Literary Lion. How to say goodbye.

When it comes to blooms and eyes, two of my favourite tales from the last month have included Graham’s In His Mind’s Eye and Andy’s Her Flowers. A good excuse for some escapism if you haven’t read either already…

But the cat has put his poet’s hat on for this fortnight’s Literary Lion prompt, the word is “Limerick“. Being such a wordy writer myself, I decided to take the prompt literally, and have penned a limerick, but there are of course many other interpretations out there to find…

You have 14 days to tell your limerick worthy tale in 400 words or less. As always please tag your post with Literary Lion, remember to pingback to this post and point me in the direction of your stories on Instagram and twitter.

Here is my little limerick…

How to say goodbye.

The air moved a vacuum of sound.

With a blunt breath and eyes on the ground,

the mortal invaded,

through sunlight he waded

and silence was heard all the way down.

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Thaw.

Shakespeare has always had my admiration, but he’s earned some extra kudos today, in the wake of my painstaking attempt at writing a traditional English sonnet… (with the theme of Future and some chiasmus thrown in for good measure)

 

Thaw.

From shadows uncertain, a wreck you hauled

In spite of the grave that shrouded the eye.

It bore through the teeth so time further stalled

As it tore though the bones whilst age went by.

 

When twenty summers did soften the ill,

And firm dissolved what had dug so intent.

That which was irksome now deadened the chill

with which the preface of life you had spent.

 

I remember the rain had fallen sharp,

The streets cast their echoes with sombre dew.

Your fingers, ice as they prised mine apart,

yet temperate shards pierced the bitter I knew.

 

The ice within is hereafter thawing,

Warming the fire as the fire is warming.

Fickle.

Today I have been slicing words from magazines like a blackmailing pro, to create what is known as ‘Found Poetry’. Here’s what I discovered amidst the piles of paper words…

Fickle.

Panoramic florals amplify the monochrome morning.

You rave with that cheap thrill,

Artificial in flirtation,

A moonphase away from a world

Quilted in blue.

Up.

Today’s poetry 201 challenge has helpfully allowed my writer’s brain to head home, in creating some prose poetry. The subject is ‘fingers’ and the challenge was to include some assonance in the piece…

Up.

 

Her blood boiled upwards as my ears rang with her rage. The words abandoned their sensical path, instead bulging the brain as indecipherable mush. I couldn’t hope to untangle it. It would reside, for evermore, swelling, sneering at my sanity and tormenting it into submission.

As her back faced forwards I took the wrath and exhausted it in the only way my schoolgirl mind could conceive. A hidden gesture paraded with such force that it would spend my frustration.

Forearm clenched, bicep tensed, I paraded a pugnacious middle finger at the back of her straight black bob.

She would think she had won.

 

 

I think this photo fits this week’s photo challenge rather nicely too…

Blue.

Blue.

Whilst giving my poet’s brain some dozing time this weekend, I am looking to two of my wordsmith heroes and pilfering their greatness for my post. From one of the masters of verse, W. H Auden, comes the poem ‘Funeral Blues’, which I first heard as a ten year old that, for some reason, after having taped it on my new VHS recorder in my bedroom, had a fondness for Richard Curtis’ Four Weddings and a Funeral.

If I could ever dream of writing a poem so fine I could only wish for it to be read so well…

 

 

Funeral Blues.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

 

Rat.

The poetic task on this happy Friday was to write an elegy on the subject of ‘fog’, using a metaphor. Here goes…

Rat.

The sight was hazed, the stature awry,

When whistling chaperoned the blindness.

Our bones would knock as sea-sick rocks,

As we tripped the dance of the inebriated.

 

Thanks to the Daily Post for the photo prompt.

Buried.

Another task in my bid to become poet: An acrostic attempt at internal rhyme, on the theme of trust…

Buried.

Lifeless her fingers lingered.

Ice at the tips.

Eyes vacant

Slits.

Asphyxiate.

For the next two weeks, as part of the WordPress Writing 201 Poetry course, I shall be turning poet. Poet laureate in the making I am not, but here is today’s task… to write a Haiku poem, with water as the subject, and including a simile.

Asphyxiate.

The surface, distant.

Finally, her lips gave in.

It seized, like feathers.