Tag: rhyming verse

All the better

Daily writing prompt
Do you ever see wild animals?
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Midnight dark, and
I wake feeling
Something prickly,
‘Neath the ceiling.

From my bed,
A mid-dream rouse,
I bate my breath,
In Grandma’s house.

Red socks, silent
Cross the floor,
Wide eyes, peaking
Through her door.

Midnight dark,
But I see teeth,
Crouching, creeping,
Drool beneath.

Hovered there,
Close to head,
A hungry mouth
By Grandma’s bed.

An evil presence,
A snarling fright.
A nightmare, frozen,
In mid bite.

What to do?
My brain is screaming.
Struck with terror.
Grandma dreaming.

With shuddered breath,
And faking brave,
My helpless elder
I must save.

Midnight dark
Will do no more.
I flick the light –

And hit the floor.

The room resounds
With Grandma’s yells.
My nightmare now
The worst of hells!

For, on the bedside,
Laughing last, float
Granny’s dentures,

In a glass.

Bryson Thomas
Liquid Courage

I watch a beauty, letting water,
Run its course upon her face.
One by one, more raindrops follow,
Losing size, in giving chase.

Were I the rain, I’d do the same,
Was I given half a chance.
At the risk that I’d fall vainly,
From umbrellas, with a glance.

But if I dropped upon her presence,
Hardly would I think to cease,
Gladly, I would be diminished,
Just to touch, then be at peace.

Bryson Thomas
Tempest

Rain beads your rosary down the window pane,
But what is the prayer?
Perhaps to regain a flicker of warmth –
It’s no longer there.
Swept away, perhaps, in your maelstrom of being,
Like a whip to the wind.
Emotions illusive, like shadows at night,
The cherub has sinned.

For there. See how the water swamps the urn.
Attack from inside.
Your flickering, life-giving embers drenched,
The grievance is wide.
Your pain is closer than marrow to bone,
And your shield’s just a wreath.
This is a scream in the storm,
For the person beneath.

Bryson Thomas
Thanks Giving

Daily writing prompt
Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?
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On Thanksgiving, we have turkey,
In the middle of the table.
And all the family comes together,
Even Grandma, while she’s able.
My sister brings her partner,
My brother brings his dog,
My father stokes the fireplace,
With a special hardwood log,
The kids go running rampant,
While Grandpa picks his nose,
My nephew finds a magazine,
And asks his mommy where it goes,
An Uncle spills his Heineken,
On newish cargo shorts,
Still holds the bottle upright,
While sharing shallow thoughts
There’s pumpkin on the table
And every kind of meat
And all the buttered veggies
You’d ever want to eat
For afters, there is apple pie
And my mother’s favourite cake
And the remnants of that croquembouche
My sister tried to make
An Auntie makes some devilled eggs
All peppered red with spice
But the richest dish that we all make?
Well, that’s just making nice.

Bryson Thomas
Paid Up

The toll for life
Was paid at the post
I’ve been through the sadness,
It’s not much to boast.

‘Cause sadness is brief,
Thrown off, like a fever,
I wed sin like a wife,
But now, I will leave her.

For break out I must,
At the cost of security,
And sever that leash,
And rise to maturity.

So now, I am free,
To gather my soul,
I am what I am.
And I am my goal.

Bryson Thomas
Feed Reading

Daily writing prompt
What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?
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Ask my clan’s best three to eat
And to a man they would repeat
We love breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Anything less, and we’d be thinner

Bryson Thomas
3.14

Daily writing prompt
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
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If there’s a figure to be
Beyond, simply, I
Skerrickless doubt,
It would be Pi.
Constantly useful
In eons gone by
And with inscrutable time
Before I die.

Bryson Thomas
Instinct

It abides.
Swimming ‘neath the skin,
A wrinkle in the cassock,
A creeping urge to sin.
Saliva on a wicked tongue,
A flicker in the light,
A collar button come undone,
Soft sniggers in the night.
Some name it drive,
Some cast it cheat,
Some call it wanderlust,
But all, at times, will hear its voice,
In that much,
You can trust.

Bryson Thomas
Ode to The Darkness

Sweet shadow
Embrace me this night
Warm, in the under-sheet spaces
With comfort
And lover’s embraces.

Sweet shadow
Enstage me this night
Odeon to sandpaper dreams
That polish my mind
In unconscious streams.

Sweet shadow
Unchain me this night
Hide me from governing eyes
Data collectors
And ravening spies

Sweet shadow
Becalm me this night
Your dark trunk a rest for my back
As I find meditation
And calm in your black

Sweet shadow
Enthral me tonight
With sticky-cheeked monsters with candy in bags
And firework wonders
With ziggings and zags

Sweet shadow
Inspire me this night
Murked well of ideas when others abate
I draw from you deep
And from thence create.

Sweet shadow
I revere you this night
For all you have hidden beyond reach of sight
You amplify life
In overcast rite.

Bryson Thomas

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Dream Jobs

Daily writing prompt
List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
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Today I’ll be a teacher – at recess,
Kids are laughing.
Or perhaps I’ll be a farmer – in Spring,
Cows are calfing.
Tomorrow? Trading books at a London bazaar,
With loads of friends – a stately car.

Next I’ll guide a ferry ‘neath the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
And draft life as an architect, a plate-glass mansion,
On a ridge.
Then piano and guitar and me singing, centre stage,
And crowds amazed at football skills,
The best of any age.

And now, I am pilot, with a rocket as my seat,
And here, a master chef where every spoon’s a treat.
And there, a philologist, who knows
The origin of ‘tuffet’,
An investor who lends wisdom,
To lesser men, like Buffett.

But today, I have my family, my home, my loves,
Some pets.
The sorts of things we dreamt of young, but now
An older brain forgets.
So today, I’m not a yogi, with a foot behind my head.
Today I am myself,
Which is well enough, instead.

Bryson Thomas

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