Day 2 of the poetry prompt advent and the prompt is patience.
The in-between A time of malcontent When what is no longer amiss Is not yet as it should be Patience does not come naturally The grumbles burst forth unrestrained By manners or propriety And annoyed by my own agitation My hackles strain skyward
Yet still you do not respond My unanswered pleas for conclusion Hang unrecognised between us The strides we made in danger of being overlooked When still our destination is not gained
All in good time my child, all in good time.
My petulant cry – “Now is a good time” Dies on my lips As I finally meet your gaze And am engulfed in the love within.
So I found a poetry prompt advent calendar. Day 1’s prompt was simply ‘A candle’
The room is still Save for the flickering light of the candle on the mantel It’s orange cast dancing on the wall behind. The persistent motion is mesmerising as she watches through the window The light shed by the candle does not spread far, Showing her barely more than the silhouette of the familiar old chair His chair In its rightful position by the hearth. But the hearth is cold and empty. Summoning her courage, she takes the few small steps to the door. She pauses, sighs, hand on the handle before, Resigned, she pushes it open. The sudden chill that floods the room Is all-encompassing And the feeble flame is no match for it. As the door shuts behind her All is Darkness
After a good start to this year I got a bit distracted and didn’t write anything for a while. This week I suddenly seem to have found my mojo again. I have been writing lots. From odd lines that will eventually develop into full poems, to snippets and phrases I have just jotted down to insert in a future poem, to a rather random short story. They are mostly first drafts still and will need a bit of tweaking before I share them, except for the one I am sharing now. I was playing around with different poem structures and with increasing and decreasing syllables and this was the result.
If
If
Only
It were true
That which you say
Statements of great love
Pretence of devotion
The words by which you deceive
The lies that you exhale
Carry me away
On clouds of hope
But like rain
They soon
Fall
Today’s prompt was to write a poem in a single sentence begining” She told me”
She told me once about an amazing day, when the sun had shone down from the bluest of clear skies upon a child of undetermined age while she skipped gleefully through the field, wiggling her fingers through the waist length grass that was dappled with the reds and yellows of wildflowers and hummed with the frenetic activity of creatures she could not yet name, but which fascinated her curious eyes, hungry eyes that drank in every drop of the idyllic scene, before he found her and roughly grabbing her arm dragged her back to her cold, grey-skyed reality.
No I didn’t miss day 2. I wrote a poem for the days prompt, but I am not happy with the last stanza so I will post it at a later date.
The prompt for day 3 was censorship. I scribbled lots for this one, crossed it all out and scribbled some more. Then crossed some of that out, replaced bits and shifted words around and then crossed the whole lot out again. Eventually I decided that I didn’t want to rhyme 3 days in a row and wrote a haiku instead.
Censorship
The harder you try To still the song of my heart The louder I'll sing
Sometimes I write poetry because I am inspired by something. It may be an event, an emotion, something I have seen or somewhere I have been. Sometimes I play around with words and phrases, just enjoying the musicality of the english language. There are plenty of poetry prompts to be found on line and sometimes I like to use these as they can be a bit more of a challenge as they may involve writing about something that I really don’t feel inspired by, but it is these kinds of things that I think help exerecise the poetry part of my brain and, I hope, develop my skill. Today’s inspiration comes from the “Word of the day” on one of the writing sites I visit. The word is burglarious.
Creeping through the darkness with burglarious intent The band of cunning rogues on their wicked way they went. Slinking through the village under cover of the night Anyone who saw them there would surely get a fright
This motley crew had just one aim, they would not be deterred Tales of wealth and riches to this hamlet them had lured And finding that the stories they had heard might just be right Decided that it would be worth their while to try one night
Plans had all been made with care, the details checked so well Each knew what they had to do, they knew to never tell. Whispers of encouragement between them were exchanged If they could pull this off their lives forever would be changed
So upon the place they crept, each one would play their part They clambered o’er the wall unseen – made a promising start. But that was when it all went wrong for suddenly the light Detecting hidden motion hence shone piercing through the night
“Who goes there?” Called a gruff voice from a window way up high “Tell me what you’re doing here, also tell me why?” Blinded by the sudden light erratically they ran They’d thought the place was empty, whoever was this man?
The bunch were not the smartest, all sense now flew from their heads They scattered panicked ‘cross the lawn, trampled the flower beds. And then the scrape of metal bolts, the squeak of door flung wide The snarling, barking dogs flew out, their quarry they espied
But as they fled, little they knew that worse was yet to come, The man stood fuming at the door and cocked his old shot gun Terrified the gang all fled back o’er the wall they went Back home to rue the day they had burglarious intent.
Life, as I understand it 