#BlogBattle: Clone

Just sharing Anita Dawes’ excellent poem on the subject of being a twin. I went to school with identical twins, Christine and Pauline. Literally only their mother could tell them apart. They even made sure they had the same colour hair bands on! We never knew which one was which, so we called them ‘Twin’. If one of them was off school sick, the other one looked quite lost. When they left school they worked together behind a shop counter, but I lost track of them after that. I wonder what they’re doing now?

anita dawes and jaye marie

October 2019 Blog Battle

Our word this month is:

CLONE

You can start writing at any time, but make sure you post your story by the 30th of the month to have your story shared here and on social media.

Once you’ve posted your story to your blog, put a link to it in the comments section, and we’ll add your story to the Battle Stories Line-up post.

Make sure to check back and read some of the stories of your fellow battlers. Leave comments to encourage these writers, and share each other’s stories!

Basic Rules:

The Prompt Word will be given the First Tuesday of Every Month.

Post your story by the 30th of the Same Month.

                                                                  #BlogBattle: Clone

All from a Single Cell

Things I dislike about being a twin

I wonder if our egg split in the right manner

I’m right-handed, she’s left. Yes, I call…

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Anyone for Tennis?

It’s the penultimate day of Wimbledon today, and I haven’t watched so much TV for a long time!  I love a good tennis match, and tomorrow I’ll hopefully get to watch the last minutes of the men’s singles final from the van.   I’ve composed a poem in honour of my favourite sport:

ANYONE FOR TENNIS?

© Stevie Turner 2019

They seek the winner’s golden cup

But the competition’s tough.

Serve and volley,

Smash and lob.

Fifteen love.

 

Serve and volley

Backhand pass

Was it out?

Challenge with a shout.

Have to heed the referee’s call.

Fifteen all.

 

Serve but no volley

An ace down the line,

Spectators clap.

Serve and volley

A puff of chalk seen.

Thirty fifteen.

 

Serve and volley

Drop it over the net,

Run to save the set.

Backhand slice,

Very nice.

Bat that ball!

Thirty all.

 

Serve and volley

Start a rally

Fifteen strokes from the baselines.

Accurate passing shot.

Opponent too sporty.

Thirty forty.

 

Serve and volley,

Agony,

Dodgy knee joint.

Championship point.

Spectators ooh and ah.

Serve and volley

Lob and run

Smash it home.

Match is won.

What If?

One of my favourite things in life is to go out walking early in the morning when nobody else is about, especially here on the Isle of  Wight.  There’s a long, twisting path that runs from our holiday site to the next bay, and every morning when the sun comes out I cannot help but follow it down to the sea.  As I walked along yesterday morning I thought up the poem below. When I return home next week and Sam gets the picture I took of the path off my phone, I’ll add it on here for you.  For now I’ve added a featured image of something similar.

What If?  by Stevie Turner

A long path meanders

Through leafless trees

Down to the sea.

A gentle breeze

Whispers to me.

I follow the path

In the early morning sun,

Will I be safe?

Will I need to run?

Whose mouth will break into an evil laugh –

When they see me walking

On that lonesome path?

I hear the gulls

As the sea draws near.

Just one old man and his dog

On the path had appeared.

It occurred to me

As I reached the beach,

What lesson this walk

To us all could teach.

If we worry, imagine,

Catastrophise and fret,

No pleasure from life

Will we ever hope to get.

I sat happily on the beach

And watched the waves ebb and flow

And walked back along the path

When it was time to go.

Nothing occurred.

No woe was me – I was not undone,

When enjoying my walk

In the early morning sun.

Help the Homeless with this £0.99 Poetry Anthology

Tags

#homelessness #poetry #anthology

***On February 15th this book gained an orange ‘Number 1’ badge on Amazon.com!!***

One of my poems, ‘In Limbo’, has been featured in Sarah Michelle Lynch’s brand new anthology ‘Elements’.  All proceeds from this book go towards helping the homeless, and so your 99pence could really make a difference!

We all had to write a poem based on the book cover picture below…

Please check it out if you’ve got 99 pence to spare.  There are many poets’ works on display, and the book already has 2 five star reviews.

Christmas Dinner With the In-laws

‘Christmas Dinner With the In-laws’, a poem by Stevie Turner (to be sung to the tune of ‘Silent Night’).

“Oh”, she sighs.

Then she tries

To insert a turkey

Twice the size.

The oven door

Won’t shut anymore,

Legs and wings stick out of the door.

“Shit – the dinner won’t be done…

When the in-laws come.”

Flustered and grim

She starts on the gin,

It goes down well,

What the hell…

She gives a rather maniacal laugh,

Then she saws the turkey in half.

“That’s the thing to do!”

Then she crawls into her shoe.

The turkey was burned

In-laws were stern,

“Why did our son

Marry such a duff one?

The sprouts were hard and the spuds were a joke,

She’s no good at feeding her bloke.”

They walk out the door,

She falls asleep on the floor.

She wakes with a jolt,

With a gut in revolt,

He cares not she feels ill,

He loves her still.

“I loved every bit of my dinner.”

She knows that she’s married a winner.

“I’ll never drink gin again!

When in-laws I must entertain.”

4th Halloween Poem Contest – 4th Group Of Submitted Poems —

More great Hallowe’en poems submitted to The Writer’s Treasure Chest poetry contest.

Writer's Treasure Chest

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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Please respect each authors’ and poets’ copyright. The rights remain with the writers. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from each of the poems author’s is strictly prohibited and violates copyright laws in the country you are reading this work in as well as in the country you are trying to re-publish this work in. – Aurora Jean Alexander

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skeleton dance – by Jasmin T.

the lights in the lab-come

on one two three

Mr. Skeleton shuffles-bows

elegantly-I

do not want tricks

nor treats, she says

Mr. Skeleton does not retreat

music starts-skips

stops and starts again

Mr. Skeleton

dips as moonlight dips

holds his arms like

window panes-framing

his partner as he

shuffles whirls

slow tornado circles

that song-in

her ear she-travels

slips off her shoes

curls her toes

puts her picture

in his frame-she

dances one two three

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4th Halloween Poem Contest – 3rd Group Of Submitted Poems —

Thanks to Aurora Jean Alexander for adding my entry to the 3rd group of submitted Hallowe’en poems.

Writer's Treasure Chest

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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Please respect each authors’ and poets’ copyright. The rights remain with the writers. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from each of the poems author’s is strictly prohibited and violates copyright laws in the country you are reading this work in as well as in the country you are trying to re-publish this work in. – Aurora Jean Alexander

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PUMPKIN AND YEW PIE – BY STEVIE TURNER

A rustling of the yew in October’s breeze,
While over her grave it sheds a few leaves.
They rot in the soil with what’s left of her corpse,
Rain drenches the ground where once she had walked.
Burned at the stake in seventeen-o-two,
Jane looks down from the top of the yew.
She wasn’t a witch, and it wasn’t a trick,
She’d learned from her mother how to heal the sick.
Potions, plants…

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The Olfactory Blues

Give a thought for those poor souls like me who are intolerant of fragrances every time you use a spray-on perfume or after shave before you go to work.  When combined with others’ perfumes/after shaves in a small room, the one who is fragrance intolerant has to go and stand outside in the fresh air and recover (can’t open a window because somebody is always cold).

Woke up this morning

Went to work after eating,

In the office where I sit

Unfortunately there was a meeting.

There am I trying to type

And all around me are women who are drenched

In some kind of awful perfume.

Good God what a stench!

In no time at all

My cheeks are burning

My throat is tightening

And my eyes are watering.

Nobody cares

That I am intolerant to fragrance,

Day after day

It’s the same old recurrence.

There’s nowhere else for me to sit,

I guess I’ve just got to put up with it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if these gals

Could just wash with soap and water,

And give the essence of farmyard

No quarter.

The Abyss is Closer than you Think

Tags

#homelessness

While walking through the London streets at the weekend we could see there were many more homeless people sleeping rough than the last time we’d visited the capital.  One old boy caught my eye as we walked from the South Bank back to the Strand.  Rain had just started to fall, and the first lines of this poem below came into my head.  I couldn’t help but think back to Jack London’s ‘The People of the Abyss’, which I have just finished reading.  A hundred and sixteen years’ later and with the years of austerity cuts, it seems that today Jack might have still found something to write about:

Down and Out, by Stevie Turner

A broken umbrella

In one gnarled hand he holds,

Three cardboard walls

Keep out the cold.

There he sits

On Waterloo Bridge,

His breakfast table

Is the pavement’s edge.

Ten pence and a banana

Lie there in his hat,

It’s better than nothing,

He’s pleased about that.

He peels the banana with a sigh,

Which somebody had left who’d passed him by,

The rain begins a doleful patter

Through the gaping holes of the umbrella.

He doesn’t mind,

He’s got nothing to do

‘Cept stare at the river

And admire the view. 

Ferries, tug-boats and fast clippers fly

Under the bridge past the London Eye.

He checks the time on old Big Ben,

The soup kitchen opens at half past ten.

He’s lulled to sleep with passing chit-chat,

And hopes that a quid might be placed in his hat.

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It was, as I’m a bit of a soft touch.

Guest Post: I am Soul–Virtual Blog Tour

Sharing Yecheilyah’s poetry today, featured on Abbie’s Corner of the World.

My Corner

Today, I’m pleased to introduce Yecheilyah, who will tell us about her life and her latest book and share one of her poems. You’ll find all her author links at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

***

Bio

Yecheilyah (e-SEE-li-yah, affectionately nicknamed EC) is an Author, Blogger, and Poet and lives in Marietta, Georgia, with her wonderful husband. She has been writing poetry since she was twelve years old and joined the UMOJA Poetry Society in high school where she learned to perfect her craft. In 2010, at twenty-three years old, Yecheilyah published her first collection of poetry and in 2014, founded Literary Korner Publishing and The PBS blog where she enjoys helping other authors through her blog interviews and book reviews. The PBS Blog has been named among Reedsy’s Best Book Review blogs of 2017 and 2018 and has helped many authors in their writing journeys. I am Soul

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