My contribution to Ronovan’s Haiku challenge 339 with prompt words CHILD and Grow: I’ve made a tanka this time.
So - the instructions on how to grow a child have not been included as well as the batteries and unconditional love
Abashed
A contribution to Ronovan’s decima challenge 38, with Bash as the prompt word on rhyme line D.
Abashed
We often find ourselves ashamed
knowing we're members of a race
that barely shows a human face,
our consciousness twisted and maimed.
Uneulogised, unknown, unnamed,
the heroes of our human kin
retain this knowledge in their skin;
the reddening of cheeks abashed,
confounded dreams and ideals dashed,
condemned to darkness held within.
Taking Flight
Taking Flight
What we've burned
there still is use for.
Ash, like snowflakes settling
dousing landscape,
sounds muted as if smothered,
a page of words released
like doves.
A Christmas message for my wife.
For Christmas I would give you all the earth,
the planets shining jointly in the West,
the low sun crouching in the clouds
behind the cleansing rain beating
gently on our window pane.
But most of all and all that's best,
I give you treasure for your warm heart,
my ancient love to lie there
repeating again and again
that never in this life will it depart.
An Old Friend Passing
I have on an old tee shirt that I've worn
these many years; it's threadbare, stained and torn.
The dye has faded, it used to be coal black
but it's lost it's rigour and the neckline's going slack.
When I take it off tonight it's for the bin
or cut up into rags for polishing.
And I'll feel like giving thanks to this thing
I spent those many years being in.
A Gift
Here’s my offering for the Ronovan Decima Challenge 36 with the prompt word Gift on the B rhyme line:
A Gift
The shortest day is coming near,
we smile, receive it as a gift.
The solstice cuts ourselves adrift
from every other time of year.
It's like the tumbling of a weir;
the waters wash our pasts away,
we're cleansed by batheing in a ray
of the darkling sun, hearts aglow.
A newborn year will soon bestow
a deeply vibrant Cabernet.
Haiku
Here’s a go at Ronovan’s 336th challenge with the prompt words, Mad and Sane:
Sanity is like
a comfortable old shoe,
worn down, full of holes
The Dressmaker
Here’s another try at the Ronovan decima challenge with Knock being the prompt word on rhyme line A.
The Dressmaker
He gently lifted up the frock,
the fabric was so light, so sheer.
It hung there on a hanger near
the rest of his redundant stock.
The bailiff came, gave just one knock;
he slowly reached out for his gun,
knew he was not the only one
to suffer economic woes.
His finger twitched, the barrel blows,
the dresses flutter, half undone.
Curl and Paw
A contribution to the Ronovan Haiku Challenge 335. Prompt words are Curl and Paw:
Tail a perfect curl
of disdain, cat's got the cream
lathered on one paw.
Sacrifice
When you said ‘let’s burn the bonfire’ we’d built for Guy Fawkes night even though the small ones were ill; not ours of course, who were grown and gone but Stan and Wilf, our ‘secular’ children, I have to admit, I was none too pleased. My counter suggestion to go to the pub, celebrate half-term, your week’s respite, your cooling off, was met with the pursed lips, perfected over the years and employed to ward off such ideas.
So, out you went as I still struggled into my boots, papers underarm, matches held astrike. By the time I arrived it was already ablaze and you were shifting branches from one pile to the next to prevent the incineration of hedgehogs, your orange face filled with fire.
We spent an hour or so feeding the flames on a still night as a massive sky absorbed the smoke of a million atoms heading towards the stars. And I imagined Cranmer, who had, only that afternoon, looked down on us from his pious Oxford perch, feeling first the warming of his toes before the flames got a grip, soon consuming in that hot revenge the cries he must have made. I tried to imagine, with all the lifting, lugging and lurching, accidently throwing myself into the fire as some sort of sacrifice the god I’ve never known wished to extract, for me feeling curmudgeonly at not going to the pub.
Poems, Polemicks and Licks 