CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

It’s National Poetry Month , and I’m trying to write, and post, a poem a day to celebrate it. So far, I’ve managed to miss two days, proving I’m not super-human after, but only ordinary, average human. Here’s the poem for today, late today, like the rest of today’s tasks, but here, nonetheless. In Romeo’s Wake Written on April 6, 2018, for the February 17 entry of Another 365 Days of Poetry , this piece of fantasy verse was started as part of a response to the first of the 30Days of Writing Activities set by Shut Up & Write . "I’ll see you in the world below," said the age-old Romeo, and with those words he did descend, and left me to on my own defend. I felt jilted, angry, owned, and I vowed then I would not roam to seek a way to the world below, or the treach’rous arms of that Romeo for, although he’d wooed me from dusk til dawn, he’d left me to defend, then mourn, the village, and its dead, alone. If I sought him, t’would not ...

Like I said, April is a hella busy month. I didn't realise that April was also National Poetry Month ... so, starting from Day 2, there will be a poem a day on the blog, as well. It's a good thing I'm writing a poetry collection, at the moment. You'll get a month's worth of free extracts (albeit in first draft). Here's the first poem of the month: A Debt to Terra Written on April 2, 2018, for the February 8 entry of Another 365 Days of Poetry , this piece is a contemplation on the effects of global warming and how someone from the future might view things as they seek to repair the damage mankind has done to his world. It is set in the same era and universe as the stories from Lunar One. When the north wind blows, it brings the heat and damp, the fingers of another clime, tangling our hair the whispers of another world, the promise rain will come. It makes us lift our heads to seek the first clouds beneath the sun. When the wind shifts ...

This was my first attempt at a Tyburn poem. Rules? Right. This is a six-line poem. The first four lines must each consist of a single two-syllable word that rhymes with the others. The last two lines must each be nine-syllables. Line five must have lines one and two as the fifth through eighth syllables. Line six must have lines three and four as the fifth through eighth syllables. This is not as easy as it sounds, but it was fun. I still have the feeling that this poem should be a series of Tyburns, and that it has a story to tell, but that is food for another day. The Mermaid’s Flight Water Daughter Slaughter Mortar Deep beneath, the water daughter swims. From the sailors’ slaughter mortar, fins.

  A Caution on Gathak’nor When I started to write this, I was thinking of writing a nonsense poem. Instead, I ended up with a cautionary tale inspired by speculation of what the poetry of the future might be about, if it followed old Earth patterns of verse, and the storytelling tradition—and by the idea that not all the worlds humanity reaches will be friendly and benign, even if they look habitable. This verse was written on April 15, 2017, to celebrate National Poetry Month , and as the April 15 entry for Another 365 Days of Poetry . I spasmed in the Gathak’nor and tumbled down the hill. In the wake of dandelions, the bluebells seemed to spill clouds of pus and whitened bone, as I found the river bank and tumbled o’er the brink into a torrid torrent rank and, in case you’re wond’ring, why I was walking Gathak’nor, when the planet is forbidden and will remain so evermore, t’is because I found a signal, something faint that called, and I ro...