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
Embarking on a journey to write a poem every day for an entire year was both a formidable challenge and a deeply rewarding experience. The result of this endeavour is my collection, “A Spring of Dreams,” which comprises 365 poems that capture a wide spectrum of human emotion and thought.
Throughout this year-long odyssey, I explored various poetic forms, including haiku, sonnets, katauta, lanturnes, and free verse. Each poem became a reflection of my daily mood and experiences, resulting in a tapestry of themes that range from joy and love to sadness and grief.
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the constant demands on our time and attention. My hope is that these poems offer readers a brief respite—a moment to pause, reflect, and view the world from a different perspective. Whether you’re seeking solace, inspiration, or simply a moment of contemplation, I believe there’s something within this collection that will resonate with you.
I invite you to delve into “A Spring of Dreams” and discover the diverse emotions and stories woven throughout its pages. May it provide you with a small but meaningful escape from the stresses of daily life, offering a chance to reconnect with the beauty and complexity of the human experience.
In an era dominated by instant gratification and fleeting attention spans, I’ve endeavoured to defy the norm with my collection, Andervayne’s Dream and Other Poems. This anthology comprises five extensive poems, each crafted over time and for varied purposes, yet unified by their length and depth. Each piece presented a personal challenge: to maintain a high quality of writing over an extended narrative while adhering to strict structural constraints, all the while weaving compelling stories.
The collection includes:
In a world that urges us to hurry, hurry, hurry, this collection invites readers to slow down, immerse themselves, and find depth beyond the surface. It’s not a quick fix but a rewarding journey, encouraging contemplation and revisitation to uncover layers previously missed.
Embark on this poetic voyage and discover the depth and breadth of Andervayne’s Dream and Other Poems. Available now.
As a writer, I’ve always been fascinated by the way words can capture the intangible—the fleeting emotions, the vivid moments, and the dreams that linger just out of reach. My poetry collection, The Colour of Dreams, is my attempt to explore these themes, to paint pictures with words and evoke emotions that resonate deeply.
This collection is a celebration of imagination and introspection. Each poem invites you into a world where reality blends seamlessly with the surreal, where the ordinary is transformed into something extraordinary. It’s a space where dreams take shape, emotions come alive, and the unspoken finds its voice.
In The Colour of Dreams, I’ve delved into the beauty and complexity of the human experience. The poems touch on themes of love and loss, hope and despair, joy and melancholy, all viewed through the lens of vivid imagery and lyrical expression. My goal was to create a collection that feels both personal and universal, offering something that each reader can connect with in their own way.
What sets this collection apart is its versatility. Whether you enjoy poems that tell a story, evoke a mood, or simply offer a moment of reflection, there’s something here for you. I’ve poured my heart into these pages, striving to create poetry that lingers in the mind and stirs the soul.
Writing this collection has been an incredible journey. Poetry, for me, is about discovery—not just of the world around us, but of ourselves. Through these poems, I hope to share that sense of discovery with you, to invite you to see the world through a different lens and perhaps even find new meaning in your own dreams and experiences.
If you’re looking for a collection of poems that speaks to the heart and sparks the imagination, I’d love for you to give The Colour of Dreams a place on your bookshelf. It’s a work I’m incredibly proud of, and I can’t wait for you to experience it.
Your support means so much to me, and I’d love to hear your thoughts after reading the collection. Whether a particular poem moves you, surprises you, or stays with you long after you’ve closed the book, I hope this collection offers you something special.
So, step into the world of The Colour of Dreams and let the journey begin. Discover what lies at the intersection of reality and imagination, and let the poetry take you somewhere new.
What lies beneath the surface of our waking lives? What secrets does the unconscious hold? These are the questions I explore in my poetry collection, The Well of Sunken Dreams. Writing this collection has been a journey through verses and a descent into the layers of human emotion, memory, and imagination.
Each poem in this collection represents a fragment of a greater whole, a shard of a mirror reflecting dreams both vivid and forgotten. Through these words, I’ve delved into universal themes of love, loss, and the passage of time, while striving to offer unique perspectives that challenge and inspire readers.
In a world dominated by fast-paced content and fleeting moments, I wanted to create something that invites readers to pause and reflect. The Well of Sunken Dreams isn’t meant to be hurried through; it’s designed to linger, to be reread, and to offer new discoveries with each visit.
My goal was to craft poetry that feels both accessible and profound, connecting deeply personal themes with universal resonance. For anyone seeking an emotional or intellectual escape, I hope this collection becomes a source of inspiration.
While every poem holds its own meaning, here are some of the aspects I’m particularly proud of:
Writing The Well of Sunken Dreams has been one of the most rewarding creative experiences of my life. Through my website, scottandrewbailey.com, I’ve shared this collection and other works that reflect my passion for exploring the depths of the human experience.
For me, poetry isn’t just about words on a page; it’s about the emotions and thoughts they evoke in the reader. With The Well of Sunken Dreams, I invite you to join me in exploring a world shaped by imagination and insight.
Are you ready to take the plunge? Visit scottandrewbailey.com to order your copy today and let yourself sink into the depths of my dreams.
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
Wherever words roam
Over fantastical lands
The heart rests at home.
Available as
or hardback
from Amazon
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
Daring the currents
Of the rare higher airways
Bold the eagle flies
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #178 Bold&Daring
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
White swan flies over
Broken, crumbling, old stone bridge
River rolls on by
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #176 Broken&Over
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
A touch of madness
In the powerful is wrong
But in the writer…
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #172 Wrong&Touch
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
The lake’s smooth surface
Is as calm and still as glass
Perfect winter’s ice
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #171 Lake&Calm
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
The gate swings
Welcoming those who have come
Waving to those who have gone
The wear on the paint
Remembrance
Painting it over
Will not erase the memory
In response to the daily prompt Gate
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting
I wandered lonely as a brick
That sinks and dives in stream and lake,
When all at once I was so sick,
And an awful mess I did make.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees.
Splattering my stomach in the breeze.
It must have been the bread I had
Or maybe that old Milky Way.
This puddle of sick smelt so bad
Along the margin of the bay.
Ten pints I had drunk, at a guess.
Tossing my head, I felt a mess.
The waves in my head danced, and they
Dashed my weak legs from under me.
A poet could not be so gay
As the one who stood over me.
He gazed and gazed and then in glee
Threw up and fell down next to me.
Next morn when on my couch I lay
In vacant and in pensive mood.
I swore I’d give up drink that day.
And swore some more, it was quite rude.
But soon, once more, the cider spills.
I’ll sleep again with daffodils.
In response to the daily prompt Dash
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting
Words slurred
Danger
Thoughts blurred
Danger
Moral smudged
Danger
Figures fudged
Danger
Modern life
In response to the daily prompt slur
#DailyPrompt
Let the rhythm of the future
Not be
The rhythm of the past
Let us change it
Though the task be hard
And let it be
Beautiful
Let it be vast
Lest it be elegant
And true
In response to the daily prompt Rhythmic
#DailyPrompt
The glitterati glitter
While the paparazzi pack
Lines full of lies and libel
To shore up the moral we lack
The world wide web weaves wonders
Hyperlinks hypnotise
The people they rage and thunder
Swallowing all of the lies
So watch the things that glisten
Watch the lustre and shine
And remember that nobody listens
Any of the time
In response to the daily prompt Glitter
#DailyPrompt
A lukewarm life
Mine could be considered
Is that a bad thing?
Or maybe
The heat
Is deep and concealed
Who can tell?
In response to the daily prompt Lukewarm
#DailyPrompt
Futility, the child of awareness
Perhaps ignorance is bliss
Not a choice I would make
Action begins in awareness
Except in rivers and clouds
In response to the daily prompt Aware
#DailyPrompt
It’s hard to be heard in the herd
The shared shards of pain shred
The glass glistens but no one listens
To the words of bards and the birds
Yes, it’s hard to be heard
In response to the daily prompt Heard
#DailyPrompt
Clean sweep
Clean start
Clean up
On a clean page
Clean sheet
Clean bill of health
Don’t they know?
Things grow in dirt.
In response to the daily prompt Clean
#DailyPrompt
Behind every poem in “The Well of Sunken Dreams” lies a story, an image, or an idea that has haunted me. Inspiration comes in unexpected forms: fragments of dreams, the fleeting beauty of nature, the aching feeling of memories, and the shadowed corners of the imagination. This collection is as much a reflection of my own inner world as it is an offering to you, the reader, to see where it leads you. If you’re intrigued by the source of inspiration, step into “The Well of Sunken Dreams” and see what stirs.
There’s a magic in poetry that lingers long after the last word. In “The Well of Sunken Dreams“, I’ve aimed to craft poems that stay with you, echoing back as whispers from deep within. It’s an exploration of poetry as an experience—a dance between reader and verse. I hope each line will spark reflection and resonance, inviting you to come back and find new meaning each time. Are you ready to let these words sink into your thoughts?
“The Well of Sunken Dreams” is a collection inspired by what lies beyond the ordinary. Each poem invites the reader to ponder the unseen—the untold stories of our hearts, minds, and dreams. These poems traverse themes of longing, nostalgia, and the eerie beauty of the unknown. Are you curious to explore the boundaries between reality and reverie? This collection might be exactly what you’re searching for.
In a world of chaos, poetry offers a sanctuary—a place where emotions find depth and meaning. “The Well of Sunken Dreams” isn’t just a poetry collection; it’s an invitation to dive beneath the surface, where words unlock hidden worlds. Every poem in this collection opens a portal to the landscapes of introspection, love, loss, and mystery. If you’re looking for poetry that resonates with your deepest emotions, I invite you to take a dip into these waters and explore. What dreams might you unearth?
Sleek and seductive
A scent that teases and tempts
The fried egg sizzles
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #108 Sizzle&Sleek
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Cherry petals float
On the tumbling mountain streams
Kingfishers heart beats
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #120 Heart&Petals
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Albatross hovers
High over surf scattered sand
All will pass in time
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #113 Beach&Time
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Flower of the vale
Sings to the sky in her joy
Spirits often do
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #106 Sing&Flower
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
As the journey grows
On, from moment to moment
We feel time passing
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #105-Time&Grow
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 