For Line's Bitesized Contest 116 Dated: 22/6/25
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To tell actual fact
Rescinding tact
Unintended to fool
To follow the strictest rule
Honesty and integrity are a pact
Games
A fun seeker’s unfolding thriller
Forced to describe it ‘Time killer’
But it might well be a healer
Of wounds to others no feeler…
Some games with the strictest timing,
Their players chiming clocks minding,
Others to last while no winner,
Continuing as day grows thinner …
Rules of games learnt like the Bible
Slighting them serious like libel.
It should a game discontinue
Against a king with retinue…
Games promote fun but also sense,
As partakers avoid nonsense:
A shout comes last with victory
Through skill luck, also mystery.
Someone perusing all the lines I penned
before this century would surely think
I must have signed a contract to produce
just poems with the strictest rhyming schemes!
It seemed my mind was programmed to create
rhymed couplets or a-b-c-b quatrains.
I asked myself then, “Must you always rhyme?
If so, you could at least try other styles.”
Because I’d always liked to read blank verse,
I vowed I’d take the plunge and write some too!
I love the partial freedom it affords.
While rhyming’s not included, meter is—
those five iambic feet I so adore.
April 5, 2023
for the Simply Poetry 2 Contest
Sponsor: John Lawless
Pray before you're being prayed
Learn before you're caught ignorant
Do good and you'll be repaid good
Do bad and you'll got the lesson
What's behind a religion
Now people are making use of
A religion's loophole
To escape
They do bad to be saved
They do bad to ask for mercy
They always repent too late
Only when they are caught
Come to me and you'll be saved
A helping hand stretched
But you must do your part in advance
You must learn beforehand
You must practise what you've learned
You must be careful
You must do your best
Before you hand yourself to God
God only help those who help themselves
Come to me and you'll be saved
If not physically, materialistically
Then spiritually
But no amnesty in law sometimes
People only repent
And realize
A minute
Just before they're to be punished
If ever saved
I thought
They're saved spiritually
But not from the law physically
Law is said to be the fairest
But the strictest
Time is the strictest and most honest man
I ever see
Man like to tell beautiful lies
To restrict aging, to maintain youth
Amazing and wonderful
But no matter what are the efforts
All will be ended up by white lies themselves
No matter where're the longitude and latitude
Jet lag is only for the eyes
But not for the body
The biological clock
The life span
Where time is the only judge
"Oh' What should I call you
my darlings letters gather
O'together with all of you
sisters and brothers what
what is and what are that
So the shape of things to
O'Come words rhyming in
designing to make a poem
So in this chosen verse this
form first a poem of words
structure patterns waves
-strictest rule links rhythm
rhyme what is poetry form
I am a blank line of precise
meter that does not rhyme
O' poetic thought that I am
rhymed poetry I am but of a
A Free Verse sometimes full
So of Epicsa Narrative poem
Might be Haiku Pastoral poet
Master rhyme and schemes
So words come off the paper
The form of the letters word
O'so intermix affix rhyming nix
Oh! darling forms me a poem..
--Read on as I drop this Rhyme
Words inspiring spiraling down"
3/5/22
For Brian Strand Form Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Mightily buoyed by cherished blood,
Brazen struts laxest wit undeterred;
And fair nobles her giddy vinos swill
Oftener than mild sips of ironed skill.
Sometimes charmed by gilded gold
Slack sense glues tighter than truth,
Icing to death the latter's warm hold,
Though it be sharp as reptile’s tooth.
Frequent wins heresy’s easy path
Grand crystalline Heaven’s wrath,
And fleeting mirths procured thus
At last become unmitigated curse.
Subtly hallowed by saint and priest
Sneaks warped reason’s sliest gist,
Oiled by figures on oaths deponed,
Sentinels of truth in bold ink toned.
Featherweight thinking finally weds
Strictest law under unspoken knots;
Neutering the former’s diabolic beds,
Desecrating the other's stern courts.
Blunt brain such stale dogma holds
Tighter than crags hug dewy molds;
She spurns sparks Reason confers,
And terms sanest wit profitless fuss.
Sweetest rank her outmoded views,
Above strictest sense and full clues;
Cherished most within inured cloud
Are her trite thought frail and proud.
Proffer sure-shining cachings of gold
For faintest morsel of heresies retold,
And she'll a more precious jewel find
Brighter still under Diablo's airier rind.
Her creed says receive and cede not
Wild bootless notions simpletons got;
Let benevolent Logic his carats keep,
And her inane whims have their leap.
Her wild treasures heavier than lead
Shall endless grace that jaded head,
Until wilier ticks of blind-mute clocks
Hit Eternal Proof that sees and talks.
She wears her finest star-shaped suit,
glittering in sunlight, she’s a charmer.
Impassioned floral, blushing pink and true
a lily of finest ancestral markers,
never graced a garden with such elegance.
Hera’s child, gushed forth from the breast,
sacred floral preeminent
puts Venus’s jealousy to strictest test.
With longer pistols than the white,
she's the brightest lily delight!
Our news fare, served up every day,
Is like the strictest diet
Of Covid stats, but now we have to
Add the latest riot.
You’d think that a pandemic
Would unite us but we seem,
In this country, more divided
Than in King’s most famous dream.
Maybe people needed something
To distract them from disease
Yet a protest doesn’t have to
Ratchet up to such degrees.
If perhaps we had a leader
Who displayed both strength and heart
We could battle through these crises
Without being torn apart.
A monster in our midst
it knows no borders,
flouts the strictest checkpoint,
shows no pithy,
its tentacles of horror seizes headlines,
sends shivers down the spine of those cocooned.
Despite all this there lurks an inner zeal,
emboldened human mettle on the march
that bullies such ?as these can never match or ever bargain for.
glad you forgave me
thanks so much for the wine--gee
it sure tastes funny
princess who smooched prince
morphed into a--ribbit--frog
magic gone awry
thanks for listening
just needing some good advice--
pastor, you still there?
birthday girl age three
waist deep in expensive gifts
plays with bags and bows
big bright birthday bash
gifts cake punch games raging blaze
ninety five candles
These may not meet the strictest standards for senryu!
May 28, 2018--not for a contest
The hosts of Heaven wept
The Father held His ground
The Saviour hung in shame
With coarseness all around
The crowd saw only loss
Disciples hid from view
A Mother watched her dreams
Dismissed like morning dew.
And all the Man had said
And all that He had done
Could not prevent the hate
That stopped a mid-day’s sun
He begged on our behalf
That light would come, and soon
And mercy for our crimes
This great Plan to atone.
Now I have heard the tale
And I have sensed my debt
And I have mourned this Cross
Still, I am hopeful yet.
Just as a priest of old
By strictest ways and means
Christ bore me on His heart
And I am rendered clean.
I cannot comprehend
‘Twas me for whom he died
But at Redemption’s end
His pain, full satisfied.
Jimmy warned Pinks of her dangerous inclinations
of chugging too close to the capricious edge, but she kept laughing
and refused to listen until she skid and bounced down the hill.
Jimmy retrieved her in an unrecognisable state with a torn coat,
ripped pinafore and a muddy face, ready to be brandished
by her strictest paternal Aunt-a Betsy Trotwood of sorts!
The six year old whimpered and babbled, wiping her tears,
"A big black bear had been chasing us, so we ran down the hill".
"Why down hill?" "Because his long hair covers his eyes and then he can't see.
So while chasing us he got blind and rolled like a football and drowned
in the big ravine below". Aunt held back her smile, "But Jimmy's clothes aren't torn?"
Pinks beamed, "He's a boy, and strong boy's clothes don't tear!"
The next day they climbed a ladder leading to the forbidden roof where
Aunt had kept her red chillies to dry, it being a warm sunny day. When she returned
from the market, she was shocked to see her miscreants and carried the ladder away.
"Aunt dear, please listen, the monkeys were eating the chillies, so we........................."
May 16, 2016
For Casarah Nance
I want to write a poem about control
When you think you are in control
That is when you lose control
Life has the opposite effects
When you think you have it
is when you don't
It will be pulled from under you
Because there is only one Ruler
One Controller
Anything than that
will be knocked down
torn down
And leave to pieces
You sure don't want to be the one to pick up the pieces, do you?
Me neither
So don't force me or anyone to make the executive decision
Either knowingly or unknowingly
Of assuring that the Almighty always has the strictest control
Which is the only control
Of all
Why do you think we change?
Why do you think there is disorder
chaos, uncertainty...?
To make sure that we don't rule
To make sure that we know
who is the Ruler of us all
So do you think you have control?
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