The Passing Years



ONE STOP POETRY

http://onestoppoetry.com/
asks us to attempt an

Ottava Rima.
This is a poem with eight iambic lines with the pattern abababcc

I felt this deserved a poetic mood!

THE PASSING YEARS

The passing years leave traces on the soul,

And some we do not realise are there,

Until we chance to think of some past role,

Some thought that makes us suddenly compare.

And then we realise Time takes its toll,

We realise our trees are gaunt and bare.

Our present days are calmer, milder, duller.

Our memories are rich and full of colour.




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IMPS

'You're a little imp!' we say of a child

Who may be rather rude and wild.

We say it rather tenderly,

To the 'little imp' in our family.

And yet, in Germany of yore,

Imps, appearing in old folk-lore

We're rather nasty little creatures,

With crafty minds and ugly features.

Admittedly they were lesser sprites

Than the evil Demons who gave men bites,

Stole their children and scared their wives,

And made a mess of the peoples' lives.

Imps were, in a way, depressed,

They even longed to be caressed;

To get attention they acted badly,

Jumping out and laughing madly;

Hiding in boxes and under beds,

Tearing the newly-washed sheets to shreds.

Like children they got up to pranks;

Knotting the Granny's knitting hanks,

Making the milk in the pail go sour,

Putting insects in the flour!

But these 'little ones' were not attractive,

Just wild and silly and hyperactive.

A toddler human is quite delicious;

These little imps could be malicious.

But it shows that people then understood,

That the needy aren't always the good;

That a cry for help can come from a soul

That seems to others as black as coal.

That the ugly, the wicked, the dispossessed

May need affection more than the rest.

The old-time Germans, it seems to me,

Knew a great deal of psychology!

*