Day 20: Sports

 

Today's prompt is to write a poem that incorporates a sports of your choice... Meh, I I can see the potential for metaphors, but this is all I could manage today:



Game of Life

No home runs in my field of dreams,
no 40 loves to measure by,
no surprise birdies or holes-in-one,
slamdunks or hat-tricks,
full strikes or finish lines.


Yes, I've always been
bad at sports.  At best, a sideline spectator
cheering someone else on.
No sweat and glory victory, no losing 
or rush and flush of taking part.

Day 19: Creation Myth

Today's prompt is to write your own creation myth...

(This poem was written with the help of this song ~ Moon :)


Moon Story (Or A Story of Gravity)

Long ago when the earth -
from some cataclysmic collision -
cast aside its heart,
there was born the moon.
Far-flung, the heart hardened
to rock, barren birthplace of pain.
And kept its tethered distance.

For years, it orbited its planet home
content in cratered hurt,
the shock of separation
borne aloft, alone.
Tide-puller, tear-keeper,
melancholy muse-maker.
Satellite ghost of loss.

Yet amidst its scarred terrain -
the Ocean of Storms, the Sea of Rain -
there was named:
Sea of tranquility
Sea of fecundity
Sea of nectar.
Love, can never just die away. 

Now the moon's luminous face
gazes at the earth 
in wounded wonder, knowing 
it can never find its way back. 
Still, it honours the gravity 
between them, spinning on an axis 
of unending light.

Day 18: Neologisms

Today's prompt is to write a poem with neologisms - that is, new created words. 

Wasn't feeling any subject matter today until I came across this picture above... a man of many (bigly) neologisms himself! Ended up with a few puns too... who wouldn't.


Dumbocracy

When the President of the USA
met the Easter Bunny
the yolk was on him (ha)

but eggs did roll.
The world, shell-shocked,
from the dumbocracy of Il Dunce 

takes aim where it can.
When politics have become
all bumble and trumpbole, 

we wonder what will be
the fate of the free
with an comandeer-in-chief

of quiffical intent:
a peroxide blonde  
in control of the bombs.

The country cringes
as the bigly bigot
and his confederacy of dunces

lead the way down the rabbit hole  
to Blunderland.
Between the walling and the wailing,

the conning and the trumpetweeting
the thick-witted speech
and bomblastic trigger-treats,

the precedental urge
on us all -
is to weep.

Day 17: Nocturne

Today's prompt is to write a nocturne - a poem about the night. 

I already have written a nocturne here back on Day 9... so today is just a snippet, a book spine poem I did recently:

 

Nocturne

Rooftop soliloquy 
to the moon:
miss you. 

Day 16: Letter Writing

Today's prompt was to be inspired by the art of letter-writing....





Love Letter

Dear You:
I never got to tell you any of those things
I always wanted to, so here I'll begin. 
Verbally, I'm the smitten kind, but in inked lines you'll find 
every sentiment of my heart in black and white rhyme, no hiding behind 
coquettish smiles or downcast eyes, for here is love transcribed
in unrestrained flair: every elaborate loop of letter
my extravagant heart when you are near;
truth spilled like a charm in words so true
they make of the page a relic; feelings
as fervent as prayers, faithfully confessed;
phrases sweet with a lover's perfume: all yours, my love, darling;
my heart is ravaged, how I long, how I wish, how I will.
Words like forever and cherish, soon and always -
and when we are together, I remember, I'll never forget,
beloved, betrothed...
But then:
I regret to inform you.
Please return to sender.
Yours sincerely...
etc, etc.

Day 15: In the Middle

Today's prompt was to write a poem about 'the middle'...

(For some reason when I think of 'middle age' an image of the vast canyons of the American west come into my head, hmmm....)





The Middle

Almost at middle aged
and the way is no easy plateau,
no slip and slide into glide -
despite such beliefs.  

Betwixt and between
past and future,
green light and red 
of go; stop; amber

is not the best place
to be, literally.
Neither here nor there, 
limbo land canyon

of what might have beens
and what might yet be. 
A face-off of Western
degrees. Horizon line 

obscured by fretful gaze
and past monuments
of inconsequential glory.  
Here in this barren valley 

I weigh most
on the centrifugal force
of dream: still time left
to seize the day.

Day 14: Good Friday

I am not an overly religious person, but the story of Jesus' Passion is quite a compelling one, and I love how artists and writers have interpreted it with more insight and power than the church does. 



Gethsemane

This is the place 
where fear becomes too big for prayer.
This is the place 
where uncertainty must be faced alone, 
as friends sleep and the sword of betrayal 
draws near. 
This is the place
where faith falters and darkness rushes in
phantom-like. 
This is the place
where tears planted long before
begin to bloom and roses weep.

But this is the way it must be.  

Day 13: For Seamus

 

I spent a very inspiring day today at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace Museum in his hometown of Bellaghy. 

And so,  I couldn't but write about it for today's prompt!


Homeplace (for Seamus Heaney)

Here are the annals of a life lived well in words.

Listen, as incantations of rhyme ripple the air

from lilting landscape of language, ornately carved.

Here the scripture of homeplace, recited in hallowed verse.

Here the rhythms of the soul, caught in a net of words:

flutter and clap of feeling, flint-spark and fine-spun.

Here the sounds of love scooped forth in silvered-lines.

Sharpened lead of a mind at play, 'brilliant' personified.

Pen, paper, kite, skylight, school-bag: the props of all his living

bring alive the man, our beloved file.

He rooted our hearts in sky, dreamed anew our greatness.
Here, in this hearth of language, his legacy begun. 

 

And we leave, resolved to walk on air, eager to live again
this world of wonder, given as gift, from poet to reader.  

Day 12: Alliteration & Assonance

Today's prompt was to write a poem that makes use of alliteration and assonance. I always use alliteration, infact I'm a little addicted to it... so hopefully I'm focusing on the assonance now too.

(This is what it felt like last night when I was on a poetry writing spree:)


The Creative Process

There's a bee in my brain
buzzing and brazen
that within minutes 
becomes a hive 
of hyper word activity -
thrum, hum and spun -
honey the aim.
A poem wanting to be born.  

Day 11: Bop

Well I agonised over this prompt all day long and decided I was going to ignore it completely! Until tonight....when one line came floating by and suddenly then...this, a whole poem, from that favourite place all the good poems come ~ the blue unknown!:

*Read how to do The Bop here
 


Indefinite Pronouns

It's not that it didn't mean something, it did. 

We had something, even though in the end

it amounted to nothing. Even though

you were my one affirmative clause.

It's more to do with the fact that it never

got a chance to be anything.

And you were the definite article my heart craved.

From no one, you became someone new.

Not nothing and more than something...

until, all at once, you were everything.

Though the vagueness remained: a question mark,

an exclamation point. Our love incognito, a noun

without a name, a new word and world

that required naming. But when it mattered,

we were deaf, dumb, lame.

And you were the definite article my heart craved.

But some 'thing' did not equal everything

when there was somebody else to consider;

rule-fixer, game-changer. The grammar of love

favouring the sentence already made, pronouns pre-named.

And yet, despite it all, the loss and blame, 
somehow I know, I will love you, indefinitely.

And you were the definite article my heart craved.