Posts: 257
Threads: 108
Joined: Dec 2016
Everyone is welcome to play. Also, the prompts are always open so anyone can add a poem to them at any time.
Rules: Write a poem for national poetry month on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month, have written 30 poems for National Poetry Month.
Topic: Write a sonnet. (If you prefer not to write a sonnet, a different type of form poem can be substituted.)
Form: sonnet
Line requirements: 14
Posts: 2,360
Threads: 230
Joined: Oct 2010
04-30-2020, 03:15 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-30-2020, 03:21 AM by Todd.)
Hunger, Games, and the Blood of Children
This hunger hollows like a sounding drum
with empty bellies gathered on a train
not by starvation will we now succumb
applause resounds as each of us is slain.
Like mice, they bait the trap. We’re cut in half.
I perch above the carnage with the jays,
watch you circle, fire to your chaff,
unleash the swarm, the stings of your malaise.
Yet now I stand alone though we are two
as tiny murder rolls upon my tongue
a taste of night to sleep without rescue
a harmony now broken and unsung.
I’m numb to your acclaim and cruel disdain
Though we would shed the blood, you bear the stain.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
Posts: 848
Threads: 232
Joined: Oct 2012
The bigger picture
A biting breeze spread blossom confetti
as I skimmed the surface of the lake
with pebbles, from the edge of a jetty,
each dip flicked colour from a deep opaque.
As silent as smoke trails that drift and fade,
a Grey Heron steps into the shallows,
we watch each other, still and unafraid,
he stoops to take a sip and I swallow.
Air brakes hiss snapping calm into chaos,
camera ants march down the steep grass bank
then spread out around the shoreline's pathos,
I worry as they stomp on weathered planks.
Two sharp blasts and the steamer arrives,
its paddles churn and the clicking subsides.
@ Todd, Wow
"as tiny murder rolls upon my tongue
a taste of night to sleep without rescue
a harmony now broken and unsung."
If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
Posts: 1,187
Threads: 250
Joined: Nov 2015
To His Small Guest
O little one who yearns to nestle near
my heart, we have in common ignorance:
I don’t know every step your tiny dance
will take, but you know nothing either, dear.
You’d leave me breathless, choking with a fear
that your impulsive growth will by mischance
shut off my life - but that would not enhance
your own: its spread would end when you appear.
Let’s make a pact, you thoughtless, faithless one
who trysts promiscuously with each you touch:
strike young and fair as lightly as you can,
and women less, and those whose breath the Sun
has seared. Then you may bloom and die in such
a lodging as this old, forgotten man.
Non-practicing atheist
