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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). |
| 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. |
| Twenty-five Was I ever twenty-five? That youthful age when the world was young with such passions and dreams and life seemed endless and exciting certainty being my constant companion and answers to all the world’s problems in my pocket while eternity whispered in my ear and I only ever wanted more unconscious of the passing years but satisfied with nothing. Three times that age and more I have what I hungered for and wonder where the taste of those vibrant years has gone too short to savour, lost in the wind and all I have is memory and thoughts turning elsewhere. Line count: 18 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 3 Prompt: In celebration of WdC's 25th Anniversary, write a poem involving the number 25 or a birthday/anniversary celebration. |
| Dawn Daybreak is a quieter thing than evening when gathering night is spilt upon the ragged skies and chattering rooks go jostling to their trees while homeward plods the ploughman and his horse. There’s drama in that last kiss of sun to earth and nightly prowlers slipping from the shadows. Not so the silent coming of the dawn with hint of colour in the looming heavens. It’s hush that greets the growing light and subtle changes in the tones of dark; in deepest sleep the dayshift still abed clings yet to dreams of the risen day. The day may tear itself away with painted passion but the morn does gentle announce return. Line count: 14 Free verse For Promptly Poetry Challenge 6, Week 2 Prompt: Use these words on your poem: Kiss, daybreak, tear (or tears). |
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