\"Writing.Com
*Magnify*
    May     ►
SMTWTFS
    
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
31
Archive RSS
Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2299350-Promptly-4-and-5
Rated: 13+ · Book · Cultural · #2299350

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).
Previous ... -1- 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... Next
May 30, 2025 at 1:41pm
May 30, 2025 at 1:41pm
#1090289


May

Emptied box upon the bed,
clutter on the blanket spread -
an open book long half read,
notepad, specs, and roses (dead),
bottle with some green perfume,
forgotten scent fills the room,
morning coffee gone stone cold
calendar speaks of times now old,
a note I thought thrown away,
long lost greeting, “Hello, May.”

I remember well that day -
you smiled before you went away;
gone for years and once returned,
wrote that note before I learned
you were back but left again.
Memories I counted slain,
ceased for me to dwell upon,
stir, and rising with the sun,
awoken just to spoil my day,
remember me, my name is May.


Line count: 20
Rhymed aabb
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 39
Prompt: As per illustration.
May 30, 2025 at 12:23pm
May 30, 2025 at 12:23pm
#1090283
Obsession

I wanted a slot car set
I was given a train set
it was amusing enough
but far from favourite
slot cars came much later
in that no-man’s land
between child and adult
but so fierce my desire
it stayed with me always
through combined sets
with friends afire the same
and self made cars
correct in smallest detail.

Still I watch the races
and dream.



Line count: 15
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 38
Prompt: Write a poem about your favorite childhood toy.
May 29, 2025 at 4:12pm
May 29, 2025 at 4:12pm
#1090218
Egg cup and bulldogs


A Clipped Conversation 2

The bulldog clip and tiny child
on shoulder carried, meek and mild,
approached Sir Egg Cup and enquired
“Can you help, sir? We’re lost and tired.”

Answer Egg Cup gave them none,
the spoon inside his head had done
such damage when it stirred his brain,
and sent his knowledge down the drain.

You may have seen these things before
I wrote of them in days of yore
now much has changed and sad to say
Sir Egg Cup’s spoon has gone away.



Line count: 12
Rhymed couplets in (mainly) trochaic tetrameter
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 37
Prompt: Pick any object in your room. Now write a poem describing this object.
May 28, 2025 at 12:08pm
May 28, 2025 at 12:08pm
#1090156
Enough Already

Old age is content
to only sit and dream
far from in the stream,
without a new intent,
old age is still content

The young may build and scheme
of deeds afire that gleam,
but far beyond repent,
old age remains content

These things were once the cream,
perhaps more than they seem,
but sometimes called misspent,
and old age is content.



Line count: 13
Form: Dansa
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 36
Prompt: Write a poem in Dansa form.
April 13, 2025 at 10:37am
April 13, 2025 at 10:37am
#1087159


Darkness at Noon

“La Dolce Vita” proclaims the sign
a voice in protest against the lowering sky
the gathering clouds of ill intent
and the steps leading downward
ever downward into gloom and deep despair
far indeed from any sweetness of life
the narrow alley squeezed between
buildings grown too tall for their ambitions
and painted in colours once bright
but now dark with age and wear
so rarely sunlit in these latter days
as though life itself drains slowly
fitfully down the grate in the foreground.

The sign creaks in the breeze.



Line count: 14
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 35
Prompt: As per illustration.

April 3, 2025 at 10:53am
April 3, 2025 at 10:53am
#1086505
The Seasons

The seasons being the template of so many things in life,
the daily round eternal bringing echoes of the the dawn
till brightest noonday sun, to be followed by the evening shade
with darkest midnight promised,

so winter speaks of that misty, dreamlike place, our home,
mysterious land of formative, forgotten phantoms from which emerge
the first beginnings of the person we are meant to be,
growing into the one we know as me.

And spring is like those years we find when awareness blooms in full,
our arms embracing all that comes enticing within our reach
and clear eyes lead plans and schemes of all that can be grasped
in reaching what we choose to call maturity.

The summer comes with certainty, in greatest confidence,
completed child and basking in the heat of summer’s bounty,
with life burgeoning with positive assurance, no thought of year’s end,
the longest days deceiving.

Then the fall in so many ways, as autumn spreads its cloak
of golden times as rewards for work, now slower pace invading,
the dying leaves reminders all that nothing lasts forever
and celebrations muted now in shortened days.

Return to winter and those colder times, the bones are aching,
breath frosted with the waiting knowledge that life grows thin,
the wasted body struggling now, indecision ruling thought,
and so, at last, it’s over.



Line count: 24
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, week 34
Prompt: Use the following words in your poem: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn.
April 2, 2025 at 7:34am
April 2, 2025 at 7:34am
#1086429
Mysteries of the Night

From the black emptiness of the darkened window
comes the sound that freezes the soul,
a shriek of such anguish and sorrow
that the listener, no longer safe and ensconced,
curls up in the bed with dread and fear,
while nightmares toy with the thoughts
riding upon the echoes of that tortured cry
and questions arise from the deep.

Is it the wail of a lost child, hungry and far from home?
The scream of a wandering banshee wrenched from a heart of stone?
The shade of a long dead traveller set upon by brigands?
A last hopeless call for aid from some soul entrapped in the night?

No, that sound that haunts your dreams ever after
is but the hunting call of the fox.



Line count: 14
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 33 2025
Prompt: Use this title for this weeks poem: Mysteries of the Night.
April 1, 2025 at 6:50am
April 1, 2025 at 6:50am
#1086326
George

There once was a fellow named George
who worked for a while in a forge
an anvil he broke
the blacksmith did croak
and now George lives down in the gorge.



Line count: 5
Form: Limerick
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 32 2025
Prompt: Write a limerick.
March 11, 2025 at 4:39pm
March 11, 2025 at 4:39pm
#1085220


Musicals

In a field of crowding buttercups
shuttered against the rain
she floats like Mary Poppins
forgot the plain in Spain.

For though the hills may rise and sing
her favourite things go spare
and carousels go spinning round
so fair and unaware.

They say the music man was here
umbrella to the fore
he danced a lot like Oliver
and then went off to war.

Perhaps I speak of simpler times
I’ve lost them all somehow
and now our technicolor casts
took long ago their bow.



Line count: 16
Rhymed abcb
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 31 2025
Prompt: As per illustration.
March 6, 2025 at 10:11am
March 6, 2025 at 10:11am
#1084888
Anticipation of Spring

Now winter’s snows are shrinking,
lace doilies on the lawn,
and dark mornings chased away
by quickening of the dawn.

Now the biting teeth of cold
are blunted by the sun
and birdsong wakes the swaddled form
to hope that winter’s done.

Now the mind turns tentative,
the lengthened days to count,
until the time we say assured
we’re over winter’s mount!



Line count: 12
Rhymed abcb
For Promptly Poetry Challenge, Week 30 2025
Prompt: The anticipation of spring.

92 Entries *Magnify*
Page of 10 10 per page   < >
Previous ... -1- 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... Next

© Copyright 2025 Beholden (UN: beholden at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Beholden has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2299350-Promptly-4-and-5