By Scott Bailey © 2013
Where the crashing sea
Meets the shifting cracking ice
Hunters hunker down
Ancient Coast
Daily Prompt
Twentieth Century Taliesin
By Scott Bailey © 1999
I am the factory wall, despised and so defaced
Covered with graffiti, defiled and disgraced.
I am the concrete tower that holds up the concrete road
Bleak and faceless white, bearing my toxic load.
I am the bin on the street, bursting full with waste
Where rats and vermin crawl, around me in distaste.
I am the battered traffic cone abandoned in the hedge
A used forgotten prize of lives lived on the edge.
I am the street side gutter where dirty water flows
A place of infestation, where all the darkness goes.
I am the discarded knife with bloodstains on the blade
The close but unseen menace lurking in the shade.
I am the lofty tower spewing clouds into the air
That speed across the oceans, killing without a care.
I am the broken shelf with screws rent from the wall
That supported all the books and caused them all to fall.
I am the sodden cardboard box flapping in the street
Broken, limp, forgotten, always under feet.
Once I was a poet, bright-browed with golden-haired
Playing harp and singing, songs into the air.
Once I was a druid learning from the trees
Drawing strength from bark and wisdom from the leaves.
Once I was a warrior with proud and shining sword
Singing with my war-band a deep heroic chord.
Once I was a chieftain with princes round my hearth
Against war and cold and famine, our mighty hearts did laugh.
Once I was a king whose soul was all the land
Who tended all his people with a strong and generous hand.
But I made other people suffer
Now suffer myself in turn.
But as you wreak your vengeance
What lesson do you learn?
What lessons do you all forget?
Feigning
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Feign ambition
Feign happiness
Feign expertise
Until the day
It all comes true
Until one day
The realisation
That day
Will never come
In response to my daily prompt Feign
A tenuous link today but hey!
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Deserts
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Deserts
Dust and heat
That will be the crop
Of the greed
Of our age
In response to my daily prompt Crop
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Twisted
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Acute pain
A cute name
For agony
Thus
Language
Is turned against us
In response to my daily prompt Acute
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Between the Lines
By Scott Bailey © 2015
Black and white headlines
Betray grey morality
Fallen leaves turn brown
In response to my daily prompt Linear
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Modern Manufacturing
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Making tiny pieces
Of truth
Making golden memories
Of the past
Manufacturing magical times
To garner accord
Pedalled
By the powerful
Shepherds
Of the sheep
In response to my daily prompt Manufacture
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Duty
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!
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
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
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
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Albatross
By Scott Bailey © 2016
Albatross hovers
High over surf scattered sand
All will pass in time
In response to my daily prompt Hover
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Soaring
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Soaring
High in the sky
In synchronicity
Gathering, readying to leave
Flocking
In response to my daily prompt Consolidate
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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
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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
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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
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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
Reeds
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The winter wind breathes
The reeds on the lake rustle
Night and day unite
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #222 Breath&Unite
#amwriting, #postaday
The Craft
By Scott Bailey 2017
Hands caressing wood
Tracing the grain
Or moulding clay
To release secret shapes
Or shearing marble
Into silken shapes
Or stroking the page
To paint magic words
Or brushing the canvas
Revealing worlds of dancing light
Nothing
No automation
No factory
No robot
No tool
Will replace the love
In the craft
In response to my daily prompt Craft
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Lake
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Sun embraces earth
Peace descends on the calm lake
The swan makes a splash
In response to RonovanWrites Weekly #Haiku #Poetry #Challenge #221 Peace&Love.
#amwriting, #postaday
Lies
By Scott Bailey © 2018
There’s a prevalence
Of lies
In places
Where truths should be held
Power is held
In such ways
These are our
Troubled days
And the eyes
Are turned away
In response to my daily prompt Prevalence
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Kit and Kaboodle
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The whole kit and kaboodle
Everything you need to get started
You will soon be the expert
In your new chosen hobby/pastime/pursuit
Until the next new thing
The next thing to be seen doing
Then you will need to get
Another whole kit and kaboodle
This is the lifecycle
Of the perfect consumer
Duped into thinking
They are pursuing a perfect life
In response to my daily prompt Innovation
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Truth
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Be true
To yourself
There is no other
Truth
Follow your dreams
And other such
Platitudes
But
They don’t
Pay the bills
Or
Bear the weight
Of life’s
Burdens
They were
Written
By those
Who
Enjoy the fruit
Of others’ labours
In response to my daily prompt True
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Transform
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The whole human race
Must transform
Move on
Leave behind the past
The constraints and restraints
Of superstition
Fix the damage
And become new
Become something more
Than the consumers of the earth
In response to my daily prompt Transform
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Deep
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Deep in the Crevice
No chink of light creeps
Water carved solace
Permanent night
There dwells the one
Who will bring us to the day
When our own cavernous darkness
Will finally hold sway
In response to my daily prompt Crevice
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Harmful
By Scott Bailey © 2018
The most
Harmful
Things
Are the most
Unassuming
Tiny words
From
Tiny minds
Kill
In response to my daily prompt Harmful
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Permission
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Formulate
Don’t wait for permission
Go
Make the new world
Leave the old
With the dinosaurs
Don’t change the establishment
Ignore it
Make a new one
Reclaim
Everything
In response to my daily prompt Permission
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The Plan
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Formulate
Ruminate
Contemplate
Consult
Insult
Exult
Scan
Plan
Ban
Anything but do
In response to my daily prompt Formulate
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Night Cafe
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Egg and bacon sandwich
Dripping yolk and ketchup
Steaming tea from an old tin boiler
Condensation frosting the windows
Empty streets, lit by sulphur orange
Solace
In response to my daily prompt Bacon
A tenuous link today but hey!
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Alarm
By Scott Bailey © 2015
The alarm keeps going off
But there’s nothing wrong
The alarm keeps going off
We ignore it
The alarm keeps going off
Keeps going off
In response to my daily prompt Alarm
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Hours
By Scott Bailey © 2018
Sun traces an arc
Marking the hours and setting
Events in motion
In response to my daily prompt Hour
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 
