Tag Archives: Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge

42 Day 15

muted dawn and this

heaving, heavy,
wet-grey stillness

would that the rain would
come, blackening the sky
cooling us with its tears

~kat

42 Day 15 for Jane Dougherty’s Daily Poetry Challenge.


Hearsay – 42 Day 14

have you heard

the latest titillating
scathing, scandalous news

wise inquirers will
reserve judgment for
the horse’s perspective

~kat

For Jane Dougherty’s Daily Poetry Challenge, 42.

Art by Norman Rockwell: “Chain of Gossip” Saturday Evening Post Cover, March 6, 1948.


Counting Shleeeph

For the sake of keeping in step with Jane’s Challenge “A Month with Yeats” – Day 4, I offer this silly little verse. I had been working on a lovely, mystical yarn on and off today, and dozed for a second with my finger pressed on the cursor, deleting all but a few words. Gone forever! Of course I couldn’t remember what I had written, and with the day fading, I plunked these lines together to satisfy the task at hand. I’m not as happy with it as I had planned to be…but maybe that is the point of Yeats’ words, in the prompt for today:

“…till the morning break

And the white hush end all but the loud beat

Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.” W.B. Yeats

I’ve sensed their presence late at night
swooning close to count my breathing
‘midst restless dreams and tiny deaths
until the dawn

I don’t know if they are angels,
faerie folk or something grim
every night I reap their favor…
another day

won’t say I am superstitious
but just in case they’re listening
I say a prayer my soul to keep;
it doesn’t help me sleep…for that
I count some sheep

~kat


Star War

A poem (comprised of 5 10-syllable lines with end words on each line that rhyme) for Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge #50 based on the painting you see here. It just so happens that there is buzz in the news this week that NASA has discovered a new constellation. Well not a new one, it’s been there for eons, but their revelation has caused them to suggest that there are 13 zodiac signs not 12. This is terribly confusing and I am afraid I cannot wrap my brain around the new “me”.  Here’s my nifty little poem about stargazing.

1084px-constellations1

“Constellations” by C. Santieau

I’ve always known that I’m a Gemini,
guided by twin stars in the night sky.
Its signs and attributes to me apply,
but scientific theory now implies
I’m Taurus born! That’s Bull I just can’t buy!

kat  ~ 29 September 2016


Birth Story 

Of course I knew that there’d be pain
from others who had gone before,
nightmarish tales of blood and gore,

but never did one soul refrain
from telling me that I’d forget
the horror of it all and yet,

as each unpleasant milestone came…
the morning ick, the evening swell,
the doubt that I’d survive this hell,

the wondering if I’d regain
my waist, as my expanding girth
prepared my body for your birth.

I swore never, never again
should I in fact from this survive,
my predecessors surely lied

and you may think that I’m insane
but I can tell you it is true,
I did forget, when I met you.

kat- 21 September 2016

For Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge: to write a poem about pain using words to channel it into something beautiful, with this rhyme pattern: abb acc add aee … I chose one of my own photos rather than the one provided – dedicating this one to my daughters. 🙂