Day 25’s optional prompt, is to write something short and just a bit (or a lot) silly – the Clerihew. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

These are rhymed, humorous quatrains involving a specific person’s name. You can write about celebrities, famous people from history, even your mom (hopefully she’s got a good name for rhyming with).

 

So with “Day 25’s Prompt” I have chosen an example in this Form of Poetry by the founder, Edmund Clerihew Bentley, and then Four examples from “Shadows of Poetry Website“.

Then after that I have posted a Poem I have recently written that is not in-line with todays prompt!

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

By Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956)

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Four examples from “Shadows of Poetry” are:

*

Garfield the cat

On his rear he sat.

Eating lasagne galore.

Al about the décor.

James & Marie Summers (2000)

**

The Road Runner

always almost a goner;

when attacked in manner dread,

Wile E. suffers intended fate instead…

Alan McAlpine Douglas (2004)

***

Star Trek’s frowning Klingon Worf

challenges a squeamish metamorph

to eating a wormlike gagh dinner;

Worf of course was the winner!

Diana Dalton (2004)

****

Corporal Klinger,

M.A.S.H.’s best ringer,

in dress, heels and snear,

won “Kook of the Year.”

James Dean Chase (2004)

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Trials and Tribulations

As I wake upon another day

I am faced yet again

With more trials and tribulations…

Why in this life: I am unsure,

Of what lessons are still to be learned…

But I’m letting go; looking forward,

And moving on now…

As I need to focus on the time I have left here

To be peaceful, happy and whole

Not weighed down by others

Selfish negativity & childish games!

© debradml (2015)

 

Day 23’s optional prompt, was to take a chance, literally. Challenging you to find a deck of cards (regular playing cards, tarot cards, whatever type it didn’t matter), then shuffle it, and take a card – any card! Then you had to begin free-writing based on the card you’ve chosen. Keeping on going without stopping for five minutes. Afterwards you then had to take what was written and make it into a poem. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

 

So with “Day 23’s Prompt” I have chosen to use some cards a friend gave me as a gift a few years ago… “Healing with the Fairies” Oracle Cards by Doreen Virtue Ph.D., so I chose a Card and wrote a Poem based on that Card!

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

There lies the conundrum
Looking back at me
Urging me on, yet again
With hopeful abandonment
How many times though
Will I have to play the same hand
Over and over
Getting caught up in the in-between
Of the reality of real life
And trying to “Follow my Dreams”
Maybe I need a new set
That aren’t so far out of reach
Now that I stop and think though
Maybe, I do need to reboot
As their focus has become unclear
And try new approach
One last time…

© debradml (2015)

Day 22’s optional prompt, was to write a “pastoral” poem. With the day also celebrating Earth Day, we were asked to write a poem that engages with nature. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

 

So with “Day 22’s Prompt” I have chosen a Nature Poem written by William Wordsworth, and then after that is my interpretation in the Challenge using today’s prompt! 

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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THE TABLES TURNED

 Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

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MOTHER NATURE

To feel, breathe and connect

With the natural energy

Surrounding us

Brings an inner peace

That is indescribable…

Mother Nature is a quiet magic

That we so often take for granted

Getting caught up in

The ‘hustle and bustle’ of the modern world

But when we do… go and say hello

She embraces us purely, every time!

© debradml (2015)

Day 20’s optional prompt, was to create an erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

 

So with “Day 20’s Prompt” I have chosen several Pictures, (randomly off the Internet), depicting this Style of Poetry and then after that is a Poem I have recently written, but it is not in-line with the style of todays prompt! 

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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ERASURE POEMS

*

 *

 *

 *

   *

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MY LONG TIME LOVER

Each day I head to the beach

To wash away the dust

From the grind of the day.

And instantly I become calm and feel lighter,

Wetting my feet along the shore,

As I breathe in the fresh salty air,

There is nothing else like it for me,

It’s in my bones and forever to be.

It’s my long time lover,

My solace, my soul, my sea…

© debradml (2015)

Day 19’s optional prompt, to write a landay. Landays are 22-syllable couplets, generally rhyming. The form comes from Afghanistan, where women often use it in verses that range from the sly and humorous to the deeply sardonic and melancholy. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

 

So with “Day 19’s Prompt” I have chosen a Poem & Picture from “The Poetry Foundation Website” – Landays: Poetry of Afghan Women, then after that is a Poem I have recently written but it is not in the form with todays prompt in the Challenge! 

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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Day 18’s optional prompt, to write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message. It could be historical, mythical, entirely fictional, or memoir-ical. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

 

So with “Day 18’s Prompt” I have chosen a Poem by Australian Poet – Banjo Patterson, then after that is my interpretation to todays prompt in the Challenge! 

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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THE FLYING GANG

A Railroad Song

I served my time, in the days gone by,
In the railways clash and clang,
And I worked my way to the end, and I
Was the head of the ‘Flying Gang’.

‘Twas a chosen band that was kept at hand
In case of an urgent need;
Was it south or north, we were started forth
And away at our utmost speed.
If word reached town that a bridge was down,
The imperious summons rang —
“Come out with the pilot engine sharp,
And away with the flying gang.”

Then a piercing scream and a rush of steam
As the engine moved ahead;
With measured beat by the slum and street
Of the busy town we fled,
By the uplands bright and the homesteads white,
With the rush of the western gale —
And the pilot swayed with the pace we made
As she rocked on the ringing rail.

And the country children clapped their hands
As the engine’s echoes rang,
But their elders said: “There is work ahead
When they send for the flying gang.”

Then across the miles of the saltbush plain
That gleamed with the morning dew,
Where the grasses waved like the ripening grain
The pilot engine flew —
A fiery rush in the open bush
Where the grade marks seemed to fly,
And the order sped on the wires ahead,
The pilot must go by.

The Governor’s special must stand aside,
And the fast express go hang;
Let your orders be that the line is free
For the boys in the flying gang.

By Andrew Barton Patterson (1864-1941)

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RUSH & HURRY

All the world

can get so caught up

with such rush & hurry.

.

Forgetting that moments lost

cannot be reclaimed.

.

I too have fallen victim to this crime, 

wondering what has happened 

to the past 20 years, since your were only four.

.

In haste, as the time flew,

we got lost in the pace of the everyday grind.

.

Now as the reality has hit home, 

we must make the time to stop and smell,

the so called roses,

along the rest of the journey!

.

© debradml (2015)

Day 16’s optional prompt, to write in the form known as the terzanelle. ~ via The NaPoWriMo Website

A Terzanelle is a poetic form combining aspects of the villanelle and the terza rima. It consists of nineteen lines total, with five three-line stanzas and a concluding quatrain. Lines and rhymes are chained throughout the poem, so that the middle line of each triplet is repeated as the last line of the following triplet (or, for the last triplet, in the concluding quatrain).

 

So with “Day 16’s Prompt” I have chosen a Poem by South African Poet – Gert Strydom via “Poem Hunter.com”, then after is a Poem I have written recently for the Poetry In Motion, Community Group on Facebook – it is not a Terzanelle piece though! 

Happy reading and hope you all enjoy!

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DESTINY

Destiny sparks thundering through,
my life with an iron rod
and day after day I stand not knowing what to do

as if waiting for the presence of a god
to control
my life with an iron rod

and wherever I go wherever I stroll
destiny is still taking mastery
to control

as if the power that it wields, outreaches me
as if I am a slave with a curse
destiny is still taking mastery

of times in better and in worse
always pre-empting everything
as if I am a slave with a curse

and I am driven to wherever its whip rings cracking.
Destiny sparks thundering through,
always pre-empting everything
and day after day I stand not knowing what to do.

By Gert Strydom (1964-?)

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With the timing of the rainfall
Colliding with my heart
I let the melody of the moment
Take me over…

Letting it reach down deep
To within my soul
Unleashing an inner passion
I lose control…

Dancing away the dust
From what was once before
Soaking into every corner of my being
Leaves me feeling light and free…

 © debradml (2015)