Okay, here's the next challenge. Write a poem using figurative language, including words that have ambiguous meanings (double entendre) to add to the richness of the work. I'd also ask that before you post, you go back over your poem and look at the internal rhyme, the alliteration, and see if you can improve the poem by your choice of words. The poem does not have to rhyme, but again, pay attention to the music (after all, these challenges are designed to make us better poets.)
By way of example, here's mine: (Yours need not be as long.)
Conviction
She blames me, and prosperity, wraps it
in the truth of our conviction. She says
“In my day, a good mother would never
sacrifice family for a career…”
her words trail off, leaving me spotlighted
by her blindness. Like a runaway train,
speeding to an unstoppable downhill
conclusion, she gives it an extra push:
“They need to get outside; explore the world.”
Here, battles not fought are better than those lost.
Here, where a child is safer exploring
a world of digital demons, than the
hell outside, here, where a ring world hanging
in a sprite-spangled night is every bit
as grand as Neverland or Wonderland.
Here, where heroes hit homeruns on the strength
of steroids rather than Babe’s bourbon’s stench.
Here, where leash laws and licenses keep
cats out of trees and red, neon hands stand
in as saviors for the inattentive,
hollow heroes in a world kept tidy
by lawyers who have everything covered
like the plastic that keeps the touch of now
from the lie of that is her sterile life.
Children should never argue with mothers,
it’s the one thing we agree on, and so
I forgo the raised eyebrow that hovers
like a black cloud, bristling with her malice
over my “I’m doing the best I can.”
I’m doing the best I can; the thought
echoes off the wide, high walls of a life
built from the stones my mother cast at me.
By way of example, here's mine: (Yours need not be as long.)
Conviction
She blames me, and prosperity, wraps it
in the truth of our conviction. She says
“In my day, a good mother would never
sacrifice family for a career…”
her words trail off, leaving me spotlighted
by her blindness. Like a runaway train,
speeding to an unstoppable downhill
conclusion, she gives it an extra push:
“They need to get outside; explore the world.”
Here, battles not fought are better than those lost.
Here, where a child is safer exploring
a world of digital demons, than the
hell outside, here, where a ring world hanging
in a sprite-spangled night is every bit
as grand as Neverland or Wonderland.
Here, where heroes hit homeruns on the strength
of steroids rather than Babe’s bourbon’s stench.
Here, where leash laws and licenses keep
cats out of trees and red, neon hands stand
in as saviors for the inattentive,
hollow heroes in a world kept tidy
by lawyers who have everything covered
like the plastic that keeps the touch of now
from the lie of that is her sterile life.
Children should never argue with mothers,
it’s the one thing we agree on, and so
I forgo the raised eyebrow that hovers
like a black cloud, bristling with her malice
over my “I’m doing the best I can.”
I’m doing the best I can; the thought
echoes off the wide, high walls of a life
built from the stones my mother cast at me.
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