February Line by Line Challenge - 6 line poems

[Piscator]

With only three days left in January, we will be moving to either six line or six line/verse poems in February.

This will be the fourth of a twelve month series of challenges in which you are asked to pen poems of specified line length in each month, with line length increasing each month. We started in Novembe poems with 3 line poems, then moved to 4 line poems In December, and 5 lines poems in January.

For February, the line length increases to 6 line poems. As before, any topic and number of poems and forms within the requisite number of lines are acceptable. For the form fixated, I second Angeline's recommendation of some forms for thought in February. .

As before, feel free to add to the earlier challenges as the muse strikes you.

Thanks for your great response to the first three challenges. I hope this continues until we reach 14 line poems in October.

 

[Piscator]

Truly sent to try us

We’re locked down in lockdown
can’t even go downtown
covid reality
tests our fragility.
This coronavirus
truly sent to try us.

Vaccine tourist’s sly plan
to prick in northern land
suddenly went astray
through government delay.
This coronavirus
truly sent to try us.

In Wiarton, Willie (1)
likes not willy chilly
if Tuesday is sun day
a Groundhog Day replay?
This coronavirus
truly sent to try us.

(1) Ontario’s Punxsutawney Phil

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Wordsworth Madsmath (plus Rime Couee sans-sensé)

(I'm quite sure it's abbcac, but let me pretend it's iambic so the result is pentameter...)

Callousness lay among the blooming buts.
A long gone voice arose and rode a hoarse.
This is all theoretical, of course,
since nowadays everyone is bird-eared.
Can you hear, between the poets' haircuts,
my rhetorical silence for the weird?​

(...so, maybe I need better pills,
a jacket, strait, with softer frills
but what do I know, huh?
it could be mean-green Scottish hills
two-hundred-six mosquito kills
all because I'm gaga)​

 

[Angeline]

Wreathed Sestet

Dearest Annie I write these words so you
glide true beside me on your angel feet,
airy and fleet amid the cloudy blue.
As true as sisters ever were my sweet
are we, and I repeat my love I do
hold you in memories till we next meet

 

[Angeline]

Old Friends

Once we climbed Tea Table Mountain.
I sat on the rock, watched the Delaware
glint quicksilver far below. You picked flowers
to write your lover's name in the meadow.
Now you're on a ventilator, outlook grim.
Wish I might wish I may wish these goodbyes away.

 

[Rockymtnman]

Him.

He waves to me from across the river
He seems impossibly thin
But it’s the grin, that fucking grin
I freeze, say please
He says, come on in

Like a match
A spark of sulfur
Rotting, decay
Everything is still
His hand like parchment paper

But a strength there
A strength beyond reason or time
His hand grasps mine
The pain ends soon says he
And I float

 

[Levitating_Bed]

Once Upon a Time in Boston

Lansdowne Street of a Sunday night
the lady was afraid to be;
when among those beauties they might
then mistake her she for a he.
Me, wearing a faraway grin -
Her's was the trap I was caught in.

 

[HarryHill]

..
Six he says,
just one more line than last time,
just one more semi lucid thought,
or at the very least a stone, anchored in truth,
in peace,
honest.

 

[Piscator]

Super Duper fishing lure
a curved copper strip with
asymmetrical U-bend.
They've been around forever
but still catch fish and more
importantly fishermen.

 

[butters]

six lines a tribute to lengthening days
to lives cut short in strengthening light
to burgeoning plans, fresh bud of ideas
to those valuing truth in a casting of votes
to exhumed soil watered by tears
to fires that burn through ice overnight

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Urgencies to consider beforehand the Fourteenth

What if I picked the last flower for Valentine's Day?
Would you drown me in kisses or your cries of dismay?
Could you forgive me for praising your existence?
Would I be pushed away into the cold distance?
Could you still feel butterflies if I took their resource?
If I had never loved you, would we have had this discourse?

Kiss me please

before you start your lecture on bliss​

Kiss me please

prior to your words which I might miss​

Kiss me please

not only after you stopped to hiss​

 

[Rockymtnman]

A glimpse was all I caught
Auburn waves piled high
A whispered hi
You melted into the crowd
Like the sun
Setting on a still ocean

 

[Piscator]

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1356589822060752896/NCcTZdsX?format=jpg&name=small


The Silence that Screams

In primeval forest, earth’s secrets deep lie,
wind whispers soft midst trees hundreds of years old,
as together they praise ancient Gods on high.
With dawn’s first light, avian chorus unfolds
till fractured by din of a chainsaw’s shrill whine
announcing the pillage of nature’s last hold.

From dawn of time, did man and nature entwine
in ageless dance to maintain a fragile balance
yet with man ascendant must nature decline?
Tear not the fabric of earth’s fragile valance
to loose a future of fire, flood and famine
ending with nothing but entropy’s silence.

As round us consecrated soil turns to dust
And machines once mighty waste away to rust.​

 

[Angeline]

Snow Day

Fat flakes free
falling, floating
like feathers. Ice
dancers, singular
on the way to blank
homogeneity.

 

[butters]

Day sleeps late
beneath a dirty duvet
red-eyed coals still twinkle
in a grey bed of ash
but the hours are mild
and dreams yawn on

 

[Remec]

How to Deal with Life

Soldier on
as though nothing was amiss,
and you wouldn't,
you couldn't,
let anything make you stop,
No way, no how, no sirree, Bob.

 

[Kadyia]

She was conceived in a summer heatwave,
when her vacationing mother sheltered
in a shady Neolithic cave,
above a beach called Matala
with an American Navy man who
peeled off her skirt and fed her Baklava.

 

[Piscator]

Valentine’s Day in the Covid Era

On this day let’s share our video screens
to play show and tell with favouite toys
alone together, we can be obscene.
I’ll watch you naked writhe and hear you scream
with audio unmuted, don’t be coy
on the day we share our video screens.

Then you’ll be my Mistress cruel and mean
and I your obsequious subbie boy
alone together, we can be obscene.
You can dress as a schoolgirl, just eighteen.
and I’ll be Daddy, you can call me Roy
on the day we share our video screens.

On the day we share our video screens
alone together, we can be obscene.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Vale-Day

All positive on Kelvin's scale but there's cold
winter's lungs send a strong gale over tired hands
forecast on this Valentine's hail only after today
warmth returns beneath the fraille that might suit
your body turned away against pale clouds all around
fading hearty hues to alienating grisaille love again tomorrow

(place commas where desired)

 

[Lyricalli]

When my wheels spin,*feelings simplify
to the cold wind on my face
breath that burns my lungs
an earned ache in my thighs
so the quiet in my mind
is louder than the silence you left behind

 

[Rockymtnman]

The new snow glistens
On a permanently green bough
As your love settles
On my permanently full heart
Both are shiny
Both are beautiful

 

[Moochienanu]

Soft, What Light

Falling in flurries
One fingertip finding
Rustles of fabric hit the floor
Your eyes deep already -
Only seconds
Until soon

 

[Angeline]

Neighbors

Some nights they scream
rage and pain, devoid of words,
animals. And here I am,
another animal, fastened
to a machine. Refuge
is oxygen, a closed door.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

I love to blame Piscator

forum
form fetishism
fellating frantic fantasies
fantastic freaky fellows
formulate fetching
frivolities
​

 

[EllenMore]

When We Dress in the Morning

I want to turn my eyes away
so as not to spy the guilt
edged like a dark mold
in your surreptitious glance.
I know that what you tell your wife
is ultimately not my problem,

yet it feels as if I've struck her,
run a knife along her belly
like gutting a freshly-caught fish
I forgot to stun before I cut
into its helpless body. I want
to wash the scales, the blood, the slime

off my hands, to leave the disarray
of this anonymous room behind
and put on a clean conscience
like fresh lipstick in some neutral shade of pink.
But when you mutter something about next
Tuesday, I find I always whisper Yes.