DAY 29
She aged 1,000 years in that one moment!
The moon is made of green cheese and smelled even better.
She could hear the eyes swivelling from side to side
Elizabeth imagined living on the Sea of Tranquillity
The moon is actually made of cream cheese but tastes of beer.

This applies only when the cheese has liquified and feels slippery.

Laiking outside and bouncing up and down will always make your hair curly

azegorrizatton? The shiny coin of mathematics will pay your bills immediately
the high mountain sides, once climbed, prove to be a covering merely for a volcano.
Elizabeth makes her first attempt at skiing down the Mountains of the Moon
she knew they called her Stanza and decided
she will fly to the Moon on a rubber tennis racquet

Definitely the best cheese ever got from the Moon, certainly the best she has seen.

Ana bahebbek, she murmured as she watched
The cow jump over the moon with its papyrus wrinkled skin.

DAY 30

FAREWELL

Farewell, dear muse – but could it be farewell?

The chance to write, compose or fill a space

With words – such is the joy of building verse!

Farewell, my friend but do not leave me long

For should the urge return, I must write more

Those rhyming patterns must perforce be made.

For sonnet, curtal, blank or ruba'iyat,

terza rima or a golden shovel,

all these and more create a joy within

which spins the heart and mind around my pen.

A fond farewell I must in sadness make

But beg you soon return for poetry's sake.

day 27 – A SNOW BOUND STREET

Dawn rises on this cold monochrome street
Crisp imprints of feet which go both North and South.
A tiny bird has hopped this way as well.
A snow imprinted metal fence holds back
A garden piled with snow along its slope
An unlit lamp points to the garden steps
guarded by snow topped pillars to the house.
Thick snow holds to the branches, frost on twigs,
on trees which grow all down the silent road.
Cars left earlier now have snowy hats
And snow on screens and bonnets shielding them.
Silent and still, this street awaits the day.








and another one! .......

A COUNTRY VIEW

The peace of an early summer morn
The flat calm of a wide light-rippled lake
Crunchy gravel forming a neat footpath
Edged with grass that slopes to the water
A narrow country road whose limit-point
bends to the right away from me here....
A single tree stands sentinel over all
Its glossy leaves stand proud against the sky
A sky so high, with blue so glorious
Bedecked with fluffy clouds, black edged somewhat
That bathe the distant hills in shadow dark.
A scene to dream, to walk, to view, or stand
And gaze for evermore entranced.

 DAY 25 - COME WITH ME

Come with me along life's pathway

Come with me and see things fresh and anew.

Come with me back to your childhood

Come with me far back to your birth.

Come with me and study anew

Study anew the form of a babe

Study anew the fingers and toes

Study anew the cry of that child

Study anew the voice as it changes

Study anew the acquisition of language.

Come with me and learn as you look

Look at the height this child has attained

Look at the strength of those arms and legs.

Look at the beauty of emerging maturity.

Look and remember that this was you.

Come with me and remember the joy

Remember the thrill of learning and doing

Remember the happiness you showed and you gave

Remember again the laughter, the sorrow

Remember emotions that you had forgotten.

Come with me as you grow older and need

Need from those others what you gave to them

Need the support and the guidance and love

Need help on occasion with life's little tasks

Need understanding and helping

Need love and smiles and laughter again.

Come with me now as you rest in love's arms

Come with me knowing you lived well

Come with me on this final path

Come with me holding hands with love

Come with me as you remember with joy

Come with me at life's ending

Come with me, giving one last smile.

Come with me – come with me – come with me.

 DAY 26 – A CURTAL SONNET ON 'LIFE'.

A paean praising life itself should be

Written in words of glowing gold I think.

Life that holds happiness and joy the key

To love of all we need, for care the link.

Such faith we should be taught at Mother's knee.

Life thus will hold us up ere we can sink.

Respect for everything in life we know

Has taught that joy well shared will help us all

To glory in the thrill of high and low.

To share life's ups and downs lest we all fall.

Life is life itself ….

DAY 23

Today’s prompt (optional, as always), is an oldie-but-a-goodie: the homophonic translation. Find a poem in a language you don’t know, and translate it into English based on the look of the words and their sounds. For example, here are three lines from a poem by the Serbian poet Vasko Popa:

Posle radnog vremena
Radnici su umorni
Jedva cekaju da stignu u barake

I might translate this into English as

Post-grad eggnog, ramen noodles.
Nikki in the morning,
jacket just stuck with brakes.

That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it does give me some new words and ideas to play with. Happy writing!

DAY 23 – my choice was:

LOVELY WATER LILY BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Im Wasser wogt die Lilie, die blanke, hin und her,

Doch irrst du, Freund, sobald du sagst, sie schwanke hin und her:

Es wurzelt ja so fest ihr Fuß im tiefen Meeresgrund,

Ihr Haupt nur wiegt ein lieblicher Gedanke hin und her!

In water wig the lily, the blank thin and hair

Dock irritates you friend, baldly you sag, see swanky thin and hair

Yes wurzle jars feast ear fussy teeth more ground

Ear hope near wheat eye lea lick get down thin and hair

From that I got:

A lily flower, translucent almost blank so thin,

A dock leaf to soothe my sagging bald, but swanky friend

A wurzle turnip in a jar near your ear, a fussy you – teeth on the ground -

Hope brings your ear and eye near the meadow lea, you lick thin hair down.

(which is nearly as bad as the quasi-translation!)

The lily flower with petals so thin

Grows near the hairy nettle and dock

Feast your eyes and teeth on nearby ground

Where wheat and wurzles grow for your meal.

(even that's hardly better!)

DAY 24

And now, our (optional, as always) prompt! Peter Roberts has been participating in NaPoWriMo for several years now at his blog, Masonry Design. He has the charming and odd distinction of having only written poems about masonry. Today, I challenge you to do the same (for one day, at least), and to write a poem that features walls, bricks, stones, arches, or the like. If that sounds a bit hard, remember that one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems was about a wall. Happy writing!

An ancient wall with bricks all pitted

In its centre an arch with gentle curve.

Red bricks with lime cement

Tell silent tales of history past.

Red bricks which whisper tales

of people clothed in strange attire.

Jackets and breeches of strange shape,

Dresses which brushed against the floor.

The dimpled stone which made

a garden edge beyond the wall.

Flowers that grew and brushed the brick

of this elderly wall so frail, so tall.

Bricks made by hand in an old kiln

By knowing hands made strong with skill.

Bricks made to last, now covered in dust

Stand yet still for us to enjoy.     

 DAY 22 - FOR MY CHILD

Grumpy is grumpy because he's not neat,

His coat is threadbare and sags to his feet.

His growl in his tummy no longer growls

He just sounds like he is squeaking big howls.

Bears should be proud of their growls and their coats

So proud they would always get the best votes.

Grumpy has whispered to me 'Oh, yes please'

He gets upset when the other toys tease!

You can sew him a nice colourful suit

So he's posh from his head to his boot.

And I'll get a new growl and fix it quick

So he 'll be all new in a tickety-tick.

A bear with new clothes and a growl that's good

He'll be so proud, you know that he would.

The best bear in the toy box or on your bed

That's what he told me – that's what he said.

DAY 21 - FOR NICK

I think as I visit in my mind -

of Nick on his horse, so proud.

Of the gardens up on the old railway line

Where we can all look down and dream

Of this fine city – of Macy's – and tours

On the Grey Line buses.

Visit the Guggenheim, and ride in a carriage

drawn by proud horses through fine streets.

Of the time when Nick almost lost his life

In a terrible Twin Towers day of sorrow.

Nick, who's been in the odd film or two,

Nick, who's got the finest moustache in town.

Nick, who'd sing in the Carnegie Hall

if we let him – but we won't.

New York City – home of dreams and of Nick.

DAY 20 -

I can hear my father's voice in my ear ….....

Many years ago when I was young and fit

I'd ride the ranches in my cowboy kit.

Canada, my stamping ground for years,

Became the source of all my loves and fears.

Astride a horse, with a song on my lips

And a six-gun on each of my hips.

Then came the Depression, and wages no more,

So a hobo life, and comfort no more.

Jump a train, work for my keep then move on,

A ranch, then a train, another year gone.

Illness strikes, a hard journey across the sea,

Rushed into hospital before my tea.

A big operation and a nice nurse

Then expressing my love in not bad verse.

She wouldn't leave her job though I asked oft

So I joined the Army to prove I'm not soft.

For the next ten years I proposed when I could

At least she knew with my love where she stood.

So in the middle of war she said 'yes'

Made me a very happy man, I confess.