Category Archives: Poem

Poems

Orange (Day of the Dead ;) #tanka #TastetheRainbow

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Drying leaves under foot
Early sunset sears the sky
Pumpkins by the door
Bright orange seems to speak of life
It is the color of death

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Written for Colleen’s syllabic poetry challenge. This week the challenge is “Taste the Rainbow” and the poem should have a color theme, be about a color, feature a color, describe a color or have something to do with a color. I chose orange and wrote a tanka.. The Day of the Dead is November 2 and Halloween is Oct 31, so today is the day between. My poem, of course, can be the Day of the Dead, or Halloween or both. It is the transition to late autumn and the color that seems to represent that transition, orange. I hope you enjoyed! (Photo at the top is part of the show the Mexican contingent put on for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and represents the Day of the Dead. Below is a pencil drawing that I did ages ago, colorized (by hand) on the computer.)

Careful What You Wish For #tanka

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What was is what was
Follow entropy’s arrow
Let sleeping dogs lie
Life unfolds the way it wants
So beware the monkey’s paw

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This was written for Colleen’s weekly Poetry Challenge. This week, we were to write a syllabic poem using the theme chosen by Anita Dawes, “What you wish for?” Being the season, I changed it to “Careful What you wish for!” and immediately thought “Beware the monkey’s paw”. So there you go.

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BTW, I once posted a small piece of music on a forum. People told me I should expand it. When I did, I used the working title “Careful What You Wish For”. Later I decided to expand again by making it the first movement of a new piano sonata. I did a post about it. And here is a video of “Careful What You Wish For”, but with a much more boring name:

(click here if you don’t see the video below)

Space and Time #darkfibs

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><
time
space
travel
distant worlds
rocket to the moon
leaving the lonely Earth behind
my world dissolves into vacuum when you are not here

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?
vast
void
vacuum
infinite
can life be out there
Earth alone in thee universe
is this the one oasis or is it the desert

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This was written for Colleen’s weekly poetry challenge. This week were were to create our own syllabic poetry form. I call mine the “Dark Fib”. It is based on the Fibonacci numbers (sequence), taking the first eight numbers as so: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. The “zero” is to be a symbol or punctuation mark that defines the poem. The next six lines should be about math, science (i.e. here it is space) or technology. The last line is 13, unlucky, so should be a dark statement about love, life, etc., that is something more down to Earth, more human. It just needs to be dark. The above is two different poems of the form, but somewhat connected in these.

First Stirrings #haiku and #tanka

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first stirring
winter frozen soul
tender shoot

barren landscape in
looks for the first buds of spring
snowdrop form flowers
A door long locked from cold
thaws to life as you approach

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These interconnected poems were written for Colleen’s poetry challenge. This week was a color, and that color was green. We were instructed to attempt to avoid/imply the word green. We could chose our own form ,so I chose a 3-5-3 haiku and a tanka. Hope you enjoy (it is still snow covered in New Hampshire, but this wasn’t really about the weather. Or was it?)

Your One-way Portal #doublenonet

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Image from pixbay.com by artist “Pretty Sleepy.”

the bejeweled future does beckon
visions of possibilities
but it is a one-way door
open, you can’t go back
point of no return
step towards death
forever
dead end
stop
time
onward
move forward
open that door
seek what is beyond
there is no other way
it is the past that is dead
create your possibilities
the bejeweled future does beckon

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This was written for Colleen’s weekly poetry challenge. This week the poem’s form was poet’s choice, but a photo prompt was provided by Diana Peach. It was found on pixbay.com and was created by “Pretty sleepy.” I chose to do a double-nonet due to the time nature of the image and resulting poem.

Winter Snow haiku senryu

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strike of a new year
radiant white and unformed
the future unfolds

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blank white page
waiting for our mark
let’s explore

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This was written for Colleen’s weekly poetry challenge.  This week the form was poet’s choice, but we were also supposed to choose a color.  I chose white and two haiku-like poems (a haiku and a senryu) of form 5-7-5 and 3-5-3 (verified at sodacoffee.com/syllables).  I am also going to join Rebecca today.  I chose my own photo.  I’m not 100% sure if this really counts as a haiga, but hopefully it will work :)

Cinnamon and Cider #tanka

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sparkle of bright lights
nutmeg and spice fill the air
a taste of fine wine
a golden glow doesn’t dull
but paints the memory sharp

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This was written for Colleen’s poetry challenge. Today we were supposed to write on the theme of “Festive”. Going through my photos, I saw this one of a bottle of wine I have had for 20 years that helped make last Christmas festive, despite it being a lock-down holiday ;)