December poem

Well here we are, month twelve of my personal poetic challenge and I’mma gonna spoil ya! Now in the past I’ve scribed Festive Stress and Festive Peace but there are thirty other days in this closing month than that one.

So let’s begin with something jolly. Remember the Clerihue? The whimsical ditty style, I wrote some apocryphal ones for May.

Said Santa Claus
"I need some new draws
I'll look a buffoon 
Mooning the Moon"

Right then, next a haiku, the style that runs on syllables, the strict three lines 5-7-5 pattern

December arrives
Another year draws to close
we made it, almost

Finally (for now) a Tanaga, another syllable poem, but this time the pattern is four lines each of seven syllables that also rhyme.

Dickens made December white
In his tales of woe and plight
Many a dark night frighted
and cherub face delighted

You know what, as I was searching for the links to those festive poems, scrolling through the tag I’ve penned quite a few poems and some of them ain’t too horrid. According to Wiki a Bard is “In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron’s ancestors and to praise the patron’s own activities.” But I think I’ve a ways to go yet, lol.

 

The Poppy Bows It’s Head

The Poppy bows it's head
As we thank the generation who
With unselfish fear, sacrificed and suffered
And did all that they could do

They were not career fighters
They were fathers and sons
Transported across our globe
Firing life ending guns

They were not career fighters
They were daughters and wives
Digging land, turning lathes,
Manning factories, nursing lives

Never knowing how it would end 
As bombs and bullets rained.
Buy your poppy, bow your head
And be thankful they sustained

©️AMGroves 2023

 

November – poem

Have we all braced ourselves for the coming storms, are we dried out from last time. In reality where I am has not suffered much, just a few bits of tree debris and sodden fields. Fingers crossed we stay that lucky, lol, even Mother Nature can’t find us on the furthest eastern coast, lol

Another first of another month and another poem.

November November
The month to remember
Of plot and treason
Or remembrance season.

A wood pile of briar 
A night of bonfire
Sparkles wheel and flare 
Crackle and fill the air.

When the horrors of war
Banged at our door
Til guns fell silent
On fields so violent.

The clocks turned back
Sending evenings black
Curtains tightly drawn
Snuggled inside keeping warm

Thirty Days towards winter
When frosts tend to linger
Wrapped in scarves we persevere
This penultimate month of the year.

Hard to believe there’s just one month left to go on my personal challenge of a monthly poem. What trickery and wizardry can I conjure up for December – off to Google I scurry.

 

Another October Poem

As some of my readers may remember I am colluded into a small poetry and writers group on FaceBook, and from time to time a lovely, sneaky, witchy ways, member subtly hints at a challenge for me. She also loves finding new words.

She posted the above and in comment chatted that she doubted it would appear much in poetry. Well I fell into the trap, by suggesting it might as an acrostic.

Three hours later when my noggin wouldn’t let it go, I came up with this….

Then bugger me if someone else then commentated on using the word Susurration, meaning to whisper or murmur. Well, it’s not like I intended on sleeping last night, is it?

This really, really, really has to stop, my noggin and the thesaurus are about to explode.

Happy Autumn everyone 🍁🍂🍁🍂

 

October – Poem

Here we are, the beginning of the tenth (hang on, I need to recount …..) crickey, yes, the tenth month of the year. Another poem, another string of thoughts.

October the month of ghosts and ghouls
With treats for the good, and tricks for fools
Foggy mists hang round lanterns bright
Throwing eerie shadows across the night

Pumpkin spice pervades the menus 
With chocolate and orange hues
Bobbing for apples floating
Perhaps ones with caramel coating

Dried leaves drop and swirl 
As the chill blows whirl
Nature is shutting down
To the fading shades of brown.

 

September Poem

Welcome to September and another verse. I’m late posting, it’s the third, did you think I’d forgotten or given up? What!! You hadn’t even noticed!!! *overly drastic upset wailing* Lol. Here we go…

It's been as hot as Hades
Climate change doesn't help us ladies
We can't exactly 'man-spread'
To elevate the boob sweat

Trussed up in the boulder holder
Straps digging into the shoulder
Going all Ada and Cissi
As our mood turns us hissy

Thankfully we ladies know
September breezes soon will flow
Cooling and calming things down
No more sticking to the night gown 

What's that you say?
A Saharan plume coming our way?
Indian summer an encore
Sweaty days as temps soar

Sun might try its last hurrah 
From the Sun King Ra
All to no avail
September balances the scale

Soon Autumn colours golden
And hearty soups to embolden
Rustling leaves strewn our path
Evening fire in the hearth 

September, starts with shiny shows and crisp uniforms, bright eager faces and ends with scuffed, crinkled, tired zombies trudging to and from school (and that’s just the teachers). In our family there are birthdays and anniversaries. The quiet month before the dreaded ‘C’ word takes over every adverts and shop shelf.

Laters…..🤓

 

August – Poem

Silly season in the mediA
Gatherings that happen impromptU
Long ice cooled drinkinG
Trotting in an open landaU
Summertime beachy dayS
The month for holidaying, AugusT

Did ya see what I did there …. a line end acrostic 😬

August always felt like a nothing month, as a child it was spent at home because my parents were both working, we holidayed at a different time of year. Across five+ decades some of the family were always working in the leisure industry and as it was the busiest month, no time off, more likely early starts and late finishes; and when I worked in an office I didn’t take holiday as those with school children booked theirs then. When we were “free” to enjoy the month, after years of seeing and serving Joe Blogs on his holibobs, it was too peoply out there, lol.

 

July – Poem

July – by heck it’s getting harder to wrangle these with originality! Whose bright notion was this challenge …. oh yeah, mine 🤦‍♀️

July quite a month of quandary
Summer nights drawing in
Lines still full of laundry

The year is half gone
The school year ends
But the start of Wimbledon

These dog days of Summer
National month of hot dogs & ice cream
Wearing t-shirts while carrying an umbrella

The larkspur and water Lilly floral appeaser
The birth stone of rich red ruby
In honour of the Roman, Julius Caesar 

 

June Poem

Half way through the challenge! For June we have a Limerick, a very popular and well known poetry method.

There is a lovely sunny month called June
Filled with many a lazy hazy afternoon
You're having a laugh
Likely you need a raft 
Because it always rains a monsoon!

 

May – Poem(s)

Here we go, I’m sure these months are getting shorter. This month another style to tackle.

A clerihew has the following properties: It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it mostly pokes fun at famous people. It has four lines of irregular length and metre for comic effect and has a rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English languages.

The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject’s name. According to a letter in The Spectator in the 1960s, Bentley said that a true clerihew has to have the name “at the end of the first line”, as the whole point was the skill in rhyming awkward names.

A well known example being – Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St Paul’s”

So here are my attempts.

King Charles the third
"This crown is absurd
So heavy one fears
It'll just sit on one's ears"

~~~

Camilla the Queen 'Consort'
A title, insult and retort
Causing such strife 
As mistress and wife.

~~~

Charles and Camilla
Appear quite vanilla
Leaked phone calls broadcast 
A quite salacious past!

I’ll just take myself to the Tower, I know the way I’ve been there before 😬