Author Archives: grahamswords1962

Napowrimo April 4th 2022 Write a poem . . . in the form of a poetry prompt. If that sounds silly, well, maybe it is!. The poet Mathias Svalina has been writing surrealist prompt-poems for quite a while, posting them to Instagram. You can find examples here, and here, and here. I borrowed Mathias’s train of thought whichContinue reading “Twitter Tips”

Naporimo April 3rd 2022 Today’s idea is to take a quatrain from a poem that I like, and then write a four-stanza poem that explains or responds to each line of the quatrain, with each of the quatrain’s four lines in turn forming the last line of each stanza. As I’ve been bought tickets forContinue reading “I read the news”

Napowrimo April 2nd 2022 Today’s challenge, to write a poem based on a word featured in a tweet from Haggard Hawks, an account devoted to obscure and interesting English words. I chose Glisk, which is a brief glimpse of warm sunshine, for no other reason than he posted that one on my birthday and IContinue reading “Dragon’s Breath”

Napowrimo April 1st 2022Write your own prose poem that, whatever title you choose to give it, is a story about the body. The poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image. Burnished silver the perfectly placed head of hair that graced her head. I fellContinue reading “Mercurial Moment”

“You won’t ever be satisfied will you?” She said. Not asked, but said.How could he be with a world riven by hate and inequality?“Not till the wall comes down” he replied.She sighed.While she hung out the washing to dry in the sunshine, he watched lives drain from barbed wire lines in the shadow of theContinue reading “Pray for victory”

By the soot black, lead blackened grate,Ivory white swan-necked bottles of sterilized milk with their crimped crimson crowns waited.To pour clouds into chestnut tea and viscous hickory coffee, in gold rimmed china cups, on which red roses bloomed.By the dead metal pewter Dolly tub, weathered and faded green cakes of soap stood, waiting to haveContinue reading “Colours of childhood”

Through closed eyes it blazes red, the light red, the heat red.Blood red. With orange flames that stream through veins.So intense it unfurls bones,Spiralling into an illuminated universe,A world only felt by one. It’s been so long.So, so, so long.Had it even been this long before?For the very first time a body lies flat onContinue reading “Soleil du Mars”

I am not from here,But here is where I am,And here is of what I am made. What cast me to this place I dress,In robes of my fondest history?And the shadows in creases of my shirts,And working shoes encased in dirt.A wardrobe that fits the here and now. On lush Devon fields where sheContinue reading “Hatstand Tree”

His silence he now shares with his brothers.No naked flame held to light his way,Carried by offspring, mothers, or lovers,He finally reached that end of day.Now, the tide of aching has faded and ebbed away. Colour drained, pray, beg, hope he sleeps in peace.He left no epitaph, he’d said all he could say,His tether’s endContinue reading “Anthem for a lost generation”