"My soul and your soul are forever tangled" (N.R. Hart)
How can I forget that springtime day,
When we skirted the open meadow,
Light of step and hands ardently clasped
As the swollen branches overhead,
Threshed uneasily in the rising wind?
How we joyously laughed when a spray
Of lilac blossom, like scented rain of falling flowers
Descended carelessly on your auburn head,
How playfully you shook your hair
Loosening the blossoms from gold-brown tresses
Laughing and running in the brisk breeze,
And sprinkling the footway with a lilac turf.
Black Cloud
The sky frames this backdrop
Footsteps - always moving - but never in the right direction
Bang Bang
What is that?!
Stay Away!
Can't you see?!
Vroom Vroom
The diesel engines cries and chuck, chuck and spat and spat on the footway nearby
Pop Pop
Children laughing and skipping - Imagination so vivid and so tangible. You could almost kiss it.
Kick Kick
Just let me in
I am not angry anymore. I promise.
Dump Dump
Bin bags - oh the bin bags - how high they do rise
Umbrella - It's raining - tears down your face
Makeup is now ruined and it is spoiling the line of your brand new jacket
Nor thunder in the dark, nor flash, nor fire,
nor other pyrotechnics that, they say,
accompany all such events, nor dire
phantasmagorias, going astray
in the unconsciousness. I’m all alone
down by the river which impassive face
turns gold with dusk. The other side is grown
with willows. A bit cloudy; a quick trace
of water striders, playing tag; a heron,
hiding among the reeds; a leaky boat;
an empty planked footway. But where is Charon?
The obol I have brought for him to float
me far away lies on the riverbed:
the tricky death as usual misled.
05/14/2019
Favourite Poem from May, 2019 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
Darkness falls blood swept fields today
Haunting sounds come from shattered bone
Stench floats, hangs from bodies decay
and cries are heard in fields of stone
Terrified men will turn to clay
Anguished faces that have no name
They are stepped on as they moan
No questions asked or feeling shame
Moonlight filters trees burned away
Hearts turn cold while fatigue has shown
Blood sticks to boots from the footway
Each man apart feeling alone
Sees his name on a gravestone stay
From this wanted war that they blame
As some scream out from deaths they own
No questions asked or feeling shame
Army of men cry from the frey
and hear whispered sounds, dead men groan
The cursed memories they will weigh
Men curl in darkness, fear has grown
They had to pass through hell's archway
and found no heros or acclaim
Only meadows of death they've sown
No questions asked or feeling shame
The anger comes, they can't postpone
Dead men's faces fill their mind's frame
Their nightmares now will set the tone
No questions asked or feeling shame
I changed ABABBCBC to ABABACBC
contest Ballade
4/28/15
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.