Here’s a fun little poetry challenge for you:

In this April Showers Bring May Flowers poem exercise we will take a common phrase and require it be either the beginning or ending line in a poem. The poem can be of any style, length, or subject.

Here are some examples:

Not This April

They say April showers bring May Flowers
to tell you that it’s okay when it rains
but the drops on my head
are echoing what you said
and like tears I just complain

Nothing is blooming in my world today
There’s nothing outside the window
the rain makes it all look so gray

Should have waited
it could have been early
but I’m not too late am I?

The sun doesn’t shine when I want it to
The truths are exploring the vision
It’s the meaning of nothing

The rain comes and it pours on me
but I can’t see the song for the sun.
And even with the rain
it doesn’t seem like the flowers have begun.

Not this April. I don’t have you.

Sunny Side
Always look at the sunny side of life

the ups and the downs
the truth of a beginning
we need water to grow
we need seeds to sow

What we see today
is bringing us more
for tomorrow
even if we can’t tell

as they say
april showers bring may flowers.

Trying to Grow

April Showers Bring May Flowers
the sun doesn’t shine
when you need to grow

It’s the mistakes and the misery
that make us beautiful in the end

Spring Garden

In the garden, the flowers are peaking
their green tips
edging up the dirt

raindrops are glistening
dropping from the petals to the leaves

the winter is gone
the spring is here

April’s shower brought
a May flower.

Daffodils

A daffodil clings
amongst the downpour

Yellow gold swimming
out to sea

So bright, so strong
she doesn’t drown
she hangs on
hanging on to bloom again

april showers bring may flowers

Selling Roses

On the street corner
there’s a man
with a bucket of roses

red, yellow, pink too…

for a dollar
you can have one
you can give one
to someone special you know

to remind them that
you are a friend

April and May

April says she’s tired of it being cold
May says she can’t wait.

April melted all the cold and ice
May thought that was pretty nice

April waltzed with lions
May’s never seen a lion yet

April showers, brings
May flowers.

Do you have any ideas for poems you could write using this simple exercise? We’d love to hear your poems in the comments section below!