The Poetry Marathon

A Poets Soliloquy

To sleep per chance to dream
Of words and rhymes
And schemes and chimes
Of twenty-four hours
In ivory towers
On creations not yet fit for print

Although wasted and wrought
Suicide we consider not
As foretold in that Shakespearian plot
But to slumber deep
Then awake from sleep
Ready to edit, rejig and tweak

The Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis

A magical realm of fantasy and fun
An enchanting tale loved by everyone

The story begins with the Magician’s Nephew
As Aslan created his land that day
For mortal children eager to play
They awake the White Queen
Innocent enough so it seemed
But she ruled over Narnia with spells and spite
Forever in winter which just wasn’t right

Many years pass
But at last a new group discover
A world in the cupboard
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Fulfils the old laws
So peace can reign again once more

Summoned to return at the hour of need
The children do indeed once again save the land they love
Aslan casts forth his magic to end the dire situation
And return Prince Caspian to the throne
But no one had known
All would change when they sailed The Dawn Treader
To Aslan’s own country
After the seven swords of the banished lords were rediscovered
Some would never return but those that do
Hold true the quest
The Silver Chair
Finds them once again there in the search for Caspian’s son

The Boy and His Horse
A talking one of course
Plan a return to Narnia and freedom
Then The Last Battle ensues
Which should be good news
But heralds the final end

And so my friends
We have come to the end of a series of books
A pleasure for any age
That in my opinion … you really should not overlook

[Prompt: Pick the title of a book that you love, that title is now the title of the poem.]

T            Teach your children and teach them well

E            Encourage them to use their manners

N            Never let them forget to say please and thank you

D            Don’t judge without justification

E            Engage with them honestly

R            Remind them it is okay not to be okay

N            Never berate them for honest mistakes

E            Enjoy them while they are young

S            Someday they will consider themselves too grown-up

S            So cherish the time spent together while you can

[Prompt: Use the word Tenderness]

Fifty words Exactly

Utter madness
Too tired to count
On the home-stretch
But it’ll all be over soon
Giving way to sadness
Triumph and delight
Free to sleep all day and maybe even all night

But hang-on what were those words again
Almond or umbrella
Well that’s a-hell-of-a ask
I think I’ll pass

[Prompt: use no more than 50 words, but one of those words must be either umbrella, or almond.]

Awaken

Lay beneath the cool palm trees
Serenaded by the birds and bees
Drift in and out
Of sleep
Counting sheep
One by one

Feel the breeze
Gentle and mild
See things anew
With the eyes of child
That views the world
In a rose-coloured light
Where make-believe comes alive each night

Retell the stories of adventurous tails
Of swash-buckling pirates
And giant whales
Of fairies and magic
And all things fun
Find the inner child
That slumbers deep … within everyone

Dens of Iniquity

Narrow cobbled streets lined with commerce
Established and up-coming
Hostelries, fish mongers, slaughterhouses and hardware
Rough bricks and mortar
Roofs thatched and windows latched
Each interchange housed a coaching inn
Bed and board for the night
Reasonable rates … fleas included
Wenches of ill repute extra
Payable in advance
Highway robbery legal and elicit
Take you chances … gamble at your own risk
Crime rife … cut-throat and grizzly
Murder, misery and mayhem
Purgatory personified
Pass on through
Keep going
Don’t spare the horses
Your life may well depend on it

[Prompt: Write about a city, real or imagined.]

Honeybees

Busy, busy little bee
Making honey just for me
Taking nectar for each flower
Buzzing it home hour after hour
Drying it out with the breeze from you wings
You place a cap over the little honeycomb things
Keeping it safe for the beekeeper’s harvest
To bung into jars and take off to market
You’ll start anew to make more honey
Busy, busy little bee you’re clever and funny

They came

The day the world drowned
And all was dark
Reality masked by hues of blue and green
Obscured from view
Untold nightmares awaited
Creatures from other dimensions
Custodians of our fate
Bathed our battered souls
Gathered our broken bodies
And soothed our damaged minds
Eager to learn they observed
Probed
Calculated
No others had survived
We were now all there was
Three to power of many
Our future uncertain
Our lives no longer our own

42

A perfect number
The natural progression from forty-one
Feathers on a thrush
Time through the centre of the earth
The number of laws in cricket
Illustrations in wonderland
The sum of the first six positive even numbers
The ultimate question of life

What is the number?

[Prompt: The last line is a question and the answer is the title.]

Colour my World

Draw me a picture with your words
That I may share the treasure of your mind
Paint me an image in letters and rhyme
Describing how fine
The details within
Can colour my world

Make lines on a page
Of the inspiration I crave
To help me through the day

Inspire my life and appease my strife
With poetry
Fiction and prose
To make me believe
That all I read
Was written for me alone