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). |
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. |
The Alphabeasts Aardvarks annoyingly act as adults Beavers behave before betraying Chipmunks challenge chilling constraints Diplodocus droops down defeated Earwigs eliminate earnest employees Felines fish for frantic followers Groupers gather ginger garments Hamsters hate heavy hobgoblins Impala imply infinite insurrection Jackals jealously jail jalopies Kingfishers keep kowtowing kings Lobsters like lefthanded loons Manatees may molest ministers Nightingales never needle ninepins Okapis occupy occasional overalls Piranhas prefer prey prostrate Quokka question quiet quail Rhinoceroses retain relaxing resorts Scorpions seldom seem surprised Tarantulas trim their towering threads Urchins use unauthorised utilities Voles value vanished varmints Wildebeest worry wanton walkers X-ray-tetras X-ist X-istentially X-tant Yellowhammers yammer yearly yawning Zebras zap Zambesi zealots. Line count: 26 Form: Alphabestiary For Promptly Poetry Challenge 5, Week 24 Prompt: Write an Alphabestiary poem. |
Square Peg There is that in us There is That fits not in That somehow we’re an insert From another place In a world of balance Like a bench Placed conveniently by a lake In a forest A sore thumb In a land of nimble fingers A misplaced comma In an eloquent sentence. Not a gross intrusion Or exclamation In a crowded space But an intimation of otherness A hint Of something lost Or not yet found So it’s only now In the quiet places Where silence breathes And thought arrested Finds the slightest wrinkle In the ironed sheet. We are indeed In the world But not of it. Line count: 29 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 23 2025 Prompt: As per illustration. |
Rowan Atkinson Updated No doubt Mr Bean can match grateful, he being an actor sublime - in slapstick he’s really a plateful, in satire he absolute shines. But now he’s entered the arena of political comment sans joke, displaying a side of him meaner and terribly hard on the woke. And in truth I like him the better, as a comic I found him quite crude; his humour seemed childish and wetter, now he looks to be starting a feud. For the audience now is much harder, the lefties impossible to please - there’s no tougher food in the larder, he will wish that he kept them in freeze. Line count: 16 Rhymed abab For Promptly Poetry Challenge 5, Week 22 Prompt: Use the words bean, can, match, grateful. |