Poems for years 4 and 5 of the Promptly Poetry Challenge. |
A year's worth of poems, every week for 52 weeks, spanning 2023 and 2024, plus the year following, from August 2024 to August 2025.(provided I live that long, of course). |
Doors Able was I ere I saw Elba, across the sea from Corsica, my captors forcing a humiliation on me. An emperor I was, held Europe to the last, but downfall clouds the past, no longer am I free. And I who owned a palace am taken now with malice and judgement oh so callous unto the house you see. So low am I become that still I count my crumbs, my house may be a slum but two doors to my glee. Line count: 16 Rhymed aaab cccb dddb eeeb For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 35 2024 Prompt: As per illustration. Note: I guessed at the location of the house, fairly sure that it would turn out to be Mediterranean. Italy suggested itself, then Portugal, and finally the island of Elba. Which was the first exile chosen for Napoleon after his initial defeat. The first line is a famous palindrome, supposedly reflecting Napoleon’s thoughts while on the island. |
Hope Do I know you, Hope, though toward you I grope? So often you’re courted while I’m mostly thwarted. And I’m Doubting Thomas, afraid of the promise, sometimes anointed to be disappointed. Though I know that it’s you that rescues a few, and I look for your light in the darkest of nights, the pain is still greater when sooner or later comes the end of the rope in the sad death of Hope. Line count: 16 Rhymed couplets For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 34, 2024 Prompt: Hope. |
The Shadow The Shadow knows or so it goes dark deeds afoot as black as soot. He takes the night beyond our sight effects his schemes while we’re in dreams. Only the morn reluctant dawn brings light of day to Shadow’s play. And so we muse on paltry clues to evil done where Shadow’s run. Line count: 16 Form: Four quatrains rhymed aabb, four syllables per line For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 33 2024 Prompt: Shadow. |
The End And so great Death hangs dark upon us all, The foreseen stop that ends our tallied days, And heed we clear that final sounding call To say farewell to sun’s departing rays. So black the night that falls upon that day, No news escapes to speak of what it holds, And time may last or fritter right away; Death’s cloak still hides such secrets in its folds. Thus doom reigns grim on our benighted selves, This passing of the things that we hold dear, Attendant now upon our mem’ries’ shelves; We turn to face the darkest of our fears. Yet life itself was always bound to fall; What follows may be greatest of it all. Line count: 14 Form: Sonnet - 14 lines, 10 syllables per line, rhymed abab cdcd efef gg, three quatrains and a couplet, this last being a volta! For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 32 2024 Prompt: Write a sonnet. |