Oh My!  It is certain that I may not be a poet but it’s also certain that I’m stubborn.  How many days remain in April?

The raven-haired beauty sitting crossways to me

Was reading my face quite mysteriously.

If I couldn’t read her and read her real soon;

And if I took her case, it could be my doom.

But I took the case not knowing why

And said to myself I know its “do or die”.

She left but I still sensed that something was wrong.

Why would she come back here after so long?

The last time I’d seen her I’d been in my cell.

It was visiting hours in that miserable hell.

When I left the office at quarter past ten

I kept asking myself why her?  And, above all, why him?

My shoes clicked the pavement and the fog swirled around

But I knew at that moment the thing that I’d found!

The address that she’d given just wasn’t quite right

It was two numbers off from the one of that night…

Where my partner and I when we worked for the force

Had been set up for stealing, it made sense, of course!

The cash never found, us years in the pen

And the raven-haired beauty had been visiting him!

The fog was still swirling, It had started to mist

My heels were still clicking, my hand in a fist

Convicted of robbery she had thought we had dough

She had asked him for some and of course he had said no.

So she killed him, that bitch, in this city of filth

Think that then she would have all his wealth.

She had paid me to find him with the money we hid.

She’d then have her gangsters there when I did.

And I’d lose my life for a crime never done

And  she and her friends would be happy they’d won.

Well, what could I do?  The force wouldn’t listen.

I stared at the lamp posts the rain had made glisten.

The answer was simple, I said to myself.

Just ask Humphrey Bogart, that little grey elf.

He’d look at me slyly with a smirk on his lips

And tell me the answer between his gin sips.

To Key West I’d go because I was a ham.

And ask the player to “play it again, Sam”.

I’m having a very hard time doing these exercises.  Having never writen “official” poetry, I don’t even know how to pronounce todays prompt, much less do it.  So each day I’m learning new words and finding out that poetry doesn’t just flow off my tongue onto the keyboard, but that I may know what I want to write but I have to think about how to write it, what words to use, do I make them rhyme or what?  So, as an old lady, I accept this challenge because I need to stretch my mind.  Thank goodness I don’t have to run around the block while I do it.  PLEASE don’t make that one of the prompts!

OTTAVA RIMA (or, Ode to the Elephant)

Little dancers whittled slowly made for fancy kings

Leathered bodies bleeding faces having no resort

Ivory toys precious pieces carved as little starlings

Babies crying, swaying screaming so wanting comfort

Priceless carvings stared at loved as one was one’s darling

Others stand straining groaning puzzled why they did abort

Fingers playing restful Brahms on keys of black and white

Pachyderms so loathed and used for humans own delight

A DECLARATIVE POEM

The hawk plays games in the sky.

He floats on the currents.

He trusts without knowing why.

The rabbit stands up on her hind legs.

She knows that her children could die.

The children can see the hawk’s shadow.

The rabbit stays totally still nearby.

The children duck down in the grass.

The hawk dives and makes a loud cry.

The children feel wind on their backs.

Which one is it that screams?