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Printed from https://webx1.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2222258-Promptly-Poetry/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/5
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
September 9, 2020 at 9:43am
September 9, 2020 at 9:43am
#992850
Rainbows

Rainbows speak of Pink Floyd
and the Dark Side of the Moon,
of interracial harmony
and kindergarten too,
of unicorns and teddy bears,
candy stores and prisms,
but if you talk of feeling,
the one that gets to me
is gratitude, a simple thing,
for a promise He made to all.



Line Count: 10
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 15 2020
Prompt: That feeling you get when you see a rainbow.
Note: And that’s as much as my diabetes can take for one day.

September 2, 2020 at 4:16pm
September 2, 2020 at 4:16pm
#992177
Anonymous Benefactor

Moved by sudden impulse,
we left the tropical heat
and dust of savannah life,
to wind back the years
to the island of my birth,
the place known as home,
as it was to me,
who had never settled
in the African sun,
rootless and yearning
for I knew not what.
But home it was and became,
accepting me with open arms
and cold and rain and snow,
land of my people, loved
already for they echoed my
inwardness and quiet.
To my family’s town
we drifted, looking for a place
to stay, and fate led us
to my grandmother’s house
where, for a time, we stayed
to watch over her declining
months. Yet funds were low
and work was scarce,
until a day when a letter arrived,
postmarked London, though
we knew no one there,
and, upon opening it
discovered a banker’s draft
for just enough to carry us through.
No name was attached and,
to this day, we know not why
or who and how it should be,
but I suspect that, somewhere
in that vast metropolis
God moved His servant
to order the draft,
addressing it then to us,
strangers from a strange land
that he or she never knew,
the address, no doubt,
being culled from some phonebook
kept in heaven for emergencies.



Line Count: 44
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 14 2020
Prompt: A day someone surprised you with kindness.

August 24, 2020 at 8:38am
August 24, 2020 at 8:38am
#991469
Pine Forest

Pines massed tall and true
past seasons spread at their feet
wind sighs as their voice.



Haiku, syllables 5-7-5
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 13
Prompt: Write a Haiku inspired by an aspect of nature. Make the title the topic of your poem.

August 18, 2020 at 10:57am
August 18, 2020 at 10:57am
#991095
Jon

As my oldest friend,
he is the link with long ago,
our childhood in the heart of Africa,
transplanted seedlings
in a foreign soil.
shared interests and wild imaginations,
grew in innocence and freedom
to go our separate ways,
he to the south
and I with a northward trend,
to be lost in the hectic journey
of life and learning and being.
Forty years of silence
broken now by electronic words
spoken across the endless miles,
the vast rift between continents
and hemispheres.
Nothing has changed -
the photographs he sends
cannot dislodge my view of him
as once he was,
pink and white under the eternal sun,
still the same imagination
and memory of better days,
he remains forever young.
Oh, he’s just as boring as ever he was,
once he gets going on his latest news,
but hit the right note
and he reveals the child still living within.
We’re both happiest when
the talk turns to “Do you remember when?”
and “You used to say…”
The truth is he is my rock,
the stalwart, solid sentinel
in the stream of passing time
and, it may be, considering his tenacity
in continuing our sometimes sporadic
conversation, that I am to him
the same lifeline to our shared history.
It would be nice if it were so.



Line Count: 40
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 12 2020
Prompt: Think of a friend or family member who has played a huge role in your life. Write a poem about that relationship.
Note: This proved an extremely difficult task for me. I have already written a long piece on the greatest influence on my life, my English Literature teacher in school, Johnny Bridle. I tried to write a poem saying the same thing but, having said it once, I found there was no more to say. So I needed someone else and then Jon popped into my head. He was not exactly a huge influence on my life but, as the sole existent link to my childhood plus his retention of the same crazy ideas he always had, he is something solid to hang on to in the chaos of life.

August 10, 2020 at 10:52am
August 10, 2020 at 10:52am
#990425
I Wish I Never

That descending bass note tells us where we’re going,
bringing us to earth (this is not going to be a happy song)
and, with a name like Darkness, could it do anything else?
So it begins, one of Sting’s most insistent bass lines,
wedded to Copeland’s ringing chimes and drums,
the scene is set, dark, mysterious and so different,
growling in the background, remorseless as a river,
rolling onwards as if forever, deepening our unease.
When the words come, a chant of regret and despair,
the echoing voice piercing the bleak atmosphere,
yet building upon the repeating foundation -

I can dream up schemes when I'm sitting in my seat,
I don't see any flaws until I get to my feet.


Ah, creation in the ink-stained hours of the night,
to dissipate in the harsh glare of the morning sun,
leading us to the inevitable desire for permanence:

I wish I never woke up this morning;
Life was easy when it was boring.


To wish life away, to remain in dreams,
harking back to a time of simplicity and certainty,
surely the cry of the star trapped by fame,
yet the secret longing in every heart captured
in these complex times, the modern maze.

So the song continues to harp on
our awakened yearning for something we never knew,
a peace and escape into the light of a world
that doesn’t exist, searching for a key
to a door that’s wide open. But it’s never that easy.
Perhaps it takes a drummer
to write something so compelling.



Line Count: 30
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 11
Prompt: Listen to one of your favorite songs and then write a poem directly after based on the feelings and emotions it brought about in you.

The song I chose is called
Darkness, by The Police, not a group I took much notice of at the time (late seventies, early eighties) but one that I have come to appreciate lately. This song is a fairly obscure track on a late album that I never heard until recently. Ever since then, it comes back to haunt me every now and then. I happen to be in one of those times at the moment, hence my choice.

The most interesting thing about it is that it was not written by the usual song writer for The Police, Sting, but by its drummer, Stewart Copeland. I think this is the reason for its inexorable rhythm and beat - the main interest of any drummer. So the music sets the tone and this is completed by the dark lyrics that evidence a willingness to look at things from a different point of view. The whole song is very different from the norm and this is what first attracted me to it.

The three symbols that comprise the logo on the video are interesting. With nothing else to look at while listening to the song so many times, I have come to the conclusion that they represent the group itself. On the left we have a fairly simple figure representing Sting and his bass guitar (or maybe microphone). In the middle is Copeland himself, portrayed by the complexity of the drum kit around him. And then, a slightly more complicated figure than Sting, is the lead guitarist, Andy Summers. Note the wahwah pedal at Andy’s foot It’s a theory, anyway.

And so to the link:




August 4, 2020 at 7:54am
August 4, 2020 at 7:54am
#989847
Night Sacrifice

I lie in the velvet dark, awake,
the words drift through my head.
Arrange, repeat, for memory’s sake,
by morning, sleep has killed it dead.


25 words, rhyme abab
For Promptly Poetry, Week 10
Prompt: Write a poem that is exactly 25 words long

July 27, 2020 at 9:47am
July 27, 2020 at 9:47am
#989264
Nostalgia for an Age I Never Knew

The Mole and his new friend,
the Water Rat, in prospect of a picnic
on a warm, summer’s day
in England, being types of the gentry
of the early twentieth century,
so attractive in its decency,
good manners and simplicity,
a picnic by the river bank no less
and, having asked, the Mole, regaled
with a list of necessities
for the perfect meal in a hamper,
is overwhelmed by the Rat’s largesse.
Here lies the true charm of the book,
that evocation of peaceful times
in the summer-warmed fields,
simple pleasures for a simple time
and all cares and woes
carried away by the laughing river
and two friends, content to be lazy,
whose highest ambition
is a sandwich and glass of lemonade
consumed in the sun and the shade.
It was another age
but one that lives forever
in our hearts.



Line Count: 25
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 9
Prompt: Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely. Somewhere at the bottom, place a note telling us the line and the source. A minimum line count of eight, please.
Note: The book chosen was
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, from which I picked this sentence (I know it’s long but it doesn’t make sense if shortened):

'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly; 'coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespotted-meatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater—' 'O stop, stop,' cried the Mole in ecstasies: 'This is too much!'

July 20, 2020 at 9:43am
July 20, 2020 at 9:43am
#988662
Everyone is asking me the most difficult questions today. First, Daily Poem wants to know how I relax (so I told 'em), then QOTD asks for a line to introduce the year 2020 (so I came up with something). And now Lilli wants me to start a fight with everyone in the world. Doesn't everyone know that we Brits are trained not to talk about sex, politics and religion? And what else is there to argue about?

Because it's Lilli, I'll make an exception. It can't be about politics, that being the most volatile subject of all, and it certainly won't be about sex. Which leaves religion, so here goes:

The Great Bookie in the Sky

You’re so sure that there is no God
And that anyone who thinks there is
must be a fool. Not only that,
you’re happy to declare this whenever
it suits you, no matter who you offend.
Well, my oh so rational friend,
I’ll not argue the case with you,
(only a meeting with God can change minds)
but I will give you something to think about
on those off days when you’re not so sure.
My good friend, Clive Staples, always began
by assuming the other guy right,
and taking the matter from there,
and I propose to do the same.
I’ll kick off by saying that, if you are right,
then after you die there’s nothing,
not even a you to see that there’s no void,
no emptiness, no nothing at all,
for you are nothing too. As am I,
at your non-existent side, being as nothing as you,
not even noticing that I was wrong
and it no longer matters what we believed,
or did or said or made or declared
for we’re all nothing now, whatever we’ve been.
There’s no prize for being right, even if
you could accept it, and I don’t pay
for being wrong - neither of us could care less.
But if I’m right,
you, mon ami,
are in deep, deep doo doo.

Only a fool takes a bet
he cannot possibly win.



Line Count: 32
Free Verse (of course - it’s what I do)
For Promptly Poetry, July 27 2020
Prompt: Write a poem where you tell someone they are wrong and why.



July 13, 2020 at 10:43am
July 13, 2020 at 10:43am
#988042
Bottle

What’ll open a bottle?
I’ll tell you so you’ll know a lottle.
Note how the top is bent over edge,
then crimped into teeth on the ledge.
Don’t twist it, it’s not made to turn,
the secret you’ll just have to learn.
I happen to know it’s old school -
removing the top needs a tool
that’s metal and triangular in shape
with a handle that you might want to take
firmly between finger and thumb
(not toes because they are too dumb)..
Then, placing the handle beneath
the edge of the ledge or the teeth
and the opposite edge of the tool
(I’m sorry but this is the rule)
resting atop the top of the pop,
raise the handle to pull at the top.
It’ll fly off without further ado
and you can pour refreshment for you,
fresh in the knowledge at last
that you’ll not die of thirst in the past!



Line Count: 22
Rhyme scheme aa,bb,cc, etc. Form I haven’t the faintest idea - call it comic.
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, 2020
Prompt: Write a poem on how to do something mundane. Minimum line requirement: 12

July 6, 2020 at 11:04am
July 6, 2020 at 11:04am
#987368
** Image ID #2226154 Unavailable **


Portal

Somewhere in the forest stands a door,
standing free, enigmatic, without walls,
questioning, stirring something deep
within us, a whisper of portals, gateways
and other worlds. Lewis was right,
we’ve made a modern mythology
that links as a chain of mystery
our reading and learning and so to our souls.
Who can see the door without being moved
and drawn to open it, to see what lies within?
In whose heart does the word “Narnia”
not speak itself from a childhood memory?
Twice was this symbol, the portal to nowhere,
employed as an image to inhabit our minds,
once for the Telmarines to return to their land,
and at the end of the world as a gateway
to heaven. All life has rushed through that doorway,
the story contracted to a single moment,
meaning condensed to this narrow entrance,
constriction in the hourglass of being
through which we all must pass,
one way or another, the blessed and the damned.

And here in the forest stands a door,
silent and brooding with what lies beyond.
Who can resist the urge to try it,
to turn that handle, to view the mystery it hides?


Free standing doorways, portals and the like.



Line Count: 26
Free Verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, 2020
Prompt: a minimum of 12 lines inspired by the image of a door in the forest.



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