Flash challenge...again

[Keith]

1. Form: The English Sonnet.......about the sea, river, lake or pond, just as long as it's wet. Oh and please see Leanne's guide to doing one below and good luck, ps don't whimp out.

There are many different forms of sonnets and none of them are difficult to write if you follow the basic rules:
It must be lyrical -- rhyme and meter should be regular and unforced, so that if you wanted to, you could sing it (that's what sonnet means, "little song")

There should be two parts to a sonnet -- an introduction to a problem or situation set-up and a resolution or concluding summary

A sonnet is not a narrative. It is a lyric poem, often used to explore love or philosophy, but could be any theme you choose.

The sonnet form that most people are familiar with is the English or Elizabethan sonnet, which we tend to label as the Shakespearean sonnet -- he wasn't the first to use this form but he was the most prolific. It consists of fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter (see the Basic Meter thread if you're not sure what that is). The rhyme scheme is very simple:

a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g

Lines 13 & 14 form a rhyming couplet that sums up, concludes or "answers" the rest of the poem. It works much the same as the sestet in an Italian sonnet.

2. Prompt: The delivery, write a poem on subject of delivery in any shape or size angle or twist you want to.

[Wjames]

Prompt 1:


Desire

There’s just enough water in Black Wood Bog
for worms, leeches, and slugs to squirm between
your toes, and take your mind off of the log   
that’s right in front of you. Your head careens
in to the gunk, you taste the brown wet sludge
and heave. You sit, covered in mud and sick
while bugs engulf your face, too tired to budge
after two days without water in thick
wetland valleys. The sun is at its peak,
you shut your eyes and watch your red eyelids
until they morph to black, feeling your cheek
with your dry tongue, hoping to find liquid.
Nothing is there: no beer, no pop, no cup.
You lick the sludge you’re lying in: throw up.


Prompt 2:

Delivery

You brought me a lava lamp
to look at when you were no longer
mysterious.

[just mercedes]

At the Poetry Farm


He was invited here, but never came.
Beneath the maple tree, a desk and chair
combined, an outdoor office, like a game
so we could write as words appear up there

as pictures in the sky - the slow mauve fade,
the tic-tac-toe of contrails crossing high,
that slow climb up the silhouetted tree
of full moon, like a possum, slipping by

and where the lake must be, a tumbling mist.
Within it, I can see dark figures dance;
too far away to tell if kiss or fist
connects them, or just sparrow circumstance

but here and now I feel, as if we touch,
the bones of yesterday still teach me much.



Delivery


Sparrow sent me a bunch of poems
when I paid for his Greyhound ticket
to get him to the Poetry Farm. Next day
I learned he’d cashed it in, scored,
got arrested busking, and that night
in a jail cell, wrote the only ending.

[vagabond]

At the Poetry Farm


He was invited here, but never came.
Beneath the maple tree, a desk and chair
combined, an outdoor office, like a game
so we could write as words appear up there

as pictures in the sky - the slow mauve fade,
the tic-tac-toe of contrails crossing high,
that slow climb up the silhouetted tree
of full moon, like a possum, slipping by

and where the lake must be, a tumbling mist.
Within it, I can see dark figures dance;
too far away to tell if kiss or fist
connects them, or just sparrow circumstance

but here and now I feel, as if we touch,
the bones of yesterday still teach me much.



Delivery


Sparrow sent me a bunch of poems
when I paid for his Greyhound ticket
to get him to the Poetry Farm. Next day
I learned he’d cashed it in, scored,
got arrested busking, and that night
in a jail cell, wrote the only ending.

this is beautiful and sad.. both of the poems separately, and also together.

[just mercedes]

Thanks, VG.

[Keith]

Form: Sonnet

Talking to Herons

A biting breeze shook loose leaf confetti
as I skimmed the surface of the lake
with pebbles, from a weather worn jetty,
each dip stole colour from a deep opaque.

Silent as a distant steamer's bow wave,
a Grey Heron steps into the shallows,
we watch each other, still and unafraid,
he stoops to take a sip and I swallow.

Air brakes hiss coaching calm into chaos,
camera ants march down the steep grass bank
then spread out around the shoreline's pathos,
I worry as they flex old creaking planks.

Two sharp blasts and the steamer arrives,
its paddles churn and the clicking subsides.

---

Prompt: Delivery

Delivering baby Jesus

A wet December has walked itself
into the school hall,
darkening the herring bone floor.
The grey plastic chairs
have been scraped into place
and the chatter has died down to coughing.

Handcams are sat on laps
waiting to focus on the wrong child,
long enough to get a laugh on playback.

The Head Master
has welcomed us with a guitar
and stole his 5 minutes of shame
before he thanked us
and handed us over
to the music teacher, Mrs Jones.

She narrates the long journey to Bethlehem
and they open with Mary and Joseph
without a donkey, singing Little Donkey.
They arrive at the inn that is full
and ask if there is any room to spare?

The dusty old hall fades around the edges,
lights seem to shine brighter, the cast
suddenly has a Westend quality to it.
Then there he is, in his hand sown,
Inn keeper's brown tunic, with a cushion
to make him look portly.

The Handcam rises instinctively
as you mouth every practiced word,
and you know he'll never forget
the smell of stage makeup or
that moment, just before he walked on.

[Tiger the Lion]

The creek behind your mother's house--our socks
and shoes on shore and jeans rolled to our knees

we tiptoed over teeter-totter rocks
with all those little helicopter seeds
descending into pools where tadpoles played
till salamanders took them one by one.

When August was a billion, billion days
and but for two or three the sun had shone

on us. But this is not a summer rain
my love. The frogs have found a place to sleep
and slowed their hearts. The salamander's reign
of fire is done. The trees have spent their seed.

Let's tiptoe back to our socks and our shoes
and dream of what winter might have us do.