Entries to The Daily Poem Contest. |
Shadow Hah, stalker, skewered at last, now you hang from the ceiling like a specimen pinned for inspection, unable to move, held by the light from the lamp on the floor, imprisoned, grown faint in your relentless quest, your obsession with me. Now let’s see you follow as I escape your constant grasp by the simple expedient of turning off the light, leaving you frozen in the pitiless hand of the night while I run free, secret, and far from your endless attention. Line count: 8 Free verse For The Daily Poem, 10.31.24 Prompt: Your shadow climbs the wall and cowers near the ceiling. Tell us why. |
Culinary Capers It’s strange I know but lately the kitchen seems to hate me. I open the fridge door and it spits things on the floor. Now it seems the toaster makes toast just like a coaster, and the microwave’s dark look means it refuses to cook. I’ve never liked the oven, it mutters like a coven making some awful new spell - the kitchen is now my hell. And the reason it’s now explained: from cooking I’ve never refrained - vacations are what they have claimed! Line count: 15 Rhymed aabb For The Daily Poem, 10.30.24 Prompt: Write a poem where the objects in your kitchen are plotting against you in absurd ways. |
Lethologica Being an old man of walking-towards-the-front years, I find myself beset with a large-number-of-aggressive-people fears. Will my eyesight worsen into antagonisticism, or am I doomed to die from analyticalism? You may find these thoughts humerus, but to me they are more than lugubrious. Hah, I remembered that one - who laughs last, laughs a ton, Sometimes it’s indelibly easy, at others, incredibly sick-to-the-stomach-but-rhymes-with-easy. Line count: 10 Rhyming couplets For The Daily Poem, 10.29.24 Prompt: Craft a poem using the concept of Lethologica. Notes: Lethologica is the temporary inability to retrieve a specific word. walking-towards-the-front = advancing large-number-of-aggressive-people = horde antagonisticism = astigmatism analyticalism = aneurism humerus = humorous sick-to-the-stomach-but-rhymes-with-easy = queasy. |
Mayflies As the summer sun plays through the foliage of trees to pattern the pond in light, I watch the dance of mayflies above the water. Deep in the water, the imperatives of past and future clash in this moment. Mayfly nymphs, caught in the forces of the moment, rise to the surface to take flight. Now, embracing the drive to procreate, they seek the loved one, in joy to float in the crystal light, bright jewels of fire against the shadows. The still air is laced with the complex trails of reflected sparks, this kaleidoscope of nature’s urgent order. They live for this one day of courting, joy, and death, a flash of lightning in the yearly gloom. In the evening, when darkness broods upon the silent pool, the air no longer lit by the mayfly dance, the shaded depths brood upon the year of preparation now commenced. brief the mayfly life pure delight in ecstasy and reason enough Word count: 160 Form Haibun For The Daily Poem, 10.28.24 Prompt: Write a Haibun about two competing forces of nature, but it’s a tragic love story like Romeo and Juliet. |
Subtle Domestication The cat curls upon my chest, her purr thrumming in my ear, pure contentment and trust resonant in the sound, like the chirr of insects calling in the sunbeat heat of noon. This warmth between us, soft and healing glow in both our beings, so far from her repute of hauteur and disdain, takes no account of reason. No, this quiet assassin of nightly rodent hunts, who does not flump or plonk, she it is, so delicate, that kneads and turns and settles like a cloud. Line count: 18 Form: Free verse For The Daily Poem, 10.27.24 Prompt: Using at least four of these words, write an onomatopoeia-heavy poem: Plonk, Scritch, Thrum, Chirr, Scroop, Squelch, Flump. |
Odo the Dragon Have you ever had soda go right up your nose? Those bubbles will sting from your head to your toes So you might feel sorry for poor Odo the dragon the fire from his sneezes his nose hair did blacken The fear of the flames gave him a terrible puzzle what he needed it seemed was to go soak his muzzle he flew over land and he flew over the sea he wallowed in quagmire and even tried tea. He bought slushies and milk shakes but nothing would do the fire in his nostrils made him aquamarine blue But what soothed him at last and made him feel spry was to lie in the rain with his nose to the sky. Line count: 12 For The Daily Poem, 10.26.24 Prompt: Write a children’s poem about a dragon who is afraid of fire and sticks his head in water every time he sneezes to stop the flames. |
![]() Deserters What, leaving so soon? red on black sign exclaims, perhaps indignantly; the theatre dark but vivid, still breathing with the crowd. No truck with furtive leavers here, ducked down and sneaking through, yet trailed by muttered protest: “Hey, mind my foot!” and shameful pleas for pardon. Line count: 10 Free verse For The Daily Poem, 10.24.24 Prompt: As per illustration. |
The Collector Alabaster, near translucent white as though absorbent, soft yet hard and smooth the surface, carved with care by delicate hand practised with precision, the statuette, lone in limelit windowed showcase, draws his sure acquisitive eye. Pauses the ever wary hoarder, wooed and hooked by “interesting piece,” feigns no more than passing fancy, points a vague and trembling finger, “Alabaster?” he enquires. Knows he well from long acquaintance sculptures in this palest stone, understands the value understated inherent in the figure posed, yet his mind, in thrift directed, aims for bargain basement price. Proprietor of antiquities outlet, disguised by coarseness of its name, “Bizarre Bazaar” in golden letters emblazoned bright above the door, knows full well the precious relic, chose its present place of honour, displaying it to best effect, estimating quite precisely, its market worth down to the cent, steels himself for cunning barter, girds his loins, draws up his wit, answers with a twitch of ‘tache, “Yes indeed, sir, highest grade, your eye discerns the best, I see, the piece is pure unblemished, Arabian alabaster.” So the battlefield is chosen, lines drawn up and hunkered down, long the struggle (and enjoyment) as two combatants join the fray, strategy and artifice, feint, riposte and brutal onset, all employed in finest measure, till they stand, exhausted, spent, the goal so close, both adamant no more retreat will be supported. “Five more dollars and it’s yours,” proprietor entreats. “No penny more, you think me mad,” collector proudly states, “The thing’s not worth it, I don’t care, that price you’ll never get.” A moment then, they stand and stare, eye to eye and glaring full, then turn away, ignoring each, without further word, they part. The hoarder’s hand on exit handle, opens, and rings the service bell, the merry tones in peal ring out, and both contenders turn again, “On second thoughts…” they shout. Line count: 62 Free verse with a touch of trochaic tetrameter For The Daily Poem, Sept 07 2022 Prompt: L R A E H D E O R Without using technological assistance, put together the longest word you can from the given string of letters and use it in your poem. Please bold the word you find and use. |
Excerpt from Home Burial by Robert Frost He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see From up there always—for I want to know.’ She turned and sank upon her skirts at that, And her face changed from terrified to dull. He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’ Mounting until she cowered under him. ‘I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.’ She, in her place, refused him any help With the least stiffening of her neck and silence. She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see, Blind creature; and awhile he didn’t see. But at last he murmured, ‘Oh,’ and again, ‘Oh.’ From which I extracted: Incoherence From the bottom of the fear she spoke, always terrified, until, stiffening her neck, she murmured, "Oh," and again, "Oh." Line count: 8 Free verse For The Daily Poem, Sept 2022 Prompt: Using either of the prompts below, create a redacted poem. Note: I began by assuming you meant the whole poem. It was only when I had nearly finished that Ned drew my attention to the explanatory exchange in the forum that made it clear only the excerpts were to be used. Having made my choice of poems, I was loth to change and considered what I had done thus far. It seemed to me that I could make eight lines that referenced only the excerpt if I merely shortened the lines that used that section. It worked well enough and even contained more meaning than my original rambling and increasingly confused effort. |
Keeping Mum Things not said can be important, hidden cost is no informant, the muttered words at close of play are often what we need to say. “What’s that you said, I didn’t hear?” “Oh, nothing dear - it wasn’t clear that I had anything to add.” (to say aloud would just be mad) So bind those words and keep them down, or let them loose and risk a frown; your shrink would call it dissipation, but I say it’s - self preservation. Line count: 12 Rhymed couplets For The Daily Poem, Sept 05 2022 Prompt: Things not said. Your poem must be a minimum 10 lines, but not more than 12 lines. It must have a minimum 5 words per line, but not more than 8 words per line. You may NOT use the following words in your poem: regret, unsaid, memory/memories/memoirs, whisper, or remember. |