(I)

Spaced in the silence
birds land on top of the trees
welcoming spring back

(II)

Opening the gate; 
The grass is already moist.
Spring is here early.

*

(For #NaPoWriMo - National Poetry Writing Month 2023 - I am writing at least a haiku day set in Nature as many as I can in Shepley Woods near where we live with photographs to go alongside them.

The complete archive ...

Read and leave comments (1)

barely in focus

the sun dazzles you walking

out of the forest.

The full archive can be found at:

https://onewriterandhispc.blogspot.com/2022/03/napowrimo-national-poetry-writing-month.html

#Haiku #Haikupoetry #Haikusequence #haikuada

Read and leave comments (1)

It’s not love they play it’s another game

Where what matters is who can count the most

Playing duck and dive, surfers search for fame

Notching names upon digital bedposts

Their followers adore them with their likes

Each character praised as if from God

If their own petard hoists them onto spikes

Then surely, it’s the crowd that has turned odd.

Their ledger marking...

Read and leave comments (3)

They never changed that room.
Dolls, teddy bears, trains,
And transformers all hold space,
Lock time in perpetual stasis.
When death comes life stops.

Family said they should pack
Things away. It’s too hard
To be reminded day after day
Of a future lost in the past,
But a room can be a memorial.

It’s a museum of childhood,
Until a child of a later
Generation discovers it with
Glee....

Read and leave comments (0)

Each mover, save one Renaissance man
Of fellow feeling, complained of the books
And the bookshelves to display them.
Why would anyone move these thousands
Of miles and from house to house when
They are so obviously rarely used?

But the bookshelves, fully loaded, serve a purpose:

For starters, they tell anyone curious enough to look
Where and how my intellectual development has unfolded...

Read and leave comments (2)

Know how in the 1970s the televangelists
All had perfectly sculpted and blow-dried hair?
Well, my Daddy was at least partly responsible
For all that glitz and fancy get-up.

He didn’t do hair for anyone as famous
As Pat Robertson or Jim Bakker, but
Styled hair for some big traveling evangelists
Like Gene Williams. These guys would take the
Word of God around the world, but come back
To G...

Read and leave comments (4)

I have no roots –

only memories.

Present becomes past before my eyes

Life is lived, recorded there, somehow,

More or less imperfectly inscribed

Within my head, thus stored behind my brow.

These things exist for me, just in my mind,

For if I try to seek them out again

There’s only ever something new to find:

Nothing in the stillness can remain.

I have no root...

Read and leave comments (2)

Day 8 of NaPoWriMo asks us to write poetry using the jargon of our professions (or someone else’s profession). As a philosophy instructor, my only learning objective was to destroy the smug and self-satisfied confidence my students had in their own knowledge. Petty of me, I know.

On the Destructive Power of Measureable Learning Objectives

Your destruction is both
Achievable and measurable
...

Read and leave comments (2)

If I could take the thoughts you most like to think

And sculpt them into text that speaks to you as art,

If I could take the feelings you most want to share

And mirror them in words, reflected in your heart,

Then would you more easily forgive my selfish pen?

Excuse the vacant looks, the lost half-hours when

I am not yours, as I wander some distant mental shore?

If you liked my...

Read and leave comments (5)

The prompt for day six of NaPoWriMo was to write a poem dealing with counterfactual conditionals, as it were. Here is mine:

Accepting an Infinite Regression of Causes

If only life had come into being
On different terms, according to a different template.

If pain weren’t the primary motivating factor
For keeping life propelling itself forward,

If the best of all possible worlds weren’...

Read and leave comments (0)

Preamble: just a little ditty I threw together for napowrimo day 4, prompt word “radar” from @avolitorial on Instagram. Please read nothing into it - it is not at all based on reality. Honest guv'nor. 

“Hey! How’s things? Are you okay?”

Why did this come from YOU?

Why was I on YOUR radar, when

those closer never knew?

What psychic powers do you own?

What signals d...

Read and leave comments (2)

Oh NaPoWriMo 
how you challenge me.

Calling me to rhyme on time
when I would rather procrastinate
with this talent of mine. 

A poem a day keeps the doldrums away.
Read it, write it, recite it,
makes no difference 
to me. 

Just do what you can 
with what you've got
and see how happy 
you will be!
 

Read and leave comments (2)

NaPoWriMo 2016

Day Twenty Two

ITZY BITZY

When the sun is shining right through

Rough as you are and feeling blue

Phew Itzy Bitzy Timbucktoo

Choose to be there I want you too

Phew relief that you came back home

Rome is no place for one so young

So young Itzy Bitzy like you

Bleu as they say you are en France

Dancing cool to the latest dance

Rom...

Read and leave comments (0)

NaPoWriMo 2016

Day Nineteen

HOW TO TAME A TROGLODYTE

Is life a competition or a game

Pray tell me soon my all creative one

Ask your troglodyte to discuss his name

He’ll grunt and groan ignoring you for fun

Club you to kingdom come if you let him

You need to exercise control all day

Bind him tightly and whip him till he’s thin

Feed him minute amounts and make...

Read and leave comments (0)

BACK TO BRIGHTON

Who’s the dolly with the carboy trolley?

Bonkers about the bottle rack plonker

It’s Holly and she’s looking for lolly

Dish the dosh and hit her with a conker

I think she’s got a crush on the crusher

It used to be the bottle carrier

Had her eye on the winery brusher

Before that it was the dray farrier

South America would not be too far

Then there ...

Read and leave comments (0)

CHINA TOWN

MANCHESTER

Welcome to Manchester

Or should that read

Greetings from Manchester

Or perhaps

Welcome to China Town

Or maybe that could say

China Town Manchester

Whatever the weather the

Umbrellas are out shielding

And shading us from the sun

Parasol City this is not

Welcome to The Rainy City

on a sunny day perhaps?

160416

The prompt I chose a...

Read and leave comments (0)

MONKEY

Trouble don’t come so easy these days

You need to take a broom and brush it

Push it to the limit if you can

The bin dogs and alley cats know these things

And the garbage man

I’ve been waiting all day for you to come home

The wife said to the monkey

Double trouble hubby bubble

The wife said to the monkey

150416

The prompt at NaPoWriMo today was to write

Read and leave comments (0)

FREEZE

She looks at me etcetera

Pulling a mean and bitey face

I hide her cone shade but stay close

Wishing I had gone to Petra

The rose red city would be ace

She lifts her gun and starts to squeeze

Squirting water towards my nose

I pick my hose up and shout Freeze!

140416

The prompt at NaPoWriMo today was to write a san san poem.

Read and leave comments (0)

AFTER THE CRASH

Sometime after the crash, Dave had a touch of melancholy madness.

Dawn tried to console him, saying, ‘the windscreen was virtually opaque’.

The nimble pet robot had been behind the wheel, still Dave blamed himself.

130416

The prompt at NaPoWriMo today was a bit cookie, so I did the Three Word Wednesday Prompt. The three words were: Melancholy, Nimble, and Opaque...

Read and leave comments (0)

AN INDEX POEM

Acid heads are as bad as those that are

Alcohol fuelled filled to overflowing

Aluminium cans get kicked down the street

Ammunition can be so explosive

Batteries can power her motor and

Bleach can be used to clean her kitchen sink

Bombs can explode at unexpected times

Brown can be seen as a colour or not 

Calcium’s out there in rocks and in chalk

Read and leave comments (0)

WATCHING

WASHING

Watching it intrudes into my

Life it takes up a huge amount

Of room in my living space

I watch it sometimes

But sometimes not

It talks to me informs me

Sometimes it tries to sell

Things to me products and

Ideas that I don’t need  

Sitting on a table by my sofa

It is wider than it is high and

These days it has a flat screen

It has preset ch...

Read and leave comments (0)

UP ON THE BOOKCASE

Up on the bookcase she’s still writing plays

Adventures melt titles leap off the shelf

Ben Okri – An African Elegy

Books with a bit of wear and tear like Skin

Ten Short Plays – Nicola Batty & co

Memories of places we used to go

Guide to the Musée d’Orsay - in Paris

Modigliani on the hotel wall

The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen – Garner

The ver...

Read and leave comments (0)

BABIES KNOW

Happy don’t come easy sideways

Sway the boat don’t rock it baby

Babies know much more than we think

Inking forearms is forbidden

Denton is on another plane

Lane after country lane we drive

Arriving home before midnight

Night turns into daytime too soon

On the day God created man

Manchester was what He wanted

Granted it took some time to do

...

Read and leave comments (0)

FLOWERS

All covered in bangles

Done up like Beau Jangles

So cosy

Like poesy

Red roses sans mangles

Cream cheese and hot bagels

Laid out on long tables

Like plastic

Fantastic

Red roses green stables

Red damaged and tangled

Green droopy bits dangled

Red rosy

Girl’s posy

Plastic flowers mangled

080416

The prompt at NaPoWriMo today was to wr...

Read and leave comments (0)

POOR CANDLESTICK MAKER

He might love her but she loves the Butcher

Next time I think he will try the Baker

Butcher Baker or Candyfloss Maker

He even asked out the Cocktail Shaker

Still no joy for she too loves the Butcher

Cake in hand he’s waiting for the Baker

She was late coming out of the Bakers

When she did he said Hey Miss Cake Maker

She said what? And wen...

Read and leave comments (0)

EVER EXPANDING ANDY

Since bread and cheese with herbs became his dream

The cabbage soup diet would not suit him

Eating himself to death with cakes and cream

I don’t think that he will ever be slim

Shedding a few pounds would be a riot

Of course that’s not as easy as it seems

Lose the weight first then go on the diet

Ever expanding Andy – burst the seams

He need...

Read and leave comments (0)

CHOCOLATE
WHISKERS
Lily kitten pussycat
Nimble as an acrobat
With her chocolate whiskers sat
On a thimble Lily cat

I went out too early for the NaPoWriMo prompt today,

so I wrote a little rhyme for my Hello Baby collection.

Read and leave comments (0)

between the end of bits and bobs
   tanners and shillings
and the shaving of corners from lanes and roads

michael holding paces out his run up
   bare chested
      sunglasses
          red shorts
              big arsed rolling shouldered gait
                   whiff of a brylcreem
                        brothel creeper bounce
                             a pint of beer in each hand
...

Read and leave comments (0)

A winter bite that

mocks the spring, pincers its cocoon.

A life supported?

Cease one's internal decay,

Even ice melts. Love's fluidity.

Read and leave comments (1)

Roses are dead,

they smell like Le Pew.

But they still smell sweet

compared to you.

Roses are dead,

now you feel blue.

So take a shot neat,

and uncork the screw.

Roses are dead,

our hopes are too.

You were a cheat,

but I was too.

Read and leave comments (0)

A silence fell upon the city,

contorted shadows twisting moonlight.

Stuttering in a speakeasy seemed so misplaced

bottles rattled flickering like Fedora feathers

in an unforgiving wind.

The wretched odour of deprivation

a stench that sticks and degrades ones existence.

Even by day this city remains a lifeless sap

and by night the vampires feast on th...

Read and leave comments (0)

Another attempt at my paternal tongue.

Un altro tentativo di mia lingua paterna.

And though I beam with pride as I'm learning.

E anche se mi fascio con orgoglio, come sto imparando.

I'm aware that translated, the metre is wrong.

Sono consapevole del fatto che tradotto, lo strumento è sbagliato.

But this language pulsates to my yearning.

Ma questo linguaggio pu...

Read and leave comments (0)

No home, no job, just 12 good friends.

Betrayed by one who swore they never would.

Died too soon for pointless reasons.

What if God the NHS was one of us?

Read and leave comments (0)

Adopt

Saint Stephen's tale

It's Friday, sweets from Mrs Smith

Degeneration X and anarchy

Frankie's words: two tables, four chairs, suspension.

Discovered passing the buck, and thus passed it.

Stole the show with Twenty-one Questions, four dancers, and a singer.

First girlfriend changed everything, "You're young, she has baggage - get rid..." … did...

A pla...

Read and leave comments (0)

The waves carry you and I to meet

each creeps a little closer to my feet

                              I am waiting inside the rain for you.*
 

I retreat, stung by approaching tide

I turn my back and try to hide

                            The blistered, bitter rain that engulfs me.*
 

Hopelessly pulled back, my mind

succumbs to salty kisses entwined

Read and leave comments (4)

“Got 10p for a cup of tea?”

“If you show us where you can get one for that price,

I'll give you a quid”

He never did...

Irregular Apocalypse.

Lonely and irksome.

The bitter glow of jaundice

tears at society's rustic chains,

one tragedy at a time.

“The Freemasons took my children,

they took my baby.”

Now she's hopping magic buses,

Read and leave comments (0)

What do you do with a drunk in GAY bar,
What do you do with a drunk in GAY bar,
What do you do with a drunk in GAY bar,
Early in the morning!

Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Early in the morning!

Tell 'im, “sorry, it's members only”,
Tell 'im, “sorry, it's members only”,

Tell 'im, “sorry, it's members only”,
Early i...

Read and leave comments (1)

Sonnets are meant to be about romance

and love.

You know? All that's good.

But why should form be contained,

can one not make love to the page

in their own expression?

I can,

and will.

Imagination like a dodgems car,

wild yet bumpy.

And I guess that's what love is,

you can try to steer in the right direction

but there will always be obstacl...

Read and leave comments (0)

First time he'd ever been,

First time he'd ever seen

imaginations running wild brother,

see it to believe it.

As British as fish and chips

on a sunny London afternoon.

3 way dance or triple threat,

call it what you like but never forget

the joy,

the elation

the anticipation.

As Ligero drives the crowd wild,

the show stealer got robbed

Read and leave comments (0)

For him the song took a whole new meaning,

a control that made him wish to control others.

“Something's gotten hold of my heart”

an evil, a darkness

he mused on midnight

and the encroaching demonic hours.

3am and a stereo's blazing in a stolen Volkswagen Beetle

inaudible white noise, a prerequisite

for the red mist to follow.

“He see...

Read and leave comments (0)

Who needs paper to declare what your heart can?

Who needs a ring in place of a loving hand?

Who needs the approval of government or God

when two consenting adults hold the key to true salvation?

Love is the salvation that unlocks our potential,

marriage merely confines it to one form.

But if I were to ever conform,

I would do it for you.

The th...

Read and leave comments (0)