By Scott Bailey © 2013
Birds do it. Bees do it
Even the goddamn fleas do it
It’s in the genes to survive
It’s not enough. Not for us
We have more, in our double helix
Than the ability to thrive
Make it our duty
Transcend circumstance!
Duty
Author: Scott Andrew Bailey
Summer Clouds
By Scott Bailey © 1999
A quavering wave
of light in the summer clouds
as the sun goes down.
Jörmungandr
By Scott Bailey © 2015
There once was a grouchy poet
If happy, he sure didn’t show it.
A dragon was curled
Around his whole world
Fire above and fire below it.
RIP Humanity
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Here lies humanity
May they rest in peace
They refused to see the evidence
The greed that would not cease
Choose
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Choose a clan
Nerd or jock
Red or blue
Rose or tree
Choose
Then sit back
Your decisions are made
Shout to defend them
But no more need to think
Just sink
Into the arms
Of your clan
The Meek
By Scott Bailey © 2015
The weak shall inherit the earth
So it is written
Of course
When the strong are done with it
It will have lost its worth
A played out empty husk
A flooded desert
Then the meek can have it
It Is Rain
By Scott Bailey © 2015
It is rain
All the pain
And grief
All the pain
Of everyday
It is rain
Of everyday
Stresses
We are plagued
But it is rain
Just rain
Falling down
Rain makes us
Wet and cold
Dampens us
If we choose
Misery
Rain is heavy
The sun will come
Summer reborn
From spring
Rain is life
Nourishment
Fresh
No misery
Be wet not damp
Be soaked
Revel in the rain
Dance and sing
In life
All the pain
The grief
The stress
It is rain
Just rain
Lake Zen
By Scott Bailey © 2019
Zen-like calm descends
Belies the chaos beneath
Butterfly settles
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #261 Zen&Chaos
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Pride
By Scott Bailey © 2019
The pride fights as one
The king of the beasts leads them
But the queen provides
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #260 Pride&Fight
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Quarks
By Scott Bailey © 2019
Strange, tiny, movements
Invisible to the eye
Birth, supernova
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #259 Super&Strange
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Sway
By Scott Bailey © 2019
All
That I
Survey is
Under my sway
That is what they say
The evidence is slim
So I start to understand
How perfidious is the world
And the darkness begins to seep in
The entropy of hope, and dream slayer
So I must strive to remember the truth
My eyes are my window to the world
What dwells behind them in my world
My kingdom and my domain
So here I shall remain
That is what I say
Under my sway
In my eye
That is
All
In response to COLLEEN’S 2019 WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 132 #SYNONYMSONLY
Influence & Perception
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
A double Etheree
#Etheree
Ceremony
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Change
Ushered in with ceremony
To hide
The cracks and flaws
Assuage the fears
Distract attention
From the directors
In response to the daily prompt Ceremony
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Jealousy
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Jealousy
A deadly sin
So we are taught
Over and over
Again
And when
We dare to question
The questionable ways
Of wealth and power
They smirk and hint
Jealousy
And the lessons rise
Prodding our conscience
Silencing our voices
With guilty pillows
Thus
Why we are taught
What we are taught
Is plain to see
Night Hunter
By Scott Bailey © 2018
In the dark between
The tree trunks, sneaks the deft fox
Dawn steals her cover
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Hunters Rush
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Thoughts lost in the rush
Emptied by the hunter’s rage
Purpose cleansed once more
Pillows
Cloudy
Dusky pillows
Huddle in the valley
Like a giant’s bed covers
Misty
#cinquain
Moonshine
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Shine for me, moon, shine
I need your silver beams
To heal
To calm
My love is not for you
But shine for me still
The stars, they pluck my heart
But not you
Shine your slow shine
Dip into the sea
Rise again one day
To shine away with me
Fleet
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The prancing gazelle
Being fleet of foot evades
The red rending jaws
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #232 Foot&Mouth
#amwriting, #postaday
Panacea
By Scott Bailey © 2017
The panacea
To all of the world’s ills
Is in our hands
Specifically
In their joining
In response to my daily prompt Explicit
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Albatross
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Albatross hovers
High over surf scattered sand
All will pass in time
In response to my daily prompt Hover
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Soaring
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Soaring
High in the sky
In synchronicity
Gathering, readying to leave
Flocking
In response to my daily prompt Consolidate
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Butterfly
By Scott Bailey © 2014
Sod the camouflage
Be resplendent in the sun
Flutter high and shine
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Cup
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The goal should not be
To fill the cup to the brim
But savour it
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #231 Goal&Cup
#amwriting, #postaday
Pool of Dreams
By Scott Bailey © 2013
Long shadows
Cast their thoughts behind us
Dim our once bright footsteps
An unclean window screen
But flashes from sudden mirrors
Slash through the shadow’s forms
Glimpses of dreams that passed us
Keeping them alive
Though shadows keep on growing
We head towards the sun
In shade, our dreams may swim
But they will follow until we’re done
In response to my daily prompt Keep
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Premonition
By Scott Bailey © 2018
I have a bad feeling about this
He said
She said
It said
Many voices
They did it anyway
Always
In response to my daily prompt Feeling
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Exclusion
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Today’s trend
Seems to be
Exclusion
Isolation
Leaving
When all we really want
Is to come together
And hold hands
In response to my daily prompt Exclude
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The Solace of the Night
By Scott Bailey © 2018
When the fire goes out
The heat is dissipated
Darkness falls again
Only then do the creatures
Of the night, find their solace
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 112, “COLD & SAFE,” #SYNONYMSONLY
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
A tanka this week.
#tanka
Monster
By Scott Bailey © 2014
Monster
Caught in lead and steel
Frozen
In time
Human
Caught in the machine
Enslaved
Forever
Somewhere
An artist smirks
And settles
To eternal sleep
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Powder
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The powder that burns
Clouded judgment
Gave power
To cowards
That never learned
Burnt bridges
With wisdom
Killed
And can never go back
In response to my daily prompt Powder
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Bound
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Whenever wolves win
A warm beating heart is lost
The law of the wild
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #229 Win&Lose
#amwriting, #postaday
Lights
By Scott Bailey © 2014
Swirling up into the night
Like some lonely northern light
Not north but here it did appear
Why am I not filled with fear
A spiral of blue and green
Wispy tendrils barely seen
Twisting up and further still
I watch it rise with mounting thrill
Into the stars I watch it go
And then alone the heavens know
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Silicon Hell
By Scott Bailey © 2014
In silicon hell
The servant does not obey
But who is the slave
In response to my daily prompt Hell
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
What We’re Fed
By Scott Bailey © 2018
We have reached the point
Where the genuine
Is ridiculed out of fear
So accustomed to lies
They have become
Our staple
In response to my daily prompt Genuine
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The Grain
By Scott Bailey © 2018
From the grain grows the stem
That delivers the wheat
From the deep furrow of the ground
Harvested
By the old
Leather-clad hands
Carried beneath the canvas
Of the rocking wagon
To the mill
Until the day
We went against the grain
In response to my daily prompt Harvest
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The Discarded
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The bag
Useful but discarded
Like so many
People
The world
That does this
Is doomed
In response to my daily prompt Bag
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Soak Away
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The tears, the grief, the bitterness
The anger, the revenge and recriminations
They will soak away
Soak away
Into the earth
And feed it
History will take them all
Absorb them, dull them into the distance
Until we are free to look
And try to learn
But the passion is
Soaked away
So the lesson is empty
The truths, the pains, the memories
The holes, the aches and the yearnings
They all soak away
Into the earth
Enrich it
Perhaps
We should hold the pain
Remember
And learn
In response to my daily prompt Soak
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Welfare
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The welfare state
The helping hand for the unfortunate
The most humanity
A government has shown
How the rich and powerful hate it
How they vilify those who need it
How they love to try to destroy it
A little less desperation
Means
A little less exploitation
So
Beware the day
They succeed
In response to my daily prompt Welfare
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Hunger
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Hunger’s fingers steal
Deep into an empty gut
So the wolves must strike
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #225 Strike&Hunger
#amwriting, #postaday
Fantasy
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Roll a die
Like a gem
Sparkling
And like magic
We are in a different
World
We are different
People
In response to my daily prompt Die
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Charged
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The dark clouds are charged
And reason fills us with fear
Released in thunder
In response to my daily prompt Charge
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Out of Reach
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Watching dreams
Float away
Beyond reach
While earthbound
Feel the separation
With every poster
Telling you
To chase them
In response to my daily prompt Separation
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Lost Realm
By Scott Bailey © 2018
For a sweet moment
This green forest was all mine
My own secret realm
Now, it is fenced off, private
Playground of the privileged
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 107, “HAUNT & SPELL,” #SYNONYMSONLY
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
A tanka this week.
#tanka
Storm Birth
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Where the great desert
Meets the rolling of the waves
And sand and sea seethe
The wind is stirred to battle
Between heavens and earth
In response to my daily prompt Stir
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Talisman of our Times
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Power in the palm
Talentless tablets
Talisman of our times
Shatters
When dropped
In response to my daily prompt Tablet
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Swells
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Waves rise and waves fall
And thunder wrestles the sea
The whales stay serene
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #223 Rise&Fall
#amwriting, #postaday
Seventy Billion Fingers
By Scott Bailey © 2014
Seventy billion fingers
And more
Have all in their time
Reached out for
The pure
Purely human concept
Perfection
The perfect car
The perfect job
The perfect house
The perfect friend
The perfect woman
The perfect man
The perfect hold of
A perfect hand
Yet what we still don’t comprehend
Perfection brings us stress in the end
Outside our minds it does not exist
So in pursuit we forever twist
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
The Tower
By Scott Bailey © 2014
The tower in the wood
Lonely and silent
Seat of many dreams
Where it was a palace of power
A refuge for outlaws
A romantic spire or a foreboding spear
A collapsed heart
Once vigilant
Now silent
Crumbling
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Shepherds
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The teacher
The trainer
They are the shepherds
The protectors
Of the boundaries
Fencing you
In
In response to my daily prompt Trainer
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The Present Storm
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The boat rolled
Pitched and yawed
In the roar of the storm
Rage without form
Pain without end
No captain to tend
The tiller
The sailor clung
To his sanity
Like life
In response to my daily prompt Pitch
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Light Falls
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Light falls
Through the ancient arch
How much light
Has fallen
Through the years
Upon
Lovers joined
The dearly departed
Those welcomed with blessings
Of water
The cold
The hungry
The repentant
The angry
The sinners
The light has fallen
Age has won
All those lighted memories
Nothing
Now the vessel
Is emptied
And ruined
Only the ghost
Of the shape
Of constraint
In response to my daily prompt Constraint (Originally written for Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo prompt)
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 
