Day 21 PAD 2023

 

Special challenge from prompt: write six six-word poems, each using one of the above words.

He
pulls back
love’s broken bow.

Nothing
leans like
a child’s eyes.

The
day breaks
on empty park.

Demons
saw free
our deepest fears.

She
tears a
poem for her.

Wounds
don’t heal.
They only change.

Poetic Form: Hay(na)ku

April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Twenty-Nine

 

Day 29 Prompt: Evening

Form: Rondel

“House”

House, dark and asleep, I can write.

The last of my breath fills the page,

as the writer now takes the stage.

Computer screen shines, a spot light

on my monologue, so quiet -

keep the peace, even when I rage.

House, dark and asleep, I can write.

The last of my breath fills the page.

Words roll on the screen like headlights,

blinding my tired eyes of age.

Time’s script always sends me downstage

to find a rhyme to this good night.

House, dark and asleep, I can write.

April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Twenty-Seven

 

Day 27 Prompt: Believe / Not 

Form: Echo Verse

“Told to believe”

They say all it takes is belief. Grief

is what it causes for so many. Any

person can say the words. Words

are empty vessels we fill, until

the vowels drip with sight, bright

and hot to the tongue. Unsung

songs lost in our reactions, distracted

with questions about life, strife

not solved with our speech. Breached

are the promises we were sold, told

to believe, to believe.

April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Twenty-Four

 

Day 24 Prompt: Question

Form: Magic 9

“Why Me?”

I question the choice of the muse, 

as I grip a pen with another poetic idea.

Struggling to find the words to choose 

to fill the space between me and you, reader. 

I admit that the words struggle in a confused 

clatter, like magnet letters falling off a fridge. 

I scramble to place them back up, only to lose 

the voice hibernating in my mouth ready to be a 

poem. But I write, again, to keep the muses amused.

Poetic Form 94: Qasida

 Here be Dragons

The walking path leans into the woods, sunlight

becomes a mosaic pattern of delight.

My daughters scamper onto the darken ground

to find sticks, there are new dragons here to fight.

I follow their adventure on the path, I

yell, “A golden fire breather to the right!”

Smiling, I can almost feel the the wings flapping

as the dragon rises in my girls’ eyes bright.

With a blink of memory I feel the dark

corners of the woods take me to a past night.

As a young boy I would run the streets alone,

trying to dodge my own dragons, fear in flight.

Those dragons, not seen with imagination,

their wings and claws were never shown in daylight.

Always the new kid with a new address to

remember, a family just out of sight.

I learned to slay them with my words and paper,

a battle I won with a pen and rewrite.

I open my eyes, leave the path to join in 

a new story, three princesses and a knight.

We laugh as I spin the tale of new battles,

here be dragons that fatherly love makes right.

The Poetic Form #94: Qasida

The qasida is a form that dates back to pre-Islamic Arabia. The poem is a story 

written in a string of shers (complete couplets) that can be as long as 100 couplets. 

The meter is up to the poet but should be consistent. There is some debate 

about the rhyme scheme. One form has a mono-rhymed pattern: aa aa aa.  

Another variation is aa bb cc dd. The most common rhyme pattern is aa xa xa xa xa xa. 

The poem should also entail the following parts:    

• opening setting describes or recalls past times    
• tale of lost love or things left behind     
• the struggles of the journey      
• praise or some moral maxim    

Poetic Form 88: Ovillejo

 

Doubt

What word do you fear in the dark?

Doubt, loud and stark.

Why do your hands shake as you write?

I am finite.

When will there be a sense of joy?

Just a decoy.

Words fall from open wounds. Nothing

stops the harassment echoing 

between the blue lines, narrowing

doubt, loud and stark. I am finite, just a decoy.

Poetic Form #88: Ovillejo

The ovillejo form is a Spanish form popularized by Miguel de Cervantes 

(1547-1616). This 10-line form consists of three rhyming couplets 

and a quatrain. The first line of each couplet is 8 syllables long, presenting 

a question that the second line (3 or 4 syllables) responds to as an answer

or an echo. The quatrain has a cddc rhyme pattern. The final line combines 

lines 2, 4, and 6 together.

The form looks like this:

Line 1: a rhyme in 8 syllables

Line 2: a rhyme in 3-4 syllables

Line 3: b rhyme in 8 syllables

Line 4: b rhyme in 3-4 syllables

Line 5: c rhyme in 8 syllables

Line 6: c rhyme in 3-4 syllables

Line 7: c rhyme in 8 syllables

Line 8: d rhyme in 8 syllables

Line 9: d rhyme in 8 syllables

Line 10: (Line 2) (Line 4) (Line 6)

 

Poetic Form 74: Somonka

 Dreamer

I want to love you

until the sky opens up

letting the stars free.

We can climb the points until

we become the Milky Way.

You promise so much.

Making me believe in the

magic of kissing.

We hold hands under the moon,

until your words are eclipsed.

Poetic Form #74: Somonka

The somonka form is from Japan. It's two tankas written as two love

 letters to each other (one tanka per love letter).

 

Poetic Form 71: Seguidilla

 Should

Nothing feels the same now that

I forgot your skin,

the way your eyes filled my words

scribbled on the fringe.

I left those notebooks

in a damaged box taped shut

with a poem of should.

Poetic Form #71: Seguidilla

The Spanish form, Seguidilla, started as a dance song before becoming an

established poetic form. The poem has 7 lines with the following syllable count

for each line: 7-5-7-5-5-7-5. There is an assonance rhyme between lines 2 and 4

and another one between lines 5 and 7. There is a pause between lines 4 and 5

and a tone or focus changes between the same lines.

 

Poetic Form 70: Cascade

 This Poem

I give you these words

Punched out of my soul

To use as you wish

Every letter crafted with care

Even the spaces between are important

I give you these words

So we can hold time in place

Colored with emotions

Punched out of my soul

This is my present

Wrapped with a title

To use as you wish

Poetic Form #70: Cascade 

The Cascade form was invented by Udit Bhatia. The poem uses each 

line from the first stanza and makes those the final lines of each stanza

afterward. After that, there are no rules for rhyming, meter, etc.

I used a tercet form.

Poetic Form 55: Golden Shovel

Why Poetry

-after Langston Hughes

Even in the darkest moments I hold

a pen with a fire to capture the fast

and fleeting muse that commands my mind to

fill the spaces between walking and dreams.

The strokes of ink are arrows, hoping for 

the gods, for the titans, to reveal if

I am worthy to mix a life with dreams,

or if words stay in my mouth when I die.

Each step I take is a verse of my life,

that I write with rhyme - sometimes. Breathing is 

a pact between impossible and a 

faith in flight. My heart can be broken-winged,

but poetry sets me free like a bird.

No matter the hue of the moment that

spurs my mind. These words, windows that cannot

close, allows my muse open lines to fly.

Poetic Form #55: Golden Shovel

The Golden Shovel form uses a line or two from another poem.  Use each

word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem. You keep the end

words in order as they appear in the original poem. (So, you can read their poem

reading the end words.) Make sure to give credit

to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines). Your poem does not have

to be about the same subject.

Poetic Form 48: Epitaph

Let my words speak for me.

Let them show you how to be free

to love, to live, to open your heart to see.

Poetic Form #48: Epitaph

An epitaph is a note that appears on a tombstone. It is usually brief and often rhymes. 
Epitaphs try to get the reader thinking about the subject of the tombstone.

Poetic Form 42: Than-bauk

Never lost for words,

mind writes birds, some

two-thirds take flight.

Poetic Form #42: Than-bauk

The than-bauk form has three lines with four syllables per line. It has an interesting
internal rhyme scheme; the final syllable of the first line rhymes with the third 
syllable of the second line and second syllable of the third line.

Poetic Form 25: Cyrch A Chwta

 

For Someone

 

For someone, it is the end

of the world. Lost more than friend

and enemy. Days are penned

for a life they hope defends

the soul’s moment to transcend.

Sons, moms, everyone extends

their hands to a tomorrow

not promised. Know love’s amends.

Poetic Form #25: Cyrch a Chwta

Cyrch a Chwta is a Welsh poetic form. The poem is 8-lines with 7 syllables in 
each line. The lines 1 through 6 and 8 have the same end rhyme. 
Line 7 has a cross rhyme with line 8 on either syllable 3, 4, or 5.

Poetic Form 14: Diminishing Verse

Fading

Between them, a conflicted strain

built over time. Life traveling straight like a train.

Both feeling stuck in emotion’s rain,

while wanting to see the Jura Mountains as the river, Ain.

He wanted to tell her of the songs he writes.

She needed to know his words completed her heart’s rites.

Together at the table they lived as lonely-ites.

Silently, they wonder how love became a tangled knot.

Neither one brave enough to bridge what they know not

of. Instead they spend each day feeling love lose its...

Poetic Form #14: Diminishing Verse

Diminishing verse has one rule, remove the first letter of end word from the previous line. A poet can remove a sound, too. (I took the idea of diminishing a step further in the poem with the verses.)

Poetic Form 3: Skeltonic Verse

To the Young Voices

Set the mic a blaze

with words that wave

and crash against 

the shores of pretense

Nothing more or less

than a voice intense

with the rhythm of pain

mixed with a story main

that calls for a tomorrow

filled with love instead of sorrow

Walk tall, we will follow

Words have power

to raise towers

that allow everyone a view

of a world we strive to

Where friendship is me and you

not dictated by unwritten rule

So set that pen to paper

Build a skyscraper

Truth won’t wait until later

We need your talent on stage

and street, love too can rage

Poetic Form #3: Skeltonic Verse

This form is named after the English poet, John Skelton (c. 1463 - 21 June 1529). The rules are simple. Lines are short with a couple of stresses. The rhymes are irregular. Alliteration and parallelism are used often in this form.

Poetry Challenge Day 29: Total (blank)

Total Eclipse of the Heart; Wait that Title is Taken

How many times has this word been written

or that one

or the one at the end of this line

We gather ideas like Easter Eggs

to display in our own hand basket

When placed side by side

one can see that there are no new eggs

only the arrangement differs

Every word written has seen the page before

Every letter now worn like a child’s favorite blanket

Yet, the Easter Bunny tempts us with the promise

of a golden egg

Waiting for us to find

    behind the books

    on a shelf

    tucked inside a drawer

The hunt exhilarates us

Happy in every discovered egg

    but yet

        somehow just short of total joy

But you’ve read that before