Winning

I have been hurling vowels out of the window for the past 24 hours. A, E, O and U are currently adorning a rose bush, while I is enjoying the warmth and comfort of my laptop screen. It’s a useful exercise, but I think I have taken it far enough.

winning is singing

fly high, bird

this is skill

this is winning

with my sighs

I imply silk

trying it

I sing timidly

simply

I trill

thinly I sing

shrilly inviting

I sing willingly

lightly I

climb

winning is rising

with skill I sing

sky high

it hits

winning is finding wings

© Jane Paterson Basil

Oh You.

(So named because the only vowels in this poem are O and U)

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how you bloom

your youth
not lost

your good
looks not flown

no hurts
worry you now

no low words
groom you for doom

no low thoughts
pull you down

no drugs
now confound

how you bloom

your humour
so grown

good boldly
surrounds you

your soul
glows gold

you

my son

my wondrous son

© Jane Paterson Basil

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Twenty-Five.”

Maybe this is greedy – I have already used the Daily post’s writing prompt once today, but I suddenly felt inspired to write a post leaving out two vowels. So This post should really be called “Twenty-Four”.

you hid your growth for so long
shimmying on childhood’s holy ground
no proof of lost boyhood showing
now with cloth of smoke you shroud your youth

truth folds within you, hiding in your lost soul
your surly thoughts poison your mind
now, forging unborn horror, you go
down low, down into thick, sticky mud-slick dirt

if I could find within your blind-fold mind
your pot of gold, willingly I would burnish it
I would throw your surly untruths, told to you by fools
into oblivion to rot; to blot out your hurt.

© Jane Paterson Basil