of disturbance radiating outwards, concentric rings to mar the shining surface until some resistant rock, an island adamant, absorbs the waves and sends an echo, an arcing counter to still the matter, calm restored to the whispering waters. They lap ceaselessly at the pebbled shores. Line Count: 9 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 21 Prompt: Ripples on water. |
The Great Beyond Always is forever and that’s a long, long time, long enough, you’d think, to reach far as the stars and they, we’re told, are so distant even light gets tired by the journey. I doubt we’d make it, given hundreds of lifetimes, we’d still fall short, our eyes filled with the sight, fingers groping at nothing. Line Count: 12 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 20 Prompt: Write a poem about something that will always be out of reach |
Modern Times How strange the world is now, when masked, we drift through spaces once filled with noise and bustle, empty spaces lately, signed by silence. Thus we drain our lives of joy, rely upon the long ago, the mem’ries, exchanging times more magical for recipes without the spice of risk. You’d think by now that we would know that immortality is never ours (that endless strife being all that beckons) but death gives meaning to it all. Line Count: 12 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 19 Prompt: Write a poem using the words masked, strange and magical. |
The Pooper’s Complaint Never thrown a party or a do, been to a couple - didn’t like. People are a thing best left at few and tell the rest to take a hike. Line Count: 4 Rhyme scheme abab For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 18 Prompt: What is it like after all the party guests go home? |
Autumnal grey sheets in the sky silver lawn in the morning fall signs the guestbook dawn light through the shades old man’s bare foot tests the board summer warmth departs leaves lose their footing flock down as aimless windfall deep the carpet spread Line Count: 9 Three haikus, one poem For Promptly Poetry, Week 17. Entered in Poetry Topic of the Month Contest, September 2021. Prompt: write a poem inspired by autumn using one of the seven forms provided. |
Night Cruiser Grundlebletch von Hoogenspit, while driving his Trollmobile one night, got lost in the wilds of Louisiana and finding a road expressly for trolls, he took it and was hurtling along, as trolls are wont to do in the dark, having, at one time or another lived underground in caves, when he came across a building stretched clear across the road. Without time to stop or throw out the anchor, Grundle ploughed head on into the wall, causing the edifice to collapse, slowly and piece by piece along its length, while, battered and bent, the Trollmobile barely survived, though Grundle wasn’t hurt and was able to hear the angry words of a uniformed man who hurried up panting and blowing the following words, “Did you not read the sign? This is a toll road!” “A toll road?” quoth Grundle, “My deepest apologies. I thought it said Troll Road!” Line Count: 22 Free Verse For Promptly Poetry, Week 16 Prompt: Street Signs. Ponder on these street signs, then select one and write a poem inspired by it: Do Not Enter, No Parking, Toll Road, One Way, Speed Limit, Work Area Ahead, Maple Street, SLOW, STOP, WRONG WAY, EXIT, No Passing Zone. |