POETRY CHALLENGE - Week of 05.12.09

[mslover]

Keep 'em coming (and always feel free to go back to an older challenge - there are some good ones out there that haven't had a lot of responses.

1) I adopted a dog this week. How about a poem about an animal - any animal real or imagined.

2) Insomniac by Maya Angelou
"There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful. "

What keeps you awake when you should be sleeping? Write about it.

3) How about a color as a jumping off point? Use yellow as inspiration for a poem.

Okay, hope these challenges get some minds working!

[JillStar]

Wow... we certainly are slow, aren't we. By the way... your dog is very cute!

I don't have a poem right now and apologize... but hopefully others will chime in soon.

[mae]

Toss, Turn, Seek, Yearn

Tiptoeing around the edges of my room,
my dreams hide-and-seek
with thoughts of tomorrow.

Now a game of tag - you're it -
slower sleep always loses
and worries giggle in the corner.

Light brightens the window's edge
where dreams peek out.
Too late sleep wins.

mae

[mae]

#3

My hair shines
a sun-washed halo
and dandelions fill the field.

Royalty greets the garden.
Lilies standing proud,
their stamens frosted
with burnt-orange pollen.

In the window, a reflection.
A giant pistil smeared with
yellow dandelion
and golden lily.
I have been pollinated!

mae

[mae]

#1 Louie, the Cocker Spaniel

Louie is old,
and so am I.
We are a good fit.

I was his last chance.
From a shelter where each day
the measure of his numbered days
grew shorter by half,
he came to my house,
where life is slow
and quiet
and little is expected
except to sit when told
and take me on walks.

He sleeps by my bedside.
We both rest better.

mae

[mslover]

mae managed nicely to meet all three... i think we are carrying this forward for another week. (mae, if you'd like me to write a challenge tho just for you this week. )

[mae]

Nah, I'll just do one from another week that I'd missed before. mae

[Mlou]

Sorry for my absence, guys. Too many apptmts, too little time.


#1
ELEGY FOR A BROWN TABBY
I know you cannot come to me again,
Your footfall gentle on the counterpane
But sometimes in the early hours I lie
Allowing lazy minutes to pass by,
Reluctant to abandon sleep. It's then
I feel your whiskers brush my cheek as when
You tested wakefulness. My spirits leap!
Perhaps your death was but a little sleep,
My loss not real, a nightmare fled. I rise
To greet the amber splendor of your eyes...
But no, it's just a trick of golden light,
A fantasy of wishful inner sight.
You cannot come to me again I know
But I remember you. I loved you so.

[Mlou]

Mae, I'll be back to read your poems. Don't want to until I come back and do my other ones. *smile*

[mae]

mlou! That was beautiful! Oh, I do love your word choices. I thought at first it was going to be very light, but this is just gorgeous. Nicely done. Nicely done.

mae

[Mlou]

NOTES TO MYSELF

Ideas that run
like gerbils on a wheel
and will not let me rest
until my pen, held
in a fumbling hand,
has found the place
to scribble down a note.
Oh, these swift thoughts
come tumbling one
upon another when I should
be sleeping peacefully.
They grant no rest
until they're saved in
cryptic runes that prove
unreadable by
morning's light.

[mslover]

Bravo! Now the challenge has been met well - on to next week's challenge...

[Mlou]

Mae...very poignant story of the old dog. Sounds like the one my father had, who slept on the bottom of his bed. My father was deaf in his later years and the dog was his alarm, he said.
The "giant pistil" creates quite an image in my mind and I love the last line.

[Olsenpotter]

I missed this challenge so I went back and wrote one. First draft, I'm not sure I like it.

Woof

When I was eight,
riding at the back of the bus where the cool high schooler's rode,
I had an imaginary friend.

A red and white striped dog
named Woof.

He could fly.

He was small enough to fit in my pocket.

He was, in a word, awesome.

But the back of the bus wasn't friendly to dogs,

more so dogs they couldn't see.

So I dropped Woof off at my friends house,
knocked an the door and ran away.

I can still hear Woof crying that night
as I ran home, alone,
sad but
a little more high school cool.

[mae]

Olsen, this is so sad - but so like a kid. Well done.

mae