Preparing Poems for the A to Z Blogging Challenge

The A to Z Blogging Challenge launches forth on April 1^st, and Nickers and Ink is ready to roll. 

This time, I’m doing something a little different, highlighting some of my own favorite classic poems (by famous poets), with titles running from A to Z.

Be sure to come back daily, as you never know whether the poems you love most will be featured!

Last year, I created original poems for the entire alphabetical series:

A: April Fools and Tricky Tools

B: Great Reads and Good Deeds

C: Hues to Amuse

D: Revering Reveries

E: Go for Broke

F: Flash Frozen

G: Grainy Goodness

H: Higher Harmony

I: Idols and Icons

J: Job of Justice

K: Keep on Kidding

L: Launched Before Lunch

M: Maybe Mercy Mends a Mess

N: Naming the Nemesis

O: Owing and Rowing

P: Perils of Plagiarizing Pirates

Q: A Quick Quack … or a Sure Smack

R: The Rumormonger’s Report

S: Stuck on Self

T: A Tricky Tag for Training

U: Upper Room Unbooked

V: No Victim of Violence

W: Wee Words on Writing

X: Extolling Exhaustless Extravagance

Y: Yea or Nay

Z: A Zillion Zigzags

Are you playing along with the A to Z Blogging Challenge?

You can sign up online to join the A to Z Blogging Challenge for 2012. Be sure to check out the Facebook page too. If you do sign up, you will want to add the A to Z Blogging Challenge graphic and link to your blog.

This year, I’ve signed up to do six blogs for the A to Z Blogging Challenge:

• Heart of a Ready Writer
• Meme Express: Blog Prompts
• Nickers and Ink: Poetry and Humor
• Practically at Home
• The Mane Point: A Haven for Horse Lovers
• Working in Words

Will you “follow” these blogs and nudge me along by reading and commenting? Be sure to leave links to your own posts, if you’re doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge too! That way, my readers can find your blogs as well.

Feel free to follow on GooglePlus and Twitter. You are also invited to join this writer's fan page, as well as the Chicago Etiquette Examiner, Madison Holidays Examiner, Equestrian Examiner and Madison Equestrian Examiner on Facebook.

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A to Z Blogging Challenge 2012 logo

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Finding Composure

Posted in response to a One Single Impression prompt on “melody,” a Saturday Free-for-All prompt on “You rearrange me till I’m sane,” a Sunday Scribblings prompt on “happy ending” and a Monday Mural image (left).

“All my longings lie open before You, O Lord;
My sighing is not hidden from You.
I wait for You, O LORD;
You will answer, O Lord my God.
Come quickly to help me,
O Lord, my Savior.”
(Psalm 38:9, 15, and 22, NIV)

Finding Composure-
Seeking Remission from Decomposition

A single chair folds with a creak,
As audiences sit and peek.
The violins are tuned and set.
We’ve come to focus and forget.

The maestro lifts his graceful wand
To carry ears to realms beyond.
The happy end, for which we thirst
May never be too much rehearsed.

I’ve sown too many wild oats
‘Mid tattered sheets of written notes.
The melody that hides beneath
Is difficult to share, bequeath.

I clutch the bow and grasp the frets,
With buried bountiful regrets.
The composition fairly sings
Of ragged memories, broken strings.

A single sheet in any key
Will never offer guarantee.
For music does require a muse,
Your inspiration to infuse.

The masterpiece, it must found
To resurrect a lovely sound.
The truth is ever painful, plain,
“You rearrange me till I’m sane.”

Author’s Note:

“You rearrange me till I’m sane” is a single lyric from “Brain Damage,” a song from Pink Floyd’s 1973 album, On the Dark Side of the Moon.

Hearting Up – A Story of Origins

(For Poetry Train and Two for Tuesdays V)

Hearting Up –
A Story of Origins

Her life began
in bubbles and brandy,
joining chocolate-caressed strawberries
and velvety lemon sponge cake.

Before she was born,
her senses filled
with sounds
of ancient melodies,
strummed on
ethereal violas and cellos.

And yet,
no kin
may recreate the sounds.

As life arose within her,
emerald English ivy
climbed the walls around her,
trailing in every direction
to shield her infant skin
from the sun’s white-hot rays.

The clan, nomadic hunters
of medieval artifacts,
welcomed her arrival
with music and madness,
which soon evolved into revelry
and fairly shook the snow
from the mountains above.

Always seeking
a forbidden secret within,
like a banished boon,
she learned to walk
in the quiet hours of the night.

Somehow, she sensed
the safety in silence.

Her search ended
atop a cracked rock,
beneath the shadow
of a chipped wooden cross.

There,
in the ever-growing darkness,
a single light
penetrated the unseen corners
of her hidden heart.

Family lore
entwined her soul
for years,
as yarns were spun
in colors of truth and falsehood.

Knots and tangles
beckoned her
into the mesh,
but still she struggled
to pull away.

Faded family photographs
boast of unanimous smiles.

Printed memories
belie the buried blames
and swept-up sarcasms
of every act.

Only the glossy images remain.

A string of well-worn pearls
and a tarnished cameo brooch
beg to share
what human flesh cannot.


Love poetry? Click here to visit Linda Ann Nickerson’s poetry and humor blog, Nickers and Ink.

And be sure to check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your own hand at poetry, and come back (to Simply Snickers) to comment with a link to your post.

Click this link for “Hearting Up –A Story of Origins.” Or click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!

Six-Word Memoirs

(By request of Weekend Wordsmith.)

Six-Word Memoirs

Here are a few, just for fun:

1) Lost. Jesus found me. Thank God!

2) Pen and paper. Can't help myself!

3) Righted. Wronged. Now write it right.

4) Climbed ladder. Not much view. Freelance!

5) Loved parenting. Needed outlet. Giddy-up, horse!

6) Mind racing. Grab notes. Publish now!

7) Deadlines loom. Kids call. Priorities revisited.

Rival Revival - The Spry Sprite of Night That Incites Me to Write

(To answer a prompt request from Writer’s Island on “Empower” and Rivalry.”)

Rival Revival -
The Spry Sprite of Night That Incites Me to Write

My pen has found its own dear muse;
Although not one that I would choose.
The rivalry of deadlined writes
Empowers me to greater heights,
And thus ignites my writer fuse.

A healthy competition may
Soon drive a writer’s block away.
The challenge of a race to win
Can spur an author to begin
A poem, essay or a play.

And so, my muse, I welcome you.
Continue to my thoughts pursue.
Although you cause me to lose sleep,
With dreaming and with darings deep,
I thrive upon our rendezvous.

Click this link for “Rival Revival - The Spry Sprite of Night That Incites Me to Write.”

Or click here to subscribe to an RSS feed for this writer's helpful Helium content. If you wish, click here for a free subscription to this author's online AC content, so you won't miss a single post!