Thursday, April 30, 2020

Day the thirtieth

Today the prompt is write about something that returns.


Back again

Each year as the spring creeps into
Winter's room, and slowly pushes
Aside the dead twigs and leaves,
There appear on the hillside some
Alien lives, emerging from the ground
As rain and sunlight draws them up
And unwinding as little monstrous
Stems and growing deer horns.
And each year I start by stamping on
Each one that I see and try to hold
Back the inexorable march of
The army of
Bracken!

It is a battle I always lose,
And I always shall.

Day the twenty-ninth

Today the prompt is to praise your pet!

Dog.

he is dog
a dogly dog
of wagging tail
and solemn eyes
runs in the rain
chases balls
eats biscuits
and loves to
chase the
red
dot

Day the twenty-eighth

Today the prompt is to describe a bedroom from your past.


And so to sleep.

Wallpaper with poppies and other spring flowers
Rioting all over it, but on a white background, and
The seams not quite smooth which are a great
Temptation to a small child to pick and poke at.

A shelf, mysteriously sitting at the side of the room,
And a step below it; adulthood tells me that this box
Is there to accommodate the stairs beneath, but
As a small child it was a puzzle and an intrigue.

A white chest of drawers with clothes from a bygone
Age within it, perfume bottles from a different life,
And false pearls and costume brooches that
Sparkle in the evening sun and tempt little fingers.

A window ledge behind the curtain, a space a small
Child could sit in and read after bedtime, until
She is spotted by her grandfather who lives just
A few raindrops away, and a phone call results.

This was the room that I knew, this was the room of the
Days when I was normal and had two parents and things
Were not all wrong and horrid, but when they sent me away
I came home to no father and a different bedroom.

Day the twenty-seventh

Today the challenge is write a poem as a review of something.


Waiting

It would be better if there was a time limit
I think, and a sense of where the beginning
Begins and where the end might begin
To be an end or at least to stop being
A perpetual beginning.

It would be better if the people who are
In charge of this had any idea what
They were doing and if they listened
To people who are not in charge but who
Do know what they are doing.

It would also be better if someone could
Arrange the weather so that instead of
Days of dreich and rain and clouds and mist
And misery we had a spell of constant sun
Lasting until at least the beginning of the end.


Overall I fear I can only give one out of ten.

Day the twenty-sixth

Today the prompt is to answer a list of categories and use the answers for a poem. I have a short attention span and the first category is weather - so - rain.


Chorley Market

Today is a Chorley Market sort of day
A buying faggots sort of day
A buying biscuits sort of day
A buying second hand biscuits sort of day
A buying fabric sort of day
A buying black pudding sort of day
A buying cheese sort of day.

Today is a Chorley Market sort of day
Where the puddles are congregating
Where the cars are lined up in by the station
Where the queues have umbrellas
Where the buses hiss and splash
Where the cafe windows are steamed up
Where the rain drips down your neck.

Yes, today is a Chorley Market sort of day.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Day the twenty-fifth

Today the prompt is to be inspired by a given poem. I took the words "in every room a shawl tossed untidily upon a chair or bed".

Last days

In every room in this abandoned house
There lives a memory, subsisting on dust
And echoes, and wearing just
A shawl across weary shoulders
That have borne a life of rainstorm and trial.

Silent footsteps pave across the floor and
Their tread is imagined in every sheet of paper
Tossed untidily aside when the last
Living residents left so precipitously,
And a single glove sits
Upon a chair and offers a mute lament for its
Long lost companion.

                                    The sleepless years
Of waiting can never ease the death
And destruction of mankind in its last days
And the pain never rests on couch or bed.

Day the twenty-fourth

The prompt is a fruit.

corruption

the seed of our downfall is encased
within the crisp skin, and the
sweet flesh is an unfulfilled
raindrop promise of freedom