I pump my arms, my legs
through chlorinated fluidity,
hopeful of shaping up,
not shipping out.
up and down, side to side.
sinking weights.
still wet, dash off to my car.
vinyl and towels on the seat.
wouldn’t want to be pulled
over, wearing only a coverup,
but I want
for my shower.
to the top of the hill.
Oh! Deer!
spotted. no two. done.
no three. the fourth
has huge antlers. stops.
I’ve opened my window
so we can stare at each other.
we have our moment.
so four. no, five.
the final oh-deer
pulling up the rear,
not as robust as the last. done.
now, for the shower;
and to show hub’ the pics
of trees wagging tails,
antlers in the midst,
and the watered down animal
snapped in my itty bitty forest.
As the darker days are approaching and it's nearly Halloween I wrote this poem. . Also on my Instagram account daisymeadows2023.
HALLOWEEN
Lighting up the lanterns all around,
Witches cackling by the cauldron,
Can you hear that chilling sound??
Mixing up their mysterious potions,
Menacing looks in their eyes,
Don't be fooled by the witchcraft,
Or of any disguise!!
They are full of trickery!!
Don't hang around!! Run!!
Hide somewhere they can't see.
There are monsters and spooky shadows,
Children in costumes, roaming around,
Halloween again!!
Trick or treaters have they found??
The moon looking down with a watchful eye,
The misty, dark night scene unfolds,
Halloween begins,
As the mysterious story is told.
Chill in the air and howling sounds of dread,
I quickly shut my curtains, lock the door,
And dash off to my bed!!
dogs dash off back deck
slipping and sliding through mud
just like slip and slide
It says - seize the day
Enticing me to go astray
You only live once, why not live more
As I dash off to a hasty decision
A gap - as the mind processes
For a common ground
Yet I did, against all odds
Blurted out those words, drawn are swords.
In the rear
Mocking sounds I hear
"I warned you", it sneered
With cruel disdain.
Those little voices
Leads you to bad choices.
.... crawl across
the garden path covered with moss.
Creepy-crawly, completely black.
They dash off there and soon are back.
I was intrigued. Then during night,
from a deep sleep I woke in fright,
for I was trapped in dreadful dream,
in which I was Formica queen.
I woke this morn, saw things amiss.
It was my metamorphosis.
Now I've abdomen and thorax
where my head and six legs attach.
I live in a dark earthy mound,
in secret cell, all day confined,
where there it is my task to lay
Formica rufa eggs all day.
T railing along a serpentine lane, curiosity allows
H unt of one mysterious journey where glimpses trace
E vening's silhouette reflecting a dream-like scenery.
H eavy vines enshroud an old manor’s archway
A s I peep quickly through its blood-stained corners --
U nderneath, ravens hover while evening befalls
N ot knowing my dress gets caught on a thick nail,
T hat hands quake while freeing its hem. Grotesque the room’s decor
E ntwined are torn drapes, candelabra, and antiquated portraits... I run
D efying moon’s bold sheen almost vague now, undone.
H eart pulsates from loud whimper of voices in hiding--
O angels dear, I need to escape, what could be my options?
U ntil a knob opens through zoom of intemperate breeze
S hrieking, hollering down a cracked ladder, feet dash off to
E nd this TERROR, a night’s venture, macabre.
The Haunted House (Scare Me or Make Me Laugh) Contest
Sponsor: Dear Heart 8/29/2018
In July last, that certain barrier I passed,
I reached the age of seventy at last.
Now then, as far as I am concerned,
Certain things I can do that I have earned.
Retired from work don't need the excuses,
I can put working hours to more pleasurable uses.
I can go to bed late as now there's no hurry,
To dash off to work for a pittance and worry,
About if my boss decides on a whim
He can say to the foreman, get rid of him.
I can wear anything I want that my wife allows,
Purple shirts with green shorts is a bit too loud.
We can have a barbie in the middle of the week,
Supping and chatting for hours before bed we seek.
So I say yes it fine to get to age seventy,
An uphill climb for many folk just like me.
Now that I'm there I don't give a care,
If you grumble and moan,your on your own there.
For all the hard work we all have put in,
Spending time having fun is never a sin.
Go for a pint and maybe a curry,
Take it slow, you don't have to hurry.
For no one is there to goad you on,
I'm now looking forward to seventy one!
© Dave Timperley 2nd August 2016
When writing a poem every day,
You shouldn’t let time slip away.
For what is required
Gets lost when you’re tired
And thoughts tend to wander and stray.
Yet hours at times disappear
When events and constraints interfere.
So you dash off some lines
Hoping when the sun shines
They won’t sound quite as bad as you fear!
In late hours when I should be sleeping
Peacefully beneath the down duvet
My mind races on and tumbles over words
And thinks of things I've yet to say.
It starts poems running through my head
With endings just a little out of reach
And so I stay awake and write.
My creativity I beseech.
If thoughts would come by wholes not halves,
Poems I could dash off left and right.
But bits and pieces is what I get
While trying to sleep late at night.
So pen and paper my bed-mates be.
I keep them close in case of need.
To jot my jumbled thoughts down on
When the start of a poem plants a seed.
I should be sleeping this I know
But turn them off I cannot do.
So poetry starts and stops all night,
And these sleepless nights, I've had a few.
It begins in horror
A common laborer who's skin is stained
With the sweat and grime of work
Slowly limps through the crowded aisle.
He frightens all who looks upon him.
A chilling sight
The sweat and grime from work
It runs down his check like murderous blood.
The essence of an erotic dream
Sits across from me.
As her window carries the whiff of love
To a cruel and bitter world.
How statuesque she sits, clothed in forbidden lust
While eye balls peek and roll.
A cane slips from an old and bitter soul
Her head crashes on a littered step.
Tragedy spills from her skull
She displays a soap box smile.
They watch her body go limp
Than dash off-------
To destinations untold.
“A poet’s pestilence – dash off from him away!
He is sickness and, because of this,
you, crazy, bring on home the plague
but you don’t know the verse bacillus is.
He’s garrulous, a tawdry trouble-maker,
plays rattle in the gaper’s front,
the rogue who wanna burn with water
and now he’s spoiling for the fight!
Like a musketeer he has a wick.
He keeps his powder in a musket.
With naked pendant, tight-rope freak,
of the untrodden thicket he’s a midget.
All jumble from the farce he takes.
He’s loopy not having any clue
and if you’re curious in ahs an` ohs
then you should know that all is from a glue”.
___________________________________________
The poet thinks all these words to himself.
God gave him gift not just for weight.
He’s bothering his soul to save
it from the wicked spirits hate.
As my tripping footsteps
enter deeper into the path of intense darkness,
I start feeling the trance of trepidation
and much despised misery
seaps through me with a sense of admonition;
the night owls cold eyes immovably glare
to confine me into their scary stare...
until I dash off rapidly!
Sunrise,come quickly
to subdue my forethoughts of dreadfulness
into this night without stars!
I look up to a dark and unwinkling Universe...
exposing me to an enormous unrest:
will it be a deluge or a tempest
to end all traquillity?
Whatever threatens me invisibly,
or compels me to fret...
won't cause my courage to lessen:
contrarily, it will increase it even more...
'till I find another path;
its a risk worth-taking to befuddle any enemy!
Sunrise,come quickly
to bring radiance and harmonious sounds
over this tempestous sea,
which keeps away all the discontented gulls;
sunrise, come quickly...
my entrapped spirit longs for liberty!
An ad for fancy sports shoes
tells the world to
"Just do it! "
Dash off lines of rhyme or
free verse, haiku or
limerick
Whatever suits your mood
of the moment will do
the trick
Bill Shakespeare of yore
nasally intoned,
"As you like it."
it would have been so easy to squeeze out
neat verses from jumbled random thoughts,
or fashion stanzas pretending profundity,
or dash off lines of serious
lyrical nonsense
had I taken to heart the presumed propriety
to be aloof, numb to the muffled stirrings
of the mind over artless triflings
with good and evil, justice,
ethics or politics,
had I been detached and insulated
from pedestrian dalliances
with the raw jubilations
and searing sorrows of
too familiar souls,
and I would have been to you a true poet,
your cold comrade at the shrine
of a stoic art of the brain,
not of the heart...but I'm
the unpoetic.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.