Sunny
She was
And the shadows she cast were long
We long for her
Now the winter is here
And the long long night descends
Bright was her smile
White and bright her smile
Deep and black her skin
And we wanted in
From afar
Memories of sun
In the dusk
In response to the daily prompt Sunny
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting
The pie chart tells all
How our future is planned out
While dreams turn to dust
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #107 Pie&Dust
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Sometimes the things we are due
do not arrive
Sometimes that precious parcel
is lost
Sometimes the blows
are more than we think
we can survive
But we do
It is the ancient sadness
of humanity
Happiness has such
frailty
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Arise
To the thunder
The raging of the skies
Rain, that splits the drought asunder
Rejoice
Tremble
Beneath the aweful majesty
Of nature’s might roar
Making your heart
Thunder
In response to Colleen’s 2018 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 76: JOY & FURY, #SnyonymnsOnly
Had a go at a reverse cinquain this time.
#Cinquain #reverse-cinquain #CinquainPoetry
Shouting into the hole that is the whole
Nothing back.
Raging against the system that is all
Nothing changed.
Staring at the box with the box.
Nothing gained.
Justifying every move you make
Not explained.
Time to change.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
See the sky blush with
Golden fire heaven sent
And then the darkness
In response to the daily prompt Blush
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
There are empty spaces
left as people move on,
of the spaces of places long gone,
of times gone by
There is a link between present and past
an energy, a potential,
strung between the memories gone
and the living yet to roll on
The link hums with the tension
and the empty spaces echo back the thrum
deep rich reverberation
layered on the past, the present, the future
Such is the music of life.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Nature
Claws back its realm
Over many ages
Verdant fingers prying apart
Even
The strongest of our creations
With persistence of growth
Old and fertile
Mother
In response to the daily prompt Patience
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
See the argent moon
Chasing the brightest sunbeams
Moments slip away
Ideas buried deep in the mind
Forgotten, beneath the rubbish
The everyday detritus
Fermenting
Until one day
The green shoot
Of inspiration
In response to the daily prompt Incubate
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Continue readingA wrinkle by the eye
With a twinkle in
And that’s all you need to know
In response to the daily prompt Wrinkle
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Dreaming
Alone
Is not enough
Dreaming together
Greatly to be desired
But
Giving dreams substance
That is what’s required
Silence is Golden
Because it’s so very rare
Grab it while you can
In response to the daily prompt Noise
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Nature
Claws back its realm
Over many ages
Verdant fingers prying apart
Even
The strongest of our creations
With persistence of growth
Old and fertile
Mother
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 75: “PATIENCE & GREEN” #SNYNONYMSONLY
Had a go at a butterfly cinquain this time – and I had the perfect picture to go with it – one I took myself for a change.
#Cinquain #butterfly-cinquain
COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 75: “PATIENCE & GREEN” #SNYNONYMSONLY
A chance glance of light
Reveals the heron hunting
Slim pickings below
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #192 Slim&Chance
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Be yourself
Be true
Be uncompromising
We are told
Be open-minded
Listen to others
Find the common ground
We are told
Find the path
Through those
And you will be sorted
Or go mad
Trying
Simple
In response to the daily prompt Uncompromising
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
I watch the snow melt
The green shoots of grass rise up
To greet the new dawn
Taking a bracing shower
In glistening morning dew
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE, NO. 74: “RENEW & FRESH,” #SNYONYMSONLY
#Tanka
Bird on a branch
Are you resting
Are you watching
The world below
The people rushing here
And there
Along their crowded roads
With all their forks and cul de sacs
Fly on little bird
Fly on
In response to the daily prompt Branch
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Oh
For a restart button
A ctrl-alt-del
For some days
Some situations
Sometimes
For life
Must be the geek in me
I want to switch it all off
And back on again
In response to the daily prompt Restart
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Astral light guides
Cold and passionless
Cargos through the ages
Wood and steel
Fruit and bread
Flesh
To be sold
Along with the souls
Of the seller
In response to the daily prompt Astral
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Plainsong
Rolling, chanting
Granting the air a form
Bestow shadow and light purpose
Singing
The crafting of ancient wisdom
To bear us something new
Brightly shining
Lyric
In response to my daily prompt Craft
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Tempting like a tart
Sweet nectar awaits inside
So the dance begins
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #190 Tart&Sweet
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
The King of the West
With his golden crown
Encrusted with jewels and finery
Refuses to let it go
When the waters rise
So he is dragged
To the deep
In response to the daily prompt Encrusted
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Where is the litmus test?
The assay
Of our leaders
Mettle
Why must I strive
To prove
My worth
When they
Enjoy
No scrutiny
In their ancient
Empty halls
With their ancient
Empty way
In response to the daily prompt Assay
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Stars sparkle
Planets shine
Celestial bodies far from reach
The solars tantalise
Go for the shiners
Whose light is constant
The stars will ever taunt you
In response to the daily prompt Constant
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Only hear the stream
Babbling toward the ocean
The breath of the air
In response to https://ronovanwrites.com/2018/02/19/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-189-zennoise/
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
The past is hazy but warm
The present cold, hard and discontented
The future unsure
The goal
The route
Hidden
In response to the daily prompt Present
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The resplendent cock
Struts and crows, feathers rich red
While the hens scatter
In response to Colleen’s Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge, No. 71: Character & Affection, #SnyonymsOnly
#Haiku
Break it down
Into smaller chunks
The homework
Your daily work task
Your project
Your life
Until it is bits
Digital
And you never see
The whole again
Peace is the echo
Of the voice of the songbird
Across the still lake
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #185 Sing&Peace
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Showed us the nightmare vision of socialism gone to extremes
It didn’t come to pass.
Instead – we welcomed in something far more insidious.
Capitalism unmarked.
Welcome to
Welcome to the rebellion
Welcome to The Secret
In response to Scott Daily Prompt – 1984
Costume
Armour
Suits
It all hides
What is really inside
In response to the daily prompt Costume
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
River slips quickly
Rolling by under the bridge
Until the freeze falls
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #188 Quick&Slip
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
The colours of the cross
Or the crescent
The sickle or the sun
Or nothing
They bring us together
To tear us apart
Make us belong
To a place
Where thoughts are handed out
With morals
But deeds are discouraged
Where greed is nurtured
And consummation
Perfected
Darkness abounds
All around
Never-ending
As far as the mind can see
Interspersed with light
Bright, beautiful, enchanting
Far-reaching and inspiring
But
Mostly there is darkness
All enveloping
Mysterious, powerful
Devouring
Darkness
A random ramble through riotous thoughts channelled through a strict poetic form with strange and unexpected results.
Follow the expanding maze of words and see where it leads you.
In these times of quick gratification and short attention spans, I decided to try and buck the trend and present something not only with greater length but also depth.
The poems in this collection were written over a long period and for different purposes. They are varied but they are all long. And they all represent challenges. Each was a challenge to myself, to sustain a quality of writing for a long period and within tight constraints of form while still telling a story. They also represent and challenge to the reader. The challenge to throw off the pressure of everyday life, the pressure to hurry, hurry, hurry to take the time to read something, absorb it over time.
Such effort needs reward, these poems should not be a one-time quick fix. If the reader is going to put that effort in then there should be a payoff, they should be able to continue to get something from it afterwards. Whether that be from contemplation of what they have digested or from revisiting, rereading and seeing things they missed the first time around. So the final challenge to me was to provide this depth of content – not just quantity.
A fantasy tale of a Knight’s struggles and adventures that is a veiled allegory for modern life. But what does it tell us? What do you take from it?
In these times of quick gratification and short attention spans, I decided to try and buck the trend and present something not only with greater length but also depth.
The poems in this collection were written over a long period and for different purposes. They are varied but they are all long. And they all represent challenges. Each was a challenge to myself, to sustain a quality of writing for a long period and within tight constraints of form while still telling a story. They also represent and challenge to the reader. The challenge to throw off the pressure of everyday life, the pressure to hurry, hurry, hurry to take the time to read something, absorb it over time.
Such effort needs reward, these poems should not be a one-time quick fix. If the reader is going to put that effort in then there should be a payoff, they should be able to continue to get something from it afterwards. Whether that be from contemplation of what they have digested or from revisiting, rereading and seeing things they missed the first time around. So the final challenge to me was to provide this depth of content – not just quantity.
Fly on clouds with fantastical characters in an escape from the everyday! This poem offers no secrets, no hidden, agenda and presents simply joy and fantasy for the sake of it. This is the child at play spraying words like water splashed from a puddle in ecstasy.
Take time out, enjoy and ease your troubled adult mind – find the child again.
The world has changed and that change has been for the better. People who were hidden are now seen. Inclusion is the way forward and we embrace all.
But some have been forgotten. Worse they have been labelled the instigators of the old ways, the bad ways. So they have been left behind – tarred with the brush of a small, powerful group of oppressors.
This collection partly examines this issue. It is not a complaint, not a wish for the old ways to return, but a way to start the conversation about what it means in the modern world to be white, male and middle-aged and how we need to come together with the rest of society again.
On another level, “The Well of Sunken Dreams” is a look at the betrayal of dreams that everyone of all creeds, sexes and colours feels these days. It asks what happened to the dreams we were promised?
Pick up a copy – join the conversation no one is having.
This collection of poems is a reflection of my thoughts about this and other darker aspects of modern life. In my other collections I like to balance this side of my ruminations with more optimistic explorations. This did not seem appropriate here. This is my equivalent of a grunge phase.
It also contains largely previously unpublished works that have not appeared anywhere else.
So, stick on those goth tunes and wallow in the well of sunken dreams.
The world is colours! There are sparks in raindrops that outshine any gems. Stars sparkle with greens and blues and reds! Light hums through stained glass. Flowers and butterflies dance in an ebullience of shades. The spectrum sings through our souls.
“The Colour of Dreams” is a collection of poetry that celebrates the colourfulness of life in all its glory. Pick up a copy in your favourite form and join in the revelry.
Immerse yourself in a poetic tapestry that weaves together a myriad of emotions and experiences, all connected by the vibrant thread of colour. This collection invites readers to explore the kaleidoscope of thoughts and moments that mirror the endless hues and diversity of our cosmic existence.
Our minds need respite. They need distraction but not mindless, not trash. They need feeding. We all know this. We all forget it.
There have been many times I have been stuck in the deep, cloying pool of stress or simply stuck on a problem I cannot solve. The resolution has most often been to do something else. Something that engages the mind differently. This frees your subconscious to solve the issues for you. So often after such a period, the solution presents itself.
Many great thinkers and creatives have employed this method. Both Darwin and Einstein for example took walks in the country and let their minds be engorged with its beauty. For others, it has been music.
I present here another option. Poetry. A whole collection in fact – one for each day of the year.
So when you’re stuck, or just in a fuzz that you need to shake – pick up “A Spring of Dreams”, read one poem – contemplate it. Give your mind the break it deserves.
Three hundred and sixty-five poems in all shapes and sizes, sprung from dreams and emotion. Published day after day for a year. There are haiku, sonnets, katauta, lanturnes and many other forms – including free form. The moods are as varied as the forms and often reflect my mood on the day. There is sadness and grief, joy and love.
If nothing else – these can provide a small moment in everyone’s stressful lives to stop and contemplate the world in a different way.
There is a secret. It waits to be discovered and when it is it frees people, leads them to rebellion, and brings them together in strength. It must be discovered, it cannot be taught only learned. Once learned it needs to be lived.
“Mankind Limited” is the story of four individual’s journeys of self-discovery to find and share the secret. Each has their own set of challenges, their own falls and victories. In a world where everything is measured and controlled the weight of society wants to crush them, hide the secret and control them.
This is the story of that fight. A fight only those who can find and live the secret without compromise will survive.
Trapped. In a world where everything is measured and control pervades every area of life, four people begin to break down. Instead, they break through the walls of deceit and propaganda and into a world of revolution.
Each, in their way, vow to overthrow the established order. They embark on a journey against the forces arraigned against them, forces of state and self-doubt.
Ultimately their paths converge on a dangerous road and the discovery of an ancient secret.
One one level this is a story about how different people react the ever growing and relentless pressure of everyday oppression. It explores their journeys as they are broken and rebuilt and investigates their modes and motivations for rebelling.
At another level, it is a critique on the darker side of capitalism and free markets and how that has driven us further and further away from the evolutionary advantage that gave us supremacy in the first place. It questions whether the human race has doomed itself or whether we still have the capacity to wrench ourselves from the track we have so tightly committed our society upon.
The end of the conversation
Is the end of the line
The rising of the fires
Of hostility and ire
So keep talking
Keep talking
In response to the daily prompt Conversation
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Hear the music
Of the spheres
Calling
Feel
The irresistible
Attraction
Of the singularities
Pulling
See the twinkle
The burst of life
Shrouded in the
Nebulous mists
Here the roar
Of the silent yaw
Of space
Here the call
The dare
Will we share
In the song
Or crack
Our own end
In response to the daily prompt Calling
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The scarlet mountain
Hangs in the sky
The scarlet mountain
Lies
Through the blood
Of the mountain
All of us
Relate
This is the place
Dreams instantiate
Where the scarlet mountain
Dwells in the clouds
That is where
Hope flies
In response to the daily prompt Relate
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The compass has no compassion
The waves care not
The road goes on forever
Whatever your feet yearn
Rest is not an option
For the currents will always win
Only those that fly
Will win
In response to the daily prompt Compass
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
The giant sun burns slow
Swells red and bloated, gassing
It’s life into space
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #180 Slow&Burn
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
From the unimaginable
Power
Of supermassive black holes
To the delicate
Dance of quarks
It all contains
Elegance
Beautiful and precise
In the conclusion of horror
And the breaking of joy
The shining of rain
And the sweep of the dune
From the swell of the tide
And the retreat
Elegance
Rules
In response to the daily prompt Elegance
#DailyPrompt #iamwriting, #postaday
Defying downing gravity
To delight in dazzling dance
Shimmering, shining sparkles
Showering tiny tears
In response to the daily prompt Sparkle
#DailyPrompt #iamwriting, #postaday
Brass gleams, drips with steam
Flaring in a beam of light
Driving on the wheel
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #179 Flare&Steam
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 