April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Nine

 

Day 9 Prompt: Persona

Form: Hir a Thoddaid

“Old Metal Slide”

I hear you clambering to the top,

go down 540 nonstop.

Laughter filling the sky, a backdrop

to a joyful moment. I eavesdrop

on your conversation, father’s love for

growing daughters, no need to stop.

 

Poetic Form 81: Haibun

 A Father's Gift

A man, shoulders soft from time, stands next to his child, who is now taller 

than him. The man holds a box, a gift, for his son. Wooden, carved with 

calligraphy of the past. The box is heavy in the man’s hands. His son lifts it 

with ease. They smile; one is bright, the other scarred. In that moment one 

can feel time shift in the son’s favor. The man’s chest falls and rises through

earthquakes of memories. The son opens the box to find,

fall leaves ---

crumbling on to

his path

 

Poetic Form #81: Haibun

The haibun form combines a prose poem with a haiku. The form was popularized by the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. The prose poem and the haiku communicate with each other in some way. The prose poem usually sets a scene in an objective manner. The haiku follows the rules for haiku.

Poetic Form 76: Elegy

 

Thoughts of a Son (an Elegy to Time)

I remember holding you

while mom rested. The Vikings

playing on the hospital 

TV. Remote on the bed 

rail. I wouldn’t give you up to

anyone, not even mom.

The world was brand new again.

I felt like everything was

possible. You learned to crawl,

then walk, and then run. We read

books in the middle of church.

Took walks so we could touch the

bark on the trees. Watch squirrels

play tag on the limbs. I tried

to show you how to reach the

horizon before the sun

burned away all the colors.

But now, now there is silence

at the dinner table that

echoes in my heart, leaving

me wishing I knew how to

stop the sun from falling so

far below the stars we use

to watch on late summer nights.

A baby boy grew into 

a child that became a teen

that stood inches above me.

Today you are a young man,

but time holds you as my son.

Poetic Form #76: Elegy
The formal definition of an elegy is a song of sorrow or mourning. 

Today, though, poets have written elegies for the ends of things, a life,

a relationship, even a football season. There are no rules on form. 

With an elegy the message matters.

Poetic Form 54: Acrostic

Semiophor

Caught between the past and the future,

hidden possibilities revealed when

identity is plucked from the trees that 

linger in pastures found by knowing stories.

Directions discovered in DNA but

rerouted when the will finds its reflection,

enlightening a soul that collects life, old and

new, between the beginning and the end.

Poetic Form #54: Acrostic

The Acrostic form spells out words on the left-hand side of the page using the

first letter of each line.

Poetic Form 29: Free Verse

Believe

I’m trying to hold on, I swear, 

to believing in love.

Dear God, I feel like an 8 year old again,

hearing the stories that Santa isn’t real

from the school yard bullies.

Standing on that cusp of a belief

between what I feel on Christmas morning

and what my mind knows of the world.

Even though I can’t stand their voices,

their jaded taunts.

Always in a group, their laughter mean.

My mind knows there is truth

in their destruction of my joy.

Is there no longer a desire to see what love can do?

Have we dumped all our resources into hate?

The flames high,

heat radiating for days.

I know how tempting a fire is in the middle of a cold night.

Red flames dancing seductively,

promising to keep the wolves at bay.

But the fire will only burn if it is constantly fed.

There is only so much a person can sacrifice to pain,

until there are no more planks left to build a life with.

Dear God, I am tired!

My armour pierced.

My reserve spent.

My fingers blistering.

My body weak from holding my children away from

the onslaught of division and wreckage.

I am tired!

My eyes closed from the sweat dripping into them.

I want to believe,

I want

to believe.

To believe…

I believe,

I do...

I have lived long enough to know

that Christmas mornings

are still filled with joy

because I am the one that wraps the presents,

fills the stockings

and places the packages under the tree,

as all my children dream.

I know of the joy they will feel come morning,

because I believe.

I believe in love,

    even as I stand up on spent legs.

Poetic Form #29: Free Verse

Free verse is a form that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and 
does not rhyme with fixed forms, yet still uses literary devices like metaphors, 
personification, irony, and similes.

Poetic Form 27: Descort

Fatherhood

A father carries the weight 

    of his children’s 

hearts. 

Watches life 

    flow behind spectacles 

as hands, bones, and youth fade to memories. 

There comes a time when a father holds open the door 

    to his fear; 

    a world he has no control of. 

Each child passing him as they seek independence.

His heart breaking every minute they are gone. 

Poetic Form #27: Descort

The main rule for the descort form is that each line needs to be different
 from every other line in the poem. A descort poem has different line lengths, 
meters, avoids rhyming with other lines, no refrains, and that goes for the 
stanzas, too.

Fire Fighter

A spark can start anywhere

   the kitchen

      or bathroom

         or on the patio steps

A simple spark

   ignited by whim

     choice

       or simply tired eyes

The spark

quickly engulfs the walls

wrangles on the carpet

I hear the crinkling of flames

echo in the vents

I breathe in

Knowing I will burn my hands

  but must find a way

    to extinguish the fire

       before it blackens the woodwork

       before we cannot scrub

the smoke stains from our fingernails

My hands become hot

holding this spark

  this fire

the heat runs deeper than my skin

The smoke calls forth tears

but then

     the oxygen is pulled from the room

     from the spark in my hand

and little arms wrap around my neck

a little head snuggles into my shoulder

we walk out of the house

Fire fighter and daughter

Dancing Flowers

It is a late summer Sunday morning

   cool breeze

   warm sun

My youngest daughters

Play on the back patio

    in their PJs

    pink and green flash across the patio door

I join them

   sitting on the steps with a cup of coffee

“Look at this, Daddy”

    a rock

    a blade of grass

    in their hands

“Watch this, Daddy”

    as they run

    as they jump

    in the grass

They begin to dance

The sun shines into my eyes

I have to squint to see them

   but I swear

   if flowers could move

      they would dance like my daughters