2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Days 13-30

[D Walker]

Creative Thought

A rhyme it goes round and round
My thoughts in circles, hard to put down

What is it there inside of me
A voice to be heard, a thought to set free

It comes and goes, this voice inside
Hidden pros not wanting to hide

Melodic voice, a verse set to time
On it goes, a rhyme, a rhyme

Until one day the voice it comes
Word by word, one by one

Thoughts of sorrow, thoughts of joy
I play with them as if a toy

Until at last on paper drawn
Inside thoughts, now outside and known to everyone

[JSimpl2]

Challenge Day 25 - an opposite poem

Up becomes down

If up were down, things would become interesting.
Everything usually up would be down –
Ceilings and roofs would be on the ground
Towers and high rise buildings would settle to the earth to become piles of rubble

Airplanes could not fly and cars would be hampered by all the downed things
We would be walking, moving, driving on clouds (or would we be in them?)
Rain would always be flooding of some sort somewhere on our globe.
The moon would sit somewhere on our planet

Of course, we would not need to be overly concerned about all that
Because the sun and stars would drift to the ground and burn everything in their path around the globe.
Having up be down would result in total devastation.
Not a good idea. Let’s leave up UP where things continue to ‘work’ as we understand them.

Johnine M Simpson – Nov. 26, 2012

[sherwette]

A bad man he played.
A bad man she loved. Believed in.
A bad man she missed.
A bad man she knew. She didn’t care much.
He made her laugh. He made her smile.
He left. He left.
Made her cry.
He saw her tears and not utter a thing.
He left. He left.
“Better to be a memory. Better to forget my memory,” she said.
She didn’t want hate.
She didn’t want love.
Another came along.
She didn’t want love.
She didn’t want hate.
Alone. Alone. She wants to stay alone.
“Leave me alone. I want to stay alone,” she said. She said.
A good man he played. A good man he portrayed.
She didn’t want love.
A good man he stood. Her man he stood still.
A good man he played.
Closer. Closer. He gets a little closer.
She didn’t want love.
Her man he played along.
He saw her smile. He took her smile away.
He stayed. He stayed.
He made her cry too.
He saw her tears. He stayed still.
He uttered more words. He made her scream.
He stayed. He stayed.
A good man he played.
He stayed. He stayed.
“Just leave,” she said.
She didn’t want hate.
She didn’t want love.

[Jezebel Myschka]

Free School Milk

“Drink your milk!” our teachers used to say,
but our milk bottle crates had stood all day,
in the years of free milk, out in the sun.
There were bits on the top, yuk – not much fun!

In depths of winter the iced cream would zoom
up through the silver top in a mushroom.
We would have to wait until the ice would thaw
before we could manage to use our straw.

Thatcher snatched away free milk years later
and every mum in England did hate her.
But my free milk had put me off it for life.
Now I eat cheese instead, cut with a knife!

[lisamdalrymple]

I completed all but 1 prompt in the November PAD Chapbook Challenge. They are all posted on my blog: http://lisadalrymple.wordpress.com

This challenge truly "challenged" me and I enjoyed the task of writing everyday. Now on to the editing process!

[R. Tirrell Leonard Jr]

Oblivion (Form:The Glosa)

Grey gleam of skies whose smile on wave and strand
Shines weary like a man’s who smiles to know
That now no dream can mock his faith with show,
Nor cloud for him seem living sea or land.
--From "A Solitude", By Algernon Charles Swinburne

I walked outside beneath the purple night
A cooling breeze, yet warms in softness felt
My skin responds and feels a silky rose
My senses calm relaxing now, I sigh.
The trees rustle slowly, a night-bird sings
What more delights my soul is yet unplanned.
And as the moon illuminates my path
To some degree, I see the beauty here;
The clouds fly on obscuring starlit band
Grey gleam of skies whose smile on wave and strand.

The winds enfold my body, soft and free
A pleasure soft on skin, so nurtures
And yet, I dream inside this stream of air
And loose my self in letting go of wants.
The tendrils desires leave behind, so tempt
To close my eyes and feel the airs soft blow
To stay within the folding breeze and love.
What notes of want reshape and change me now?
Men watch the stars, yearn within moons soft glow
Shines weary like a man's who smiles to know.

Remember shapes in dreams of fog or night,
What can they teach me while I watch the sky?
I seem to think along the lines of love,
And yearn for things beyond my reach or years.
What stills my wants of simple pleasures near
Is feeling winds of Summers warmth winnow;
And yet I feel so left behind as chaff
Left to wander outside of beauty's grasp.
Such human feelings are tender, although
That now no dream can mock his faith with show.

In reading Swinburne's lines I so begin
To feel inside, a thought of man's odd plight
The wants and needs of beauty lay out there;
He toils here and wrenches into life
And shows demure, a softer interlace.
I seem to think its how our souls are scanned,
Much like the items bought in general stores,
and all the hopes and dreams that dance within.
He sees not dreams to morph the hard wasteland,
Nor cloud for him seem living sea or land.