It is that time of the week again, time for poetry poker. Remember the rules? You can find them here. If you have not read the poems from the last couple of weeks, you can find them here and here too.

A quick summary of the way it works is this: our authors get dealt 5 words from a Poetry Poker deck of cards. They have to use those five words to create a poem. The words can be changed in form, like swim to swimming, to fit the poem. However, they cannot be completely changed, like from night to knight. Here are this week’s five words:

Monkey, When, Dance, Miss, Twist

Here is our entry for this week:

The Dance

Those were the days. You know the ones where the music started
and you took a chance
to wave your hands in the air, swing your hips, move your feet and
create your own dance.

It’s not the mambo, the hokey pokey, a waltz, West Coast Swing, a
tango or the twist.
Just your own ideas, your body moving free from formula on which
judges might insist.

The lyrics give the beat meaning, much like the words of a poem help you
feel the gentle kiss
of springtime, the breeze bringing to you the smell of blossoms, the chill of
mornings not to miss.

Life is a dance. A dance of seasons, times both good and bad. The beat is
often smooth, often funky
yet so often we fail to feel and move with it. Rather we cage ourselves in doubt
like a cage-bound monkey.

Those were the days. You know the ones where the music started.
You remember when
you took a chance to wave your hands, swing, move your feet. It’s time
to embrace life’s dance again.

Submit Yours

Let us know what you think in the comments, and add your poem below, or even message us on social media. Interested in being our guest poet for a week? Let us know at [email protected].