COLLEEN’S 2019 WEEKLY TANKA TUESDAY POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 132 Influence and Perception. SYNONYMS ONLY

This is my entry for Colleen Chesebro‘s Weekly Tanka Tuesday. This week I have chosen an Etheree about Nature.

No Say.

I

Have no

Sway over

Nature’s design

The way I see it

Is but my take on things

She will not be persuaded

I understand it is nature’s way

Holding our lives within her tight grasp

As mother her’s is always the last word.

RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #258 Favour&Detest

This is my entry for Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Haiku Challenge. Favour & Detest.

Please don’t detest me

I’ve struggled hard to be free

Life shares no favour

Sin and Retribution.

A little bit of fun below. I wrote a Nonet for Colleen Chesebro‘s Weekly Tuesday Tanka, and my very talented friend Jane Doherty wrote me a really smart reply in my comments.

I think it works well as a collaborative poem.

Image from Pixabay

Sin . willowdot21

When it all started there were just two

All sparkly, wonderful and new.

They had eyes for eachother

Such joys to discover

Snake then wriggled in

Try this apple

It’s good, she

Ate, too

Late.

Retribution. Jane Dougherty

Too late.

And so it came to pass

Eve was the one got the brains

her punishment

to be the slave of the

ditherer

the unimaginative

yes man

content in his ignorance.

Colleen’s 2019 WeeklyTanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge No. 131 SynonymsOnly

Look who’s back!

Yes at last our Fairy Queen of the synonyms is back. Safely ensconced in Arizona Colleen is ready to set us our Weekly Tuesday Tanka Challenge you can join in here.. It doesn’t have to be a Tanka though as long as it is a poem governed by syllables.

Today’s words to use synonymously are Beginning & Consume.

I have chosen to do a Nonet, one of my favourite forms of poetry.

In the beginning.

Image from Pixabay

When it all started there were just two

All sparkly, wonderful and new.

They had eyes for eachother

Such joys to discover

Snake then wriggled in

Try this apple

It’s good, she

Ate, too

Late.

Lord of the Deep, Into the Deep part 2

Urshanabi leads Gilgamesh to the Deep Underworld. And so for nine hours Gilgamesh has to out run the sun.
And he does out run the sun, though how I do not know.

Continued

After nine exhausting hours with the sun hot on his heels Gilgamesh emerges from the underworld into the garden of the Gods.

The garden is a place that even, the mighty King of Uruk has never seen the like of. He was dazzled by trees and plants that have flowers and blossom of precious and semi precious stones and gems. It was quite amazing.

Then Gilgamesh is confronted by an ordinary man, Utanpishtim. The king of Uruk is surprised he was expecting a God that he would have to fight.

Weaponless Gilgamesh has to talk to Utanpishtim who asks him why he looks so tired and wan. Gilgamesh tells him how he has spent his last nine hours outrunning the sun. He also tells of the loss of his dear brother Enkidu and how he King of Girt – Walled – Uruk wants Immortality for himself and his people .

Utanpishtim says he has wasted his time venturing to these shores and all he has done is bring himself one day closer to death.

You can run but you cannot hide

Death reachs across the divide.

Immortals and men do not mix

All men die it’s written in stone, fixed.

Now Enlil had gathered the Gods together after the Flood and granted Utanpishtim and his wife Shiduri immortality. The question now arose who would grant this to Gilgamesh, what deeds would he do to gain his goal.

Utanpishtim set Gilgamesh the task that he must stay awake for seven days and nights with no sleep. The big ego that is Gilgamesh agreed to this blindly.

The task is set

Gilgamesh accepts and yet

In seconds he is asleep

Unable to his boastful words to keep.

He will lie says Utanpishtim

He is man as duplicitous as all his kin.

Shiduri will bake for everyday he sleeps a loaf.

He will lie, for all his mighty ways he’s just an oaf.

Shiduri bakes a loaf each day for the seven day and lays them infront of the sleeping Gilgamesh when the seventh day arrives Utanpishtim wakes Gilgamesh.

Of course he lies and tells Utanpishtim and Shiduri that he had not slept a wink.

He does not fool the wise couple who knew the outcome would always be a fail compounded by a lie. Shiduri shows Gilgamesh the seven loaves and gets him to feel the rock hard first and the soft warm last one.

Death around Gilgamesh creeps

Fear and failure into his soul seeps.

Lies from his mouth have made him fail

The useless the efforts of his travail

Will he be banished empty handed.

As a hopeless fool branded.

To be continued….

The story of Gilgamesh is one older than time and one that is repeated in all ancient and modern religious books and stories ..though the names and places change the stories do not.

Here is a clip from one of a trilogy of films called The Chronicles of Riddick. The characters in the clip have to outrun the sun, which waits for no man.

As I am nearing the end of my account of my feelings and experiences at The Silent Eye Spring Workshop I find I want to linger with the memories and stop time.

RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #257 Rip&Mend

This is part of Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Haiku Challenge.

Why can I not mend

The confusion in your brain

Memory ripped out.

He is out in the garden.

He is out in the garden with the secateurs again

The flowers are looking nervous and praying for rain.

The airing cupboard is wearing a smile

He’s is busy elsewhere so it has peace for a while.

We need to eat, it must be time for dinner.

No but we have pie and custard, always a winner.

Who is this woman, what is her name

It is my sister I have told you again and again

The gentleman is nice but why is he here

He is my sister’s hubby my dear.

Oh!You are busy, too busy to call?

Yes I’m okay I just cope with it all.

Thing is I am tired and really stressed

I’m at the end of my tether but doing my best.

He is out in the garden with the secateurs again

The flowers are looking nervous and praying for rain.

I am so lonely, with no conversation

I need some company for self-preservation.

*********

I wrote this poem about Altzhimers after a telephone conversation with my sister this morning.

D Day 75 th Anniversary.

This week we are all saying thank you to all the soldiers who gave so much for us on the beaches of Normandy. Americans, English, French and Belgium troops. The D Day Remembrance Services.

Without Death, Bloodshed and Suffering

Without death, bloodshed and suffering wars are never won
And only hatred and grief survives when the fighting is done
And war heroes honoured in every war street parade
By war men the memories of war not allowed for to fade
The politicians the praises of the war dead do sing
Their politicising of war for sake of power not an honourable thing
For God, Flag and Country and National Pride
Far too many good young people in wars have died
one war leads to another war as the wise one did say
And millions for patriotism in wars with their lives do pay
For the sake of war the war men create us against they
And for the love of a flag the young and brave die in wars today
And on Remembrance Day the war men parade up and down
In a show of patriotism through the streets of the town.

Francis Duggan

photo credits http://www.lancs-fusiliers.co.uk/

Francis Duggan

Says.
(1946 – Present) ” I have been penning stuff since 1973 have written up to nine thousand individual pieces which can be seen on various online poetry sites, I was born and raised in Millstreet Co. Cork Ireland and I have been living in Victoria Australia for the past twenty three years “… Francis Duggan.

This modern poem is timeless it could refer to any war! It says a lot of things I agree with. The tears I have shed whilst watching the D Day 75 th year remembrance services are witness to the fact that no one wins in war. No one , no person, no country, no religion, no sect nothing and nobody wins,only the politicians and the arms makers ………….. They win hands down every time .

Politicians plot scheme and win, our young people in the armed forces are maimed and killed, sacrificed on the altar of their greed ( the politicians greed that is). Then the truth is sanitised and the politicians brush things over! We never learn, it has been this way since the beginning of mankind and I see no changes yet . willow.

photo credits http://ww2p.blogspot.co.uk/

Photo prompt June 4 to June 10, 2019:

Photo prompt June 4 to June 10, 2019:

Miss

Kitty

Sits pretty

Smile on her face

Tom paws on his hips

Wild blue eyes and tight lips

Toto hanging by his claws

He knows Miss Kitty has her flaws

He would fight mighty Tom to the death

He’ll love Miss Kitty to his dying breath.

Beneath the moon Miss Kitty thinks she’ll swoon

If Mighty Tom discovers Toto

They’ll fight and one will be laid low

Suddenly the gutter cracks

Toto looses his grip

Soon he starts to slip

He drops to ground

Miss Kitty

Softly

Sigh.

RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #256 Hope&Dash

This is part of Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Haiku Challenge.

Hope and Dash.

Young and full of hope

Life will soon dash all your dreams

Smashed to smitherines.