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 Poems for years 4, 5 and 6 of the Promptly Poetry Challenge. |
| A year's worth of poems, every week for 52 weeks, spanning 2023 and 2024, plus the years following, from August 2024 to August 2025, 2025 to 2026 (provided I live that long, of course). |
| Old Crow Old crow survivor always comes out top, both passenger and driver when searching for his crop. “Carrion’s my bag,” he says “and that can mean whate’er I find or steal or possess it doesn’t really matter. “What counts is I am fed, the easier the better, and so to rest my head when sun becomes a setter.” And so with many a caw, he shouts triumphantly - “Go feed behind your door, and I’ll master what I see.” Line count: 16 Rhymed abab For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 13 Prompt: Write a poem about a bird! Any bird, any color, your choice! Note: This not all I have to say about crows but it’s all he cares about. Some day I may write more on my perspective. |
| NPO Nil Per Os or Nil By Mouth, Strict instruction laid upon the morning, the salt upon the pain of dread as the operation plods its time diffusing. And its not the hunger spikes the moment nor thirst scraping at the throat, but habit strides about the room, demands routine return. He pokes the mind with insistent finger, manufactures glance at clock, “It’s breakfast time and take a sip,” he points to beaten path. Determination grits the teeth, wards off forgetful moment, “You’ll not catch me in thoughtless move,” I plot the coming journey. Line count: 16 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 12 Prompt: Poet's Choice! Write a poem about anything. |
| Fog Fine for Eliot with his yellow fog, infused with smoke and spattered with soot, that falls asleep embracing the house. Not so easy for me who never knew fog until, returning to England and snow, I met the soft grey mantle of atmosphere gone thick with dew and cold, as silent as a cat’s paws padding down the passage in the dark. Oh I’ve grown to love this swaddling in a dim world with restricted view and sounds muffled to extinction. Never thick enough for me, avid of privacy as I am and singular, the fog feels like home, a place where secrets hide and thoughts run free. Yes, I’ll take this friend of new acquaintance, though I never knew it yellow as Eliot’s in those chimney days before Clean Air and, if I cannot sing as eloquent as he, I offer at least this pumpkin of a poem. Line count: 21 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 11 Prompt: Use these words in your poem - pumpkin, cat, fog. |
| An Old Friend I know him well, Old Father Time, his stamp is hard upon me now each morning from the bed I climb how slow and painful that I bow beneath the weight of passing years these burdens that he casts on me and yes, the aches and burning tears they all conspire to make me be this shrunken frail and worn out thing that once was young and hopeful so now memories cold comfort bring upon my soul before I go though grey and lined this body be there’s sunlight still within my mind Old Father Time, he lets us see the days were good and often kind. Line count: 16 Form: It’s rhymed abab and each line has eight syllables. It’s meant to be what I call a chant - read without expression and entirely ruled by the beat. Hence the sparsity of punctuation. I thought it fairly apt for the subject of time and its relentless progression. For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 10 Prompt: Time. |
 Bedtime Blues A nursery rhyme’s a dangerous place to be there’s no comfort in the message to me the hunter may help out Red Riding Hood that hardly does poor Grandma any good. Hansel and Gretel may enjoy gingerbread yet they ruin the witch’s wee homestead though the witch’s intent may be too bad the kids responses are murderous a tad. The three piggies are variously lazy and their architectural ideas quite hazy but the wolf is doing only what wolves do and it’s true that pork makes a fine stew. So consider the villain in these tales they’re not always deserving to fail there’s two sides to every bedtime story and the ending does not have to be gory. Line count: 16 Rhymed aabb For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 9 Prompt: As per illustration. |
| For Jonathan My friend he lives in old Cape Town, far off in southern hemisphere, and so, for us, he’s upside down. As kids we grew in Africa - savanna heat don’t turn him brown, too blond and pink to ever tan. So now it really makes me frown that he’s down there and I am here, toes all iced in a northern town. Line count: 9 Form: Magic 9 For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 8 Prompt: Magic 9 - Nine lines with the last word of each line rhyming with the scheme abacadaba. |
| Luck My life may be a charm, I might be safe from harm, but ascribing it to luck is something I would duck. Perhaps a greater power with fortune doth me shower, yet it seems there is no reason; it’s more like He’s just teasin’. The trick, you see, my friend, is clearer near the end - to hear what your life sings be happy in all things. Line count: 12 Rhymed aabb For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 7 Prompt: Write a poem about luck. |
| Perchance Possibilities positively proliferate past previous positions pertinent perhaps to pontificate for previously potent physicians. All actions activate attention alerting assumptions to arise and asking about ascension as aces act as allies. So sound the sentry’s siren sonorous and sure the sound serious and certain in Sidon sixteen solutions to surround. Line count: 12 Rhymed abab For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 6 Prompt: Write a poem about possibilities. |
| The Dream Attainable The dream attainable is like tomorrow we can reach for it hands eager to receive forever betrayed as our touch transforms the day into the present tomorrow become today. And so the dream on realisation always evaporates into reality now grasped and owned and from the shadows comes the call alluring of another dream. Line count: 16 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 5 Prompt: Write a poem about something that will always be out of reach. |
| Reflection And I should speak of age as it once was a thing to be grasped and honored wise in the ways of the world and heaven free forever of the enthusiasm of youth with its wild roller coaster of passion and with a story to tell at last. It’s not as if anyone told me. How did I miss the betrayal of the body this slow disintegration to pain and frailty? Too eager was I to reach for the prize of settled convictions and blessed insight unaware of the failing motivation in a being too tired, too weak, too sick to claim the dream of ambitious morning with twilight dimming the sight. It’s not as if anyone told me. Nor is it worth complaining on arrival I have worked too hard for this and a lifetime has its laurels though unexpected for nothing is wasted and the light still welcome though it shine upon elsewhere and a better home to come. It’s not as if anyone told me. Line count: 23 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 4 Prompt: The Bop form. The first six-line stanza introduces the problem, the second eight-line stanza expands upon it, and the final six-line stanza explains the solution or failed attempts. There is a repeated refrain line after each stanza. |
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