By Scott Bailey © 2018
The awkward stance
Where does it stem from
A lifetime of toil?
Injury?
Or the weight
Of the world?

In response to the daily prompt Awkward
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The awkward stance
Where does it stem from
A lifetime of toil?
Injury?
Or the weight
Of the world?

In response to the daily prompt Awkward
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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!
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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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Acute pain
A cute name
For agony
Thus
Language
Is turned against us

In response to my daily prompt Acute
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Black and white headlines
Betray grey morality
Fallen leaves turn brown

In response to my daily prompt Linear
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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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Here lies humanity
May they rest in peace
They refused to see the evidence
The greed that would not cease

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

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

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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

In the dark between
The tree trunks, sneaks the deft fox
Dawn steals her cover

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The prancing gazelle
Being fleet of foot evades
The red rending jaws

In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #232 Foot&Mouth
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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 hovers
High over surf scattered sand
All will pass in time

In response to my daily prompt Hover
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Soaring
High in the sky
In synchronicity
Gathering, readying to leave
Flocking

In response to my daily prompt Consolidate
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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
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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
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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
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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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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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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
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In silicon hell
The servant does not obey
But who is the slave

In response to my daily prompt Hell
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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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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 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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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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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’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
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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
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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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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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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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Power in the palm
Talentless tablets
Talisman of our times
Shatters
When dropped

In response to my daily prompt Tablet
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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
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The teacher
The trainer
They are the shepherds
The protectors
Of the boundaries
Fencing you
In

In response to my daily prompt Trainer
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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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.
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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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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
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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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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
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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
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The most
Harmful
Things
Are the most
Unassuming
Tiny words
From
Tiny minds
Kill

In response to my daily prompt Harmful
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Infected
With weariness
Watching the corruption
Until it becomes
Normality
And we shrug
And move on
Just as they planned

In response to the daily prompt Infect
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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
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Formulate
Ruminate
Contemplate
Consult
Insult
Exult
Scan
Plan
Ban
Anything but do

In response to my daily prompt Formulate
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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!
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