Entries to Express It In Eight from September 2020 to the present . |
The number of poems enforces the use of blog format with ten poems per page. |
From the Carriage Shadows move closer, leaping at the windows, blurred and flickering, as the train enters the cutting. Empty fields ensue, now the shadows lengthen, tall spectres racing, hurdling gates, fences and hedges. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.20.22 Prompt: Begin your poem with, “Shadows move closer.” |
Howdy, Stranger There are cowboys and cowboys but much depends on you, and which movies were joys as through childhood you grew. In silence you watched the deeds of Tom Mix, then came Gene Autry whose gaze was like flint, later the Duke was prob’ly your pick, but for me the hero was the man they named Clint. Line count: 8 Rhymed abab cdcd For Express It In Eight, 05.19.22 Prompt: "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.” |
Carapace Great, bulbous beetle, scrap metal in pain, warped grey carapace, windowed with misshapen glass, deposited by the ghostly trees, abandoned, rejected, left, reaching for the stars, wrecked alien craft. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.18.22 Prompt; As per illustration. |
Cows on Rampage Here they come, strolling down the sidewalk, a gang of them, switchblades at the ready, mooing their contempt at all they pass, leather jackets tattooed with messages, like “Mother” and “Hell’s Herd on Stampede.” Full of loud and lewd suggestions to any bull that crosses their path, while shoving sharks into the bushes. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.17.22 Prompt: Cows kill more Americans each year than sharks do. |
Beetles The Volkswagen Beetle, reputed to be so airtight it could float without leaks, and in my imagination, as fast as you closed a door, the resultant air pressure would pop open the other. The Third Reich’s Revenge! Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.16.22 Prompt: When one door shuts, another door opens. |
Go Gentle This Time Ah, Thomas and your hallowed verse, singing in your Welsh voice loud and drunken in the bars of England beyond the power and majesty of your words, it’s no wonder that we celebrate you, your rage against age that welcomes meekly death as a final release, relief, we listen spellbound to your beauty. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.14.22 Prompt: International Dylan Thomas Day. |
Tunnel Far off, a spark shines in the velvet dark, speaking of exits and the outside world while the blackness gathers around us and the air lies heavy and thick on the skin. A fumble for the switch and torchlight pools on the blank rockface, a guide down the narrow corridor of stifling night that leads us ever deeper in mute silence. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.13.22 Prompt: Write a tunnel poem. |
Evergreen evergreen the trees climbing the mountainside evergreen the innocence of a baby’s laugh evergreen the moss hugging the rock at water’s edge evergreen the limpid air after rainfall evergreen the echoing footfall in vaulted apse evergreen the distant voice of memory evergreen the scent of dark soil on fingertips evergreen the summer glades of England. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express It In Eight, 05.11.22 Prompt: Evergreen. |
Swings Swing low, sweet chariot, squealing in the currents of air, echo the wild shrieks of children, “Higher, Daddy, higher!” as the world speeds by, launching us to the sky, wind playing in our faces and daily cares forgotten. Line count: 8 Free verse For Express Ity In Eight, 05.10.22 Prompt: Photo of old, deserted swing set. |