\"Writing.Com
*Magnify*
    April     ►
SMTWTFS
  
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
Archive RSS
SPONSORED LINKS
Printed from https://writing.com/main/books/item_id/2299350-Promptly-4-and-5
Image Protector
Rated: 13+ · Book · Cultural · #2299350
Poems for years 4 and 5 of the Promptly Poetry Challenge.
A year's worth of poems, every week for 52 weeks, spanning 2023 and 2024, plus the year following, from August 2024 to August 2025.(provided I live that long, of course).
Previous ... -1- 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... Next
April 3, 2025 at 10:53am
April 3, 2025 at 10:53am
#1086505
The Seasons

The seasons being the template of so many things in life,
the daily round eternal bringing echoes of the the dawn
till brightest noonday sun, to be followed by the evening shade
with darkest midnight promised,

so winter speaks of that misty, dreamlike place, our home,
mysterious land of formative, forgotten phantoms from which emerge
the first beginnings of the person we are meant to be,
growing into the one we know as me.

And spring is like those years we find when awareness blooms in full,
our arms embracing all that comes enticing within our reach
and clear eyes lead plans and schemes of all that can be grasped
in reaching what we choose to call maturity.

The summer comes with certainty, in greatest confidence,
completed child and basking in the heat of summer’s bounty,
with life burgeoning with positive assurance, no thought of year’s end,
the longest days deceiving.

Then the fall in so many ways, as autumn spreads its cloak
of golden times as rewards for work, now slower pace invading,
the dying leaves reminders all that nothing lasts forever
and celebrations muted now in shortened days.

Return to winter and those colder times, the bones are aching,
breath frosted with the waiting knowledge that life grows thin,
the wasted body struggling now, indecision ruling thought,
and so, at last, it’s over.



Line count: 24
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, week 34
Prompt: Use the following words in your poem: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn.
April 2, 2025 at 7:34am
April 2, 2025 at 7:34am
#1086429
Mysteries of the Night

From the black emptiness of the darkened window
comes the sound that freezes the soul,
a shriek of such anguish and sorrow
that the listener, no longer safe and ensconced,
curls up in the bed with dread and fear,
while nightmares toy with the thoughts
riding upon the echoes of that tortured cry
and questions arise from the deep.

Is it the wail of a lost child, hungry and far from home?
The scream of a wandering banshee wrenched from a heart of stone?
The shade of a long dead traveller set upon by brigands?
A last hopeless call for aid from some soul entrapped in the night?

No, that sound that haunts your dreams ever after
is but the hunting call of the fox.



Line count: 14
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 33 2025
Prompt: Use this title for this weeks poem: Mysteries of the Night.
April 1, 2025 at 6:50am
April 1, 2025 at 6:50am
#1086326
George

There once was a fellow named George
who worked for a while in a forge
an anvil he broke
the blacksmith did croak
and now George lives down in the gorge.



Line count: 5
Form: Limerick
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 32 2025
Prompt: Write a limerick.
March 11, 2025 at 4:39pm
March 11, 2025 at 4:39pm
#1085220


Musicals

In a field of crowding buttercups
shuttered against the rain
she floats like Mary Poppins
forgot the plain in Spain.

For though the hills may rise and sing
her favourite things go spare
and carousels go spinning round
so fair and unaware.

They say the music man was here
umbrella to the fore
he danced a lot like Oliver
and then went off to war.

Perhaps I speak of simpler times
I’ve lost them all somehow
and now our technicolor casts
took long ago their bow.



Line count: 16
Rhymed abcb
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 31 2025
Prompt: As per illustration.
March 6, 2025 at 10:11am
March 6, 2025 at 10:11am
#1084888
Anticipation of Spring

Now winter’s snows are shrinking,
lace doilies on the lawn,
and dark mornings chased away
by quickening of the dawn.

Now the biting teeth of cold
is blunted by the sun
and birdsong wakes the swaddled form
to hope that winter’s done.

Now the mind turns tentative,
the lengthened days to count,
until the time we say assured
we’re over winter’s mount!



Line count: 12
Rhymed abcb
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 30 2025
Prompt: The anticipation of spring.
February 25, 2025 at 11:37am
February 25, 2025 at 11:37am
#1084366
Ode to February

Self effacing, oh Feb, you stand,
smallest of the great monthly band,
content with the standard weeks four
and rarely demand a day more.

Though firmly in winter’s cold camp,
there’s hope in your briefest of stamps,
you might threaten a terrible freeze,
but with coming of spring you still tease.

Cold and grey as you so often are,
there’s good reason to make you a star,
while others take forever to run,
one blink and February’s done!



Line count: 12
Rhymed aabb
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 29 2025
Prompt: Use this title for your poem - Ode to February.
February 18, 2025 at 11:41am
February 18, 2025 at 11:41am
#1084041
Poetry 4

Poetry
when singing
has form bringing
a certain even moiety.

Perhaps music is gained
though truth constrained
emotion trained
drained.



Line count: 8
Form: Quadrette - First four lines word count: 1-2-3-4, first four lines rhyme scheme a-b-b-a, second four lines word count: 4-3-2-1, second four lines rhyme scheme: c-d-d-c
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 28
Prompt: Write a quadrette.
February 11, 2025 at 2:59pm
February 11, 2025 at 2:59pm
#1083711
Love

Shall I compare love to a string of plastic hearts,
to a symbol that means anything from lust
to martyred sacrifice upon a ritual conflagration,
a popular song composed in the fetid heat
of some darkened and dishevelled nightclub,
a bright young thing gamboling in spring
through fields of green and sunlit daisies,
a cherished secret hidden beneath the covers
of a bedsit flat high up in the towers of the city,
a drunken wedding feast lit with flashbulbs
and the shrieks of champagne sozzled mirth,
a superhero swooping to save from dragons
the striking siren of seventeen summers,
and daytime dream of dubious darling daughters?

No, I’ll turn to your familiar face and knowing look,
then smile in our completeness.



Line count: 16
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 27 2025
Prompt: Illustration of hearts hanging from the letters of the word love.
February 4, 2025 at 10:58am
February 4, 2025 at 10:58am
#1083302
Nightshift

I have seen the nightshift
those pale creatures
hurrying home before the sun
seeking the dark to earn their crust
and passing the daylight hours
in thickly curtained rooms
dozing from fitful dream to dream
propping up civilisation
with quiet unseen labour
leaving the day to louder men
who dream of other worlds.

I have been the nightshift
and hated it
missing the sunshine
and the prattling crowds
somehow surviving
the regulation two weeks
to return exhausted to the day
and meaningless toil.

Yes I know the nightshift
and give them due honour
for they hand on the baton
without complaint.



Line count: 23
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 26 2025
Prompt: Poet’s choice.
January 29, 2025 at 11:32am
January 29, 2025 at 11:32am
#1082993
Flowers 3

Little dog roses, Tudor in form,
lining the trails of my former home,
crimson and white and left in the wild,
their descendants no longer retiring mild,
gone to the city and civilised all,
used to the comforts of parlour and hall.

Still feral the daisies of forest and field,
unchanged in form and simple their yield,
doggedly pale and floral exemplar,
favourite of children’s drawings forever,
untamed and free, still they succeed,
dotting the landscape with highlights indeed.

But hey to the tulip so brave and so bold,
formal and painted so bright from of old,
once the key to Netherland’s wealth,
driving the trade and that country’s health,
now the designer and painter of grace,
striped in the fields, the lowlands bright face.



Line count: 18
Rhymed aabbcc
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 25 2025
Prompt: Use these words in your poem: roses, daisies, tulips.

87 Entries · *Magnify*
Page of 9 · 10 per page   < >
Previous ... -1- 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... 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://writing.com/main/books/item_id/2299350-Promptly-4-and-5