These are the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, August 2, Hot August Nights. Enjoy and be sure to support and encourage these intrepid poets by liking, commenting and visiting their blogs. Thank you for joining us. Tomorrow another prompt will post and you are invited to come out and play and share your own prose or poetry.  All work shared will be featured in The Poet by Day the following Tuesday.

The Honeymoon’s Over

Spring’s promise of high summer
has passed, the lush greens gone,
and now less vibrant. Parched.
Stale somehow. Disappointing.

The promise so much sweeter
than reality; the heady warmth;
sun filled days and mirage haze
the balmy heat, hot naked nights.

We should enjoy this time, by rights
but if it brings us closer to the fall;
the Autumn of our life, if that is all
then can we not enjoy the cooling

promised winter chill, another world,
its yielding to the blacks and whites
mysterious greys, the icy haze,
the freezing hibernation, preserving.

But no. An earlier Spring, that comes
too soon, and sooner still the melting
Arctic ice. One day, there’ll be no more
dreaming of a summer honeymoon.

© 2017, John Anstie (My Poetry Library and FortyTwo)

29 days .

he came early today. screaming round the garden.

a gentle feel, all chill and autumn mist already,
with us only mid august, yet we know the signs the feel,
the smell of the tide in the air, here.

we panic as the small boy grows, as times passes.

they say quicker now, yet i am not so sure.

i went to town yesterday, saw the signs of another
world. stood in the bank some time, only one
assistant these days.

the sun colours the clouds with empathy.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCS – Fine Art and Illustration) and (Sonja’s Drawings)

. 107 just a summers day ..

it is like loving a ghastly child

she said.

looked down,

noticed her puffy

ankles

in the heat.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher ((Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCS – Fine Art and Illustration and Sonja’s Drawings)

Ghost Holiday

Briefly open the earth gate into your head dark,
allow your kindly dead through the gate to be with
you, the living, let them sup ale in their old pubs,
if the places are not boarded up, demolished,

allow them to enter their old homes. Their rooms left
as they
were when they died, or find their goods given to
charity, sold, some kept, their homes lived in now

by strangers, who chase them off, crash pots and pans too
loud for the dead. So they wander streets as homeless,

uncared, they find your home and photos of themselves,
relieved that someone still treasures their memory.

Soon, respite done, they return by the earth gate to
your head dark, until their next holiday among
the living, to see, again how time has moved on.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow: Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Blessed Are the Sacred Folk

who plough
who prepare the earth
who plough with a wide furrow to bring water from the river
who plant seeds
who trace the first ploughing, reploughing as first did not work
who harrow
who dig
who weed
who reap
who carry the grain
who store the grain
who share the grain
who share their good fortune with us, the dead

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow: Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Open the Grain Store Between Your Thighs

world of
dark in your underworld
full of your dead ancestors
warm food for the cold times
riches kept snug
allow a kiss
allow a lick
I should not let the dark out
for long
I shall plug it
so after winter you can give birth to heat
bring out small bawling heat to help

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow: Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Gather Harvest

offering

rain to earth
hard labour harvests
first fruits for winter

counsel

uncut grain holds earth
in secret counsel as seas
do not hold sea floor

conversation

scythe interrupts grain’s
conversation with its earth,
ears no longer hear

ruin

ruin oversees cornfields
must be placated with fires
in field, hearth and head

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow: Inspiration, History, Imagination)

The Heat of Hot August Nights

The longing for warmer weather and sunny days
falls somewhere between Winter rain
and Spring flowers beginning to petal

but it all has given way to a heat so heavy
that it settles upon her August nights
as though weighted a substantial burden

it permeates every living thing and even
insects take refuge long for cooling air
causing the synergy of habitats once again

for the fine line between longing and needing
takes her back to the petals of flowers and green
days with a cool breeze a paramour of the sun

© 2017,  Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Mimagination & Creativity with Wings, Haiku Halburn and Art)

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

2 Comments

  1. Morning Jamie, Interesting take on all responses to your prompt. I will be sending something for the Bezine soon, hopefully. The heat and lack of sleep rather dulls my mind. Hope you are doing alright.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Thank you!