Orange
King of the hues
When autumn starts to fall
Slowly, fear steals over the land
Chilling
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 104, HAPPY OCTOBER – “POETS CHOICE OF WORDS”
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
And if you are feeling in the mood to get creepy – check out this
#CINQUAIN
Yet another step
Up the winding stairs to you
Slide down together
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
This mini-series of poems were written as part of a year-long daily poem challenge and published in my collection A Spring of Dreams. They are in a form called Pleiades (read about it here).
I chose to write seven of them one for each of the original Pleiades – the stars once called the seven sisters, and base the poems around the mythological characters.
Another spirit lost
Awash in the swell and foam
Anguished over lost love
Anger dealt him the blow
Arising from the sea
Alighting on the air
A bright bird arises
A nymph darts between trees
Afraid of the hunter
Always close behind her
Away she flees in haste
Another danger lurks
At her feet as she runs
A butterfly is born
Caressed by the wide sea
Corals catch the new child
Carry her to the shore
Colliding with bright fate
Climbing into the sky
Coronal light shines out
Cascading to the sea
Ever shining bright spark
Equalizing her rage
Encompassing justice
Ever seeking revenge
Endless pain unanswered
Echoing from murder
Electra takes her aim
Mother of he who brought
Music up to the Gods
Malice turned to justice
Magic cascading from
Mother of the world storm
Mighty God of the earth
Must meet a mortal end.
Marriage was forbidden
Mortal husband taken
Masked in a veil of shame
Must watch her husband’s pain
Most faint in the heavens
Marred by following love
Misty those lives above
The hunter is hunted
Twisting between the trees
Turned into doe from nymph
Trailed by her lover’s bow
Tumbling through the forest
Two golden horns that shine
To rise into the skies
In response to my daily prompt Cluster
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Ban
The things
We don’t like
Or understand
Don’t agree?
Are you sure?
I mean look at it.
Intimidating
Scary
Dangerous
Just take a look
At what’s happening
The rapes, the murders
Think of the children
That’s it!
You know it makes sense
Join with us
Ratify it!
Stamp it!
Make it official
Make it law!
Good!
What’s next?
Blue eye!
I hate them.
Let’s kill all the blue-eyed
Bastards
In response to my daily prompt Ban
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The arrogant moon
Believed he outshone the sun
But she disagreed
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #220 He&She
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Another blue birthday
Like his eyes
Two years as if yesterday
The memories of watching
Blue fading to darkness
Unlike his eyes
My memories will never fade
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
The passion of youth
Fires the body to action
After a lay in
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 102, “VIGOR & ENERGY,” #SYNONYMSONLY
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
A quick senryu this week
#senryu
In neutral gear
Idling
Sitting on the fence
Not taking sides
Until pushed
Off
In response to my daily prompt Neutral
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Berry
Suet
Logs
Have become
Something
To get
Excited about
In my life
How did that happen
In response to my daily prompt Berry
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Starting
Taking small steps
Closely follow the guide
Take every instruction to heart
Ending
In response to COLLEEN’S #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE RECAP NO. 100, “POET’S CHOICE OF WORDS”
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
A cinquain this week
#cinquain
Good
Good enough
Goodnight
In response to my daily prompt Good
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The steam arises
Covers the trees and valleys
Verdant green below
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #218 Steam&Cover
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Grimace
And bear it
It’s got to be
More honest
Than an empty
Grin
In response to my daily prompt Grimace
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Just too tired today so cheating – finding old posts that happen to have the word activity in them
When present is past
All the poison will still seep
Deadly legacy
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #217 Poison&Past
#amwriting, #postaday
So the soldier walks alone
The origin
Of the species
Is
Competition
Survival of the fittest
The strongest
The smartest
The origin
Of our success
Is cooperation
Working together
Against a goal
If
For a few measly coins
We forget the latter
And embrace the former
The species
Will find
Its end
In response to my daily prompt Origin
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Heroes are silent
Cowards protest loud and fierce
We are in between
In response to RonovanWrites RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #216 Hero&Coward
#amwriting, #postaday
Declaration
Protestation
Exclamation
Consternation
No explanation
No realisation
Just expectation
This small nation
Done
In response to my daily prompt Declaration
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My pen to paper
The dream I just cannot grasp
Er, except for now
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 98, “SAD & WRITE,” #SYNONYMSONLY
Check the link for the guidelines and rules
I think this qualifies as a senryu?
#senryu
Lace
Disparate resonances
Delicate dowagers, making doilies
And fine trim for prim and proper ladies
And
Lacy underwear
Designed to be divested
In fast passion
And
Purity
White and bright
Smiling bride
Lead to the groom
Leading to the room
And back to the
Lacy underwear
In response to my daily prompt Lace
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Decisions taken
Gateways opened, paths chosen
Following hope’s trail
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
So I was daydreaming in the bath – thinking about a book I read long ago – a biography of a famous 19th-century explorer and how he could be seen as representing men as a whole – but that’s a whole other post that will be coming soon.
Anyway – in the wandering way of my mind this lead me to thinking about how men have become demonised in the media generally. We are seen as stupid or beasts or slovenly – I could go on. But then, I thought women get it just as bad and then there’s ethnic minorities, the poor, immigrants – the list goes on. And on.
Maybe it’s just rich white people who get off lightly – but even as you read this what are you thinking? Of those Etonian brothers who keep their friend rich via nepotism and corruption while sneering at the poor? The rich wives from Chelsea with their lap dogs and expensive handbags and no clue about the real world?
See even they are demonised.
Why?
Who by – that’s an easier question. The media. And we all know that the media is run by those in power. I am no conspiracy theory nut – I don’t believe that there’s a tightly organised elite pulling the strings. Rather I think it’s like a self-sustaining system which lifts the people it needs to maintain its stability into positions of power. But whatever the reason – the media is the tool of that system.
So again why? Why demonise every single sector of society?
Control. If you cannot be proud of where you came from how can you rise to greatness? Great people can threaten the order of things, they can lead people out of their everyday drudgery and tedium. Out of wage slavery and obedience.
So greatness is stifled. In the modern garden of the world, the land is left to weeds and overgrowth. Anything that rises above the weed line is quickly cut down or sprayed with toxins until it wilts.
In such a barren and ill-tended garden, how can we expect flowers? How can we have anything more than poor harvests?
We should tend our garden better.
In response to my daily prompt Conspiracy
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
“That’s proper lush, that is”
And you are in a time and place
While the grammar nazis squirm
Layer upon layer of meaning is conveyed
Language
Being used
For its intended purpose
In response to my daily prompt Language
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Some of us are tourists
Some of us are peddlers
Some just love the night
Some just have the feeling
That all of this is just inside our head
How can we control it?
How do we define it?
Is it in our head?
What if we just follow where we’re led?
On the tourist trail
In response to my daily prompt Tourist
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Time to take
The initiative
Maybe
Or perhaps
Tomorrow
Already too late
It’s gone
When I wasn’t looking
While I thought
And fought
With doubts and fears
Follow on
Follow on
In response to my daily prompt Initiative
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The rumbling of the belly
Is the trap
The bait
Led us down a one-way path
No turning back
And keeps us here
In response to my daily prompt Belly
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Winter brooks no fool
Or those lacking hunters fire
The cold teeth are sharp
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #214 Lack&Fool
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Always open, ever weeping
The wound of inequality
But still they slash, cut down their crop
And with contempt they fill their boots
Screaming sights and flashing sounds
Headlines tinged with hate
Keep us poor and keep us scared
Or else eliminate
In response to my daily prompt Boot
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Child lacking safety
Will grow to fear the wide world
And narrow their mind
In response to my daily prompt Narrow
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This is my platform
And the train is leaving
Without me
Never got to say
What I had to say
Ticket in hand
In response to my daily prompt Platform
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My life is thin
Shallow
Two dimensional
No point
No end
Twisted
Mobius
In response to my daily prompt Thin
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Econobox
What a strange, strained word
A small, efficient, no thrills car
Feels like a word
Trying to hard
Like the marketing department
That came up with it
In response to my daily prompt Econobox
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Diddly Squat
Zilch
Nadda
The amount your beloved
Leaders
Think about your needs
They will bleed us dry
And squeeze us flat
As the weight of their greed
Bears down on us
In response to my daily prompt Flat
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The free market
It pervades every part of our lives
Every fabric of our society
Why
Why did we choose
To put all the power
Into the hands of the few
Greedy individuals
Powerful because of their greed
Who’s great idea was that?
In response to my daily prompt Market
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Upturned trolleys
And wasted lives
Stilted rivers
Fish choked
Earth poked
To the point
Of submission
We cannot leave
Without causing worse
Now our only hope
Is to turn the tools
To better use
In response to my daily prompt Trolley
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Supposed to relax
From the endless stress of work
The phone doesn’t stop
In response to my daily prompt Work
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Your flesh is the price
Your blood sweat and tears
The dividend you pay
To no one you know
For reasons unknown
But still, you pay it
On and on and on
Until you have nothing left
No legacy
No remembrance
And still
It will not be enough
In response to my daily prompt Dividend
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Struggling again to find time to write or do anything at all that is not for someone else.
I am close to giving up for good – there doesn’t seem much point, snatching titbits of time to chase dreams that are ever less likely to come to any fruition.
So back to recycling for now.
Unite behind them
And maybe they have a chance
So, come on England!
Sorry – couldn’t resist – so well timed!
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #208 Chance&Unite
#amwriting, #postaday
I can’t criticize
I am too little
Too belittled
I probably can’t
Even spell it
In response to my daily prompt Criticism
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Life
Where every step
Is a leap
Without a parachute
Forget that
At your peril
In response to my daily prompt Parachute
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A simple solution
Deport the deporters
Problem solved
In response to my daily prompt Deport
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We all see it
All perceive the truth
Children in cages
We know what it means
Here come the memes
The outraged status
Rules the day
Governments
ISSUE STATEMENTS
Then
We turn away
Muttering
Up next?
Ovens
Prepare your placards!
Or is all as it appears?
Where is the truth in what we see?
If we cannot believe what we see – we will give up belief.
And there’s the point.
In response to my daily prompt Perceive
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
I love a title
My name underneath
The first few paragraphs
The format
The shape
I love beginnings
I love endings
It’s the struggle in between
In response to my daily prompt Love
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Employ your words well
To communicate
Not condemn
Listen to all the depths of meaning
Conveyed
Instead of correcting
To shore up
Your sense of superiority
In response to my daily prompt Employ
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Brawn of the bear spent
The eagle sharpens it claws
This will bring no bliss
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #206 Bliss&Brawn
#amwriting, #postaday
A ring of solid light
Hovers just above the ground
Spinning with infinity
Casts glamour all around
This is
Where the white wolves dance
It is said the be the child
Of the seed of forbidden fruit
Born from secret knowledge
Found on a hidden a hidden route
Around it
The white wolves still dance
The colour pulses wild
Blue, silver and pure white
Dragging hearts round and round
Beneath the starlit night
And so
On the white wolves dance
In a time-worn trench, they dance
Circling below the light
So deep the light they cannot see
The circle is out of sight
Yet still
On the white wolves dance
The circle has been burnt
Into their very eyes
So while the dark wolf dreams
And while the dear time flies
Onwards
The white wolves dance.
So high upon their mountain
On an island on a lake
Isolated and secure from
The world they do forsake
This is
Where the white wolves dance
A deep and dark filled cave
Upon a mountain high
Where no light dares enter
And no echo finds reply
Shallow
The dark wolf dreams
A rumble from within
Deep in the dark wolves throat
The echo of the growl
The terrifying note
Fitfully
The dark wolf dreams
Strong appear the chains
That bind him in his sleep
But stronger still the anger
That grows within him deep
Brooding
The dark wolf dreams
Bitter is the dark wolf’s heart
Long his memory too
Some will be spared his wrath
But they are counted few
Grim
The dark wolf dreams
Terrible his waking hours
Thus the grey wolves grieve
Any heart with secrets dark
Had better rise and leave
Briefly
The dark wolf dreams
So do not be deceived
By the mumbling and the snoring
Born of rage and constriction
Of rending and of roaring
And of waking
The dark wolf dreams
On a barren plain
Where food and joy are sparse
The desolate packs wander
Watching slow time pass
Here
The grey wolves grieve
With rose stained eyes
Patrolling their border wide
Preserving what is left
Of what they hold inside
It’s why
The grey wolves grieve
They gaze across the delta
To far off distant times
Where game and ease were plenty
Than in these austere climes
And so
The grey wolves grieve
Disgusted by the carnage
Where the red fox roams
On guard for rebel spirits
Keeping safe their homes
Where
The grey wolves grieve
Yet what they seek in earnest
Deep within their hearts
They know is far beyond them
Beyond their stilted arts
Endless
The grey wolves grieve
The packs struggle onwards
Huddled in their gloom
Their hearts so full of anguish
For hope, there is no room
In this land
Where the grey wolves grieve
The timid beasties scatter
With tiny racing hearts
The scent of blood approaches
The herd all ways it parts
For here
The red fox roams
The scent of fear it rises
And fans the fox’s fire
Into enslaving passion
To raise the killer higher
Thus
The red fox roams
Filled with hate and ire of
Where the white wolves dance
The dance the fox desires
Denied its golden chance
Everywhere
The red fox roams
The world has grown accustomed
To fear of tooth and claw
The world has grown so weary
Of lives lived short and raw
Still
The red fox roams
The timid beasties scatter
Will never make a stand
They’ll not accept the secret
To gain the upper hand
So proud
The red fox roams
No one knows the course
Where the fox’s road is heading
All they see is darkness
The cast of all the spreading
Death
Where the red fox roams
In response to my daily prompt Wolf
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
UPDATE – I have now started my own! It can be found here
I only found out about this today!
After all this time the Daily Post is sounding the Last Post and bidding us farewell.
Damn!
I need it! I will miss it! I need a push every day – I may not use it – may not do it every day – but it helps. A lot!
Retrospective? Well, all I will say is that there was a tie, a few years ago I came to the realisation that I had neglected my passion. I stopped writing. Once I realised I tried to start again. It was difficult. Very hard to gain momentum. That is where the Daily Post came to my rescue. It gave me the inspiration I needed.
Now it won’t be there.
I suspect I am not the only one sorry to see it go.
So I may start my own. I might just put up a prompt each day. Can’t provide the fancy screen that shows all the entries – if anyone else does use it but I will give it a go.
In the meantime – here’s a suitable poem.
Old light from the past
Is still illumination
Wisdom echoes far
In response to the daily prompt Retrospective
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
More fucking shopping
I’m consumed by consuming
Working just keeps up
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
The news chills today
The child killers found guilty
Will justice suffice?
In response to the daily prompt Guilty
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 
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