Poetry Tuesdays: "Blackberries" by Yusef Komunyakaa

Welcome to Inkweb! Today is Poetry Tuesday, when I post cool poetry that I have not written myself. Disclaimer: this does not belong to me.

This week, I have chosen a work by Yusef Komunyakaa, called Blackberries. Enjoy.

Poetry Thursdays - The Hunter

Greetings, readers! I come bringing poetry, and very bad poetry at that. Please try to enjoy my rhythmic fumblings below:

Deep in shadows of the nightly glade,

Where crawl the creatures of the night,

A silent hunter lone is laid,

Awaiting prey in his eyesight.

The hunter's arrow notched and primed,

His eyes do see the sudden shape

Of silhouetted doe well timed;

He crouches lower in his cape.

The string drawn back, he fires aloft,

And strikes the deer straight on at once;

The hunter springs, with feet so soft

And follows after the bleeding prey.

He finds her in a field afar,

And takes what's useful from her hide;

He sets off under nightly star,

To home, where he'll prepare the side.

Poetry Tuesdays: "On A Play Twice Seen" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

So, I've decided to make a change to the poetry schedule here on the blog. Thursdays, I will still post my own compositions, but on Tuesdays, I will post other poems that I think noteworthy. This week I am posting one by a great author of the 20th century, F. Scott Fitzgerald, called "On a Play Twice Seen":

On A Play Twice Seen

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Here in the figured dark I watch once more;

There with the curtain rolls a year away,

A year of years--there was an idle day

Of ours, when happy endings didn't bore

Our unfermented souls, and rocks held ore:

Your little face beside me, wide-eyed, gay,

Smiled its own repertoire, while the poor play

Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore.

Yawning and wondering an evening through

I watch alone--and chatterings of course

Spoil the one scene which somehow did have charms;

You wept a bit, and I grew sad for you

Right there, where Mr. X defends divorce

And What's-Her-Name falls fainting in her arms.

Poetry Thursdays: My Grandfathers

There's a light on in the small room up the creaky stairs

Where my grandfathers work all night in their four chairs;

I never know what they are doing but I'm

Just certain they do it all of the time.

I've only peeked once into that little room

When I was only three years out of womb;

I don't seem to remember its every detail

I only remember the shiny fish scale.

I touched it and kept it as my little lift

And now I know they'd all planned that little gift;

A fish scale, so dark, I could see my own soul,

But in the end those caring men made me whole.

Searching for Truth - A Poem

Wispy winds carry me along

To my shadowed hiding place

Where I write this tender song

Every night of all the days.

I go there in the evenings,

I stay there till the morn;

I pen my songs and leave for dawn

Where waits my life forlorn.

An answer floated by me

Once on a summer day

While I perched up in an oak tree

The answer slipped away.

I go there for the answers,

I stay there till the morn;

I pen my songs but nothing comes,

To light my life forlorn.

-JW

The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back - A Poem

This is a short poem I wrote. One might say that it is about the current state of the world. Enjoy.
-JW

The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

JW Ball

The straw that broke the camel's back

The star who bent at world's attack

The crack that ruptured continents

The book that maimed all faith and sense

The man who toppled great empires

The spark that started forest fires

The World Is Quiet Here - A Poem

A tip of the hat to Lemony Snicket in the title there. Anyway, enjoy!

The World is Quiet Here

You know quite well what I can see from here,

Those glimm’ring, glitt’ring shadow-shapes afar;

The essence, wispy, of a time whose fear

Did not so dominate a broken star,

Who turning from the road could not do so;

And if he feared he would have come ajar

For to fear will prove the death of any foe.

To fear is just a subtle way to say

That man is not his former strength anymore

As he would have to have been in yesterdays

When he was broken, yet with foot in door

But knew his fate with not a single tear.

I see the shapes though fade they into mist

And I perceive, the world is quiet here.

The Fall of Marduk Thunderfist

ATTENTION YE READERS!

This is a poem I wrote a long time ago. I have a lot of nonsense words, interpret those as you will. Thus I am classifying it as nonsense poetry. It is to be read in an Irish or Scottish accent for best results.

The Fall of Marduk Thunderfist

By JW Ball

In Frockentime my dear

They slordeled our flocks of rode

They reigned in torible sneer

And the moniring banks had flowed.

Vendar Frockenschlammer

That iron fist of woe

Didst Marduk of amour

In battle fight and so

The florting cries aloud,

"My love, hast thou been strowned?"

But yet in shatter found,

The body of a king.

As Marduk Thunderfist

In torible torror stood,

From whence, yea, from berist!

That flongen traitor would

End good Marduk's short life.

Cry, "Banter and abroad,

Our bloodish fields didst nod,"

For Marduk swornen fell.

Dead he bled on the bulgy green,

The battle brought him dead,

His body still unseen,

Nor yet his scarlet head.

And forthwith the tumneys

Crowed, "Crockle and a fell,"

Marduk was in the dell,

And smitten lay he there.

The Prossian armies won;

The Flangish tide was beat,

And the battle, it was done.

A shepherd's sheep did bleat,

And so Marduk was found:

"Thou didst with ardor fight;

Carry him home tonight."

And the cock didst woery gow-bray.

In Frockentime my dear

They slordeled our flocks of rode

They reigned in torible sneer

O'er Marduk's old abode.

Limericks - A Poetry Challenge

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome one and all to the third poetry challenge on this here blog of bloggish bloggering: LIMERICKS! The rules are simple, but we'll get to that.

A limerick is pretty simple, here's an example:

There once was a hippo from London,
Whose shoelaces always were undone;
He tied them again
And time number ten,
But they still untied when he'd run.

Anyway, if you don't know what a limerick is, you can look it up. But anyway, this challenge is comprised of limericks. Here are the rules:

1. No inappropriate limericks. Limericks have a reputation for being as inappropriate as possible and they can be a bit above PG level. I will remove your limerick from the comments if I deem it too unseemly.

2. Write a limerick!!!!! And then post it in the comments if you want to.

3. See if you can come up with a rhyme for "pig iron." Write another limerick and use the two phrases, "pig iron" and whatever you come up with, at the end of your third and fourth lines. Post this in the comments, I want to see what everyone comes up with.

4. Check out the new template! How do you like it? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

ANYWAY, LET THE CHALLENGE BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Acrostics - A Poetry Challenge

Welcome, one and all, to Inkweb, and to the second poetry challenge on this blog!

Concerning The Inspector Wolfe Tales, installment number 10, that will be posted on April 23rd. If you wish to catch up on the storyline, either click on the tab "Inspector Wolfe Tales" up above, or find its label in the "Post Index" sidebar and view all the other posts about the Tales in chronological order. Please, if you have questions or comments, feel free to comment on anything, or just email me at:

smiling_pint@yahoo.com,

and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

NOW, on with the challenge!

An acrostic poem doesn't have to rhyme or have a certain meter, although for an extra challenge, it's fun to include that stuff too. But all the criteria of an acrostic poem is that each line start with one of the letters in the term you are describing. For instance, a poem about a raven:

Ranging afar through tumbling skies,

Avian with black spread wings it flies

Verily black with violet tinge

Each time it soars the sun can singe

No outspread feather; this bird, too clever.

So, there you go! I include rhyme and meter in that, but you don't have to if you don't want to.

So, everybody get your thinking caps on! Here's what you have to do!

1. Write an acrostic poem utilizing the word CARP!

2. Post it in the comments below!

3. Write your own acrostic poem on any word pattern you choose; feel free to post it in the comments, but you don't have to do so.

4. (Optional but recommended) Answer the poll at the top right of the page!

5. (optional but recommended) Visit Iron Wyvern and Coal Ridge. Here are the links:

www.ancientryme.blogspot.com

www.ironwyvern.blogspot.com

Couplets - A Poetry Challenge

A challenge, cried the herald, a challenge for you!

What challenge, asked the king, the challenger who?

Welcome to Inkweb, and please enjoy the first poetry challenge ever on this site! For our inaugural session, there are virtual unicorn rides, blogcorn, and cyber-candy! Yay! Don't forget the pixel sombreros!

!!!

Here we go!

A couplet is a fairly simple form of verse. It's easy to come up with: write two lines that rhyme with each other.

So here's the challenge:

1. Comment with a second line to finish this couplet:

"The Minoan goats loved to think"

2. Write an original couplet of your own! Feel free to share it in a comment below, but you don't have to.

3. (optional but recommended) Answer the poll question at the top right corner of the blog.

4. (also optional but recommended) Check out Iron Wyvern and Coal Ridge! Their links are to the left. I help co-author Iron Wyvern, and Coal Ridge is a blog, mainly for poetry, created by one of the other co-authors! Really, have a great time going through those blogs.