The Poetry Marathon

Hour Twenty-Four – Above Image Prompt

The Best Naps

The best naps I’ve ever had

Were never on my bed

Where the duvet is warm, the sheets are clean

And pillows under my head.

Head lolling, body sliding sleep

in busses and ‘planes instead.

As students burning the midnight oil

We woke up in the morn

on books wet with sleep-soaked-drool

and pages creased and torn.

But fresh, we bounced, and went to class

in yesterday’s clothes we’d worn.

Now, when sleep is oft elusive

sometimes I do nap at night

When I fall asleep on the sofa

in the glare of the telly’s bright light

How deep that sleep, regular now

with eyes shut half tight.

But then I drag myself to bed

and shut my eyes to sleep

Alas, I’m wide awake now

and begin to count them sheep

All night long, I long for that nap

the memory of sleep so deep.

Hour Twenty-three – Pick the title of a book that you love. That title is now the title of the poem. That poem can be about the book directly, or indirectly, or it can use the title as a jumping off point and be about something else entirely.

Not the Man Called Ove

He was nothing like Ove, my dad.

He was never grumpy.

Handsome, uniformed, sometimes frumpy.

Ove would not get his Scotland and England mixed up.

Or prefer his tea in a handled, saucered cup.

Dad did. He often did.

His first visit here then.

Expecting men in white

at an oval green.

Heck, he expected to see the queen

stroll around with Bertie and Jeeves.

Instead, he marvelled at coos, gorse and fallen leaves.

He spoke to the local village shop lady

in his best fake Oxfordshire English.

He did the same when he went to get chips ‘n fish.

‘Dad, this is Glasgow, we don’t do posh here.’

(I almost said dinnae there,

you can’t live here and not speak some local).

Back in his own land, he introduced me as his

‘Daughter from England.’

Twinkling at my fury, he would

tease, with old familiar ease.

And make up a song about a posh Macintosh.

Ove would not do that. Oh gosh, no.

Ove had more gravitas.

But they twinkled the same.

These two darling men.

Prompt Twenty-two – Use the word Tenderness as this hour’s prompt.

For my Husband

You tippy-toe into the room.

Is it very late?

Or very early?

As today meets tomorrow

Or is it yesterday meeting today?

I can’t say.

Bleary-eyed with exhaustion

I lie myself down on the sofa

To catch seventeen minutes of sleep

Before the alarm shrieks again.

You tippy-toe in then,

And thinking me asleep

You pull the blanket up to my chin.

And envelope me in your tenderness.

And fuel the bleary out of my eyes.

I don’t know if you inspire me

It is too early (or too late) for deep thinking.

But I do know,

I do what I do

Because you believe I can.

As you wrap me in your tenderness.

Prompt Twenty-One – Write a poem that’s no more than 50 words, but one of those words must be either umbrella, or almond.

Ella and her Fella

There once was a girl called Ella
Who was madly in love with her fella.
But when her almond-shaped eyes
Saw through his two-timing lies,
She shafted his bum with her umbrella.

Hour Twenty – Write a poem using any one of the following titles:

The Watchtower, Second Breakfast, Books for Beginners, The Woman with the Top Hat, Echo Husband

 Beginners Book of Poetry Prompts – Chapter One

• Get yourself a nice hot drink. (Tea works best for me but wine is fine).
• Head to the shelf where you keep old photo albums.
• It’s okay to get distracted by the last piece of cake enroute.
• Place said cake by the tea, by the chair. You will return.
• Ignore the dust on the albums, pick the one at the bottom of the pile.
• Now you can clean it with your sleeve.
• Do not open. Yet.
• Return to chair, cake, tea (or coffee/beer/wine).
• Look at album on your knee for three minutes.
• Do not open. Yet.
• Remember albums, print shops, films, cartridges.
• Do not open. Yet.
• Remember fathers writing dates and captions on black paper with white ink.
• Wipe errant tear (optional).
• Have a bite of cake, a sip of drink.
• Exhale. Sigh with comfort.
• Now open album.
• Rewind fifty years.
• Much later. Write verse.

Hour Nineteen – There are so many nature poems out there. Our prompt for this hour of the night is to write a poem for a city, real or imagined.

My Tale of Two Cities

Two homes have I, they’re oceans apart

Two cities, not one, I’ll say from the start

Two cultures, so diverse and different at first

Together, however, they quench my thirst.

Calcutta in Bengal, the City of Joy

I breathe in the grime, the dust, the whole

Rest my weariness on her ample bosom

She rocks me alive and soothes my soul.

Glasgow then, my home of choice

Where we have put down roots for many years

And raised our child with a Scottish voice

With folk so friendly after chips and beers

There’s a thread that runs through both

A thread that isn’t just me

The parallels are there, an historical oath

That most of you have yet to see.

The Scottish Cemetery in the heart of Calcutta

The Tagore Society in Glasgow’s core

The two bards have songs in common

Paisley, football, jute and more.

Wouldn’t it be grand then?

If I could blend the two

Take the best out of both these cities

And create for me a utopia new.

Prompt Eighteen – Write a poem about a moment of joy.

JOY

We had waited for this call for seven long years.

‘Hello,’ I answer, quivering with my fears.

‘We’ve found the perfect match,’ she said.

‘All sweet and pink, with a roundy round head.

But…’

Euphoric heart sinking, I whisper, thinking,

‘But?’

‘She’s polydactyl,’ said the voice.

I scream silently, losing all poise,

‘What does that even mean?’

The voice continues, gentle, unseen,

‘She was born with two left thumbs’

Wild relief, wild wild relief strikes me numb.

‘We could continue the search,’ I hear her say.

‘No,’ I shout, ‘we’ll be there today.’

‘We’ll be there in the next few hours

To see her, our baby, just ours.’

I sink to my knees to speak to the God above

‘Thank you, Thakur, for sending us a daughter to love.

I haven’t seen her yet, but I know she’s mine.’

And there was JOY in the moment, perfect, sublime.

Hour Seventeen – “Write a poem that involves a mythical monster in some capacity, whether it’s as a side character, a prop, a villain or even the protagonist.”

Ravana – King or Beast?

Was he the King among kings?

Carrying his ten heads and immortality

with grace that challenged the Gods.

Or was he the demon Rakshasa?

Abductor of the fair Sita,

the wife of Rama, the Lord among Lords.

His intellect unbound, his logic sound

and wisdom profound.

But was he friend or foe?

Was he the lecherous other?

Or the loyal brother?

Disguised as a doe.

The answer, my friend, it all depends

on your own geography.

Folk from the North

believe him to be the devil incarnate.

They burn him on Diwali

to end all evil on earth.

Folk from the South

Worship him. An honourable King

who laid not a finger on his guest Sita?

The debate will never end.

The world will never know.

If Ravana was a Friend

Or a ten-headed Foe?

Hour Sixteen – “Write a poem with the last line being a question and the answer being the title.”

Your Hand

What could be more tiny and simple?

Than a pimple on a dimple

on the left side of the right bum

of an ant?

Now I know better.

What could possibly be smaller

(And more perfect)

than your little hand?

The one that I held all night

the day I brought you home.

Smallest, most perfect little fist

that held my heart.

My large, fit-to-burst heart

in your tiny, tiny hand.

What else then, could be

the smallest of God’s creation?

Hour Fifteen – Write a poem about someone or something you have lust for.

The Beauty of the Feast

In the wee small hours, past midnight

Here in the north where dark meets light

I wander into a room by chance

Where letters float wherever I glance.

Like one possessed I grab at them

Greedy greedy, snatch a gem

Letters unjumble, and form a string

Of words with a shape, a size, a ring.

At one I know where I’ve gone

The wondrous place where poems are born.

They line up, then, poems all

‘Follow me,’ a chorus call.

As I pass, the haiku bows

The ballad serenades with wedding vows

High-brow free verse looks and sneers

While the raunchy couplet winks and leers

Sonnets stand tall and proud

With an Ode who glistens white in a shroud.

But on I go, because now I know

It’s that Musical note I must follow

The strains of a waltz defy all time

And there at last I see my rhyme.

A happy chappy, this rhyme of mine

I savour the joy of this final line.