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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2316158-Eight-line-Poems-2/month/8-1-2024
Rated: 13+ · Book · Writing · #2316158
The second of my collections of poems written for "Express It In Eight."
As usual these days, I choose blog format because it offers more space for the work.
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August 31, 2024 at 12:46pm
August 31, 2024 at 12:46pm
#1075961
Format Soup

Eight syllables per line is all
lines one and two require of us
but seven becomes the goal
the next two to be just so.

And then to six we fall
enough to make us cuss
five should fill this whole
format MozeyMo.

Oh no, I’ve missed my bus!



Line count: 9
MozeyMo format
For Express It In Eight, 08.31.24
Prompt: MozeyMo format:
• 9 lines: 2 quatrains + 1 line
• syllables per line: 8 8 7 7 / 6 6 5 5 / 6
• rhyme scheme: A B C D / A B C D / B
Note: This was painful to write since the gradually descending syllable count prevents any success in creating metre. Syllable counting does not necessarily create metre but varied counts destroy it. And I’m all about metre. This is not a complaint but merely a groan of pain.
August 28, 2024 at 6:24am
August 28, 2024 at 6:24am
#1075821
Butterflies

I call the eternally giddy,
those obsessed with the blatantly silly,
who gambol and play
and prattle all day,
they are butterfly-minded old biddies.

They flutter from bloom to another,
a sip here and then from the other,
with chatter you just cannot smother.



Line count: 8
Rhymed aabbc ddd
For Express It In Eight, 08.28.24
Prompt: Butterfly Park.
August 27, 2024 at 6:41pm
August 27, 2024 at 6:41pm
#1075801
A strange flower.


Plant

Oh, deep in thy vegetable heart of matter
What humus thoughts grow thou
Tomorrow you feed on their rotting flesh
Though they may pluck thee now



Line count: 4
For Express It In Eight, 08.27.24
Prompt: Write an old-fashioned poem.
Note: Taking the prompt more literally, I remembered that I did write (many years ago - circa 1970) a poem in old-fashioned English. It has only four lines so does not qualify for this forum, but I thought it might be interesting enough to mention. The flower pictured is a Monkey Face Orchid.
August 27, 2024 at 6:37am
August 27, 2024 at 6:37am
#1075781
Childhood

I remember a world where the kids ran free
and the sun shone daily in skies of blue,
where time was forever and my task was to be
careless of the past and the future too.

But curled up in the bedclothes of every night,
I dreamed of the days spent in flowering meadows,
with never a thought that one day I might
look back on all this as the long, long ago.



Line count: 8
Rhymed abab
For Express It In Eight, 08.27.24
Prompt: Write an old-fashioned poem.
August 26, 2024 at 7:02am
August 26, 2024 at 7:02am
#1075728
Echo

Oh Echo, Echo,
doomed to repeat the last words
and then to fall for Narcissus
and mirror his self obsession,

fading from the world
to empty silence,
voiceless,
an echo.



Line count: 8
Free verse
For Express It In Eight, 08.26.24
Prompt: Echoes.
August 25, 2024 at 7:05am
August 25, 2024 at 7:05am
#1075691
Interlude

Pardon my beetle feet
on your petals so pure and white
so great is the day’s heat
I needed to rest from my flight

And your great smiling face
aglow with light like the sun
seemed a wonderful place
for a passing moment of fun.



Line count: 8
Rhymed abab
For Express It In Eight, 08.25.24
Prompt: Photo of ladybird (ladybug) on a daisy.
August 24, 2024 at 8:25am
August 24, 2024 at 8:25am
#1075652
Excellence

“Perfectionist” they’ll say
when I fuss about getting things right;
but they’re wrong in a way,
as it’s only with some things I’m tight.

For myself I don’t really care,
I’m happy with “That’ll do.”
But if it’s for the people out there
it has to be good and true.



Line count: 8
Rhymed abab
For Express It In Eight, 08.24.24
Prompt: Strive for excellence.
August 23, 2024 at 8:29am
August 23, 2024 at 8:29am
#1075618
Bison

Having posed for the stone age hunter
the bison moves on to other fields
other grasses where he can multiply and throng
eventually to shake the earth with his numbers
the thunderous herd in symbiosis
with tribes of hunters doomed like it
to pass in time to history
and endless corn and wheat.



Line count: 8
Free verse
For Express It In Eight, 08.23.24
Prompt: Cave painting of bison and photo of the same.
August 21, 2024 at 8:14am
August 21, 2024 at 8:14am
#1075542
Tectonics

Now the snows of eternal winter
settle on my raised face in the sodden clouds
and the brittle shells of my birth
are but myriad memories of the silent deep
lifted now through millennial torture
locked in the grip of relentless earth
folded and pressed in stony dance
to mountain heights and alpine field.



Line count: 8
Free verse
For Express It In Eight, 08.21.24
Prompt: Write a shifting poem.
August 20, 2024 at 6:42am
August 20, 2024 at 6:42am
#1075497
Boat

If I had a boat, it would be a simple thingie,
a rowboat, small, what they used to call a dinghy.

No need for nautical knowledge vast
or navigational skills from a sailor’s past.

But sufficient for a day spent tootling on a river,
a trip across the bay, relaxation to deliver.

The slow oars squeaking in their locks,
the bright water shimmering green above the rocks.



Line count: 8
Rhyming couplets
For Express It In Eight, 08.20.24
Prompt: If I had a boat.

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