This weeks prompt is by our newest member Paul Fowler -
You can use the line literally or figuratively. You can use the line in the poem but it isn't necessary as long as the poem implies the idea behind the line. Be imaginative and let your words flow.
river side and places to hide
ReplyDeletethen there transpire events that will put the sorcerer in to the greatest peril
she is the fresh refreshing water of the river
i am the salt of the sea
please have lunch with me
without your help, i'd be sleeping in tents
ooooohhhh! how i like talking to her
the fruit ripens just before the leaves begin to fall
maybe.........just maybe.....just this once, i can have it all
to walk through the city, with a real lady and standing tall.
Congratulations!!! I too am proud of you. I knew you could do it. Wonderful poem! Very poignant and evocative. The line will be fun to work with. I'll hve to give it some thought.
DeleteGreat job on two counts. First, you created a prompt. Second, you posted your own poem! And nice job on the poem.
Deletegood job on everything. I enjoyed your poem.
Deleteyou are too kind ladies. this is about a future relationship, i'm jumping in to with both feet, as i tend to do. sometimes it turns out to be quicksand, rather than sweet river water....but i keep trying - love - paul.
DeleteIncredible disjointedness in the first stanza. The sense is consistent, but the language is all over the place, from the grandiose (I am the salt of the sea) to the timid (please have lunch with me), from talking about her (she is the fresh refreshing water) to talking to her, and back to talking about her again, and this time the talking about her is about talking to her.
DeleteWow. And it all works. You really feel that this is a guy who's one step away from sleeping in tents, but who has -- as the second stanza says -- a real shot at being redeemed by love.
thanks tash. i sometimes get too salty and need a fresh water mermaid to refresh me
Deletefirst congratulations on posting your own poem. I told you you could do it and wow! this is quite powerful. I do know of whom you speak and for your sake my friend I hope this fruit ripens into something good for you.
ReplyDeleteLeaves Fall (Lento)
ReplyDeleteTattered his life like and old hat lies flat
Shattered blown and ravaged by time and age
Scattered like fruit freshly fallen from vine
Battered - a life filled with anger and rage
Crushed wind blown leaves cover dried up ground
Flushed with the ravages of life and time
Brushed off by the younger ones as useless
Shushed as leaves fall into chaotic rhyme
A sad poem indeed! Very well done, however, in an interesting style. The images are striking and combine to tell quite a story in very few words. Nice job.
Deleteof coursse i find a typo now... that first line should be Tattered his life like an old hat not like and old hat.. sigh
DeleteVery powerful!! And I didn't even notice the typo until you mentioned it. I read it as it was intended. LOL
DeleteI loved it and as Victoria said, I also read the typo as intended!
Deletelovely poem bonita. that senses getting mixed up thing, i've got made it a sort of brown crinkly poem to me. sure that makes no sense. think i've got the hang of this site now, with liza minnelli's help ( you'll get that joke. nobody else, i'm afraid ha ha )
Deletedon't know if you are allowed to post 2 poems under the same title. but this one fits. young leaves falling to the ground, just as you are loving them and such.
SHE'S alive
dreamed my dead fiance was still alive
and we could thrive and survive
just a dream......just a dream
my angels wings can never be restored
all my milk curdled. didn't turn in to cream
she was pronounced dead in the hospital ward
" and you tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house and you tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife " - talking heads.
I have tried to write a new poem for this prompt, but getting ready for my trip to CT, including leaving my karate studio out of my hands for the first time since we opened, has taken too much time and stress. Here's an old one that keeps with the spirit if not the detail of the prompt:
ReplyDeleteEACH YEAR I PASS THE DAY I WILL DIE
Tree covered mountains burst
with round baby spring cheeks
mature to smooth, dense, deep
green of full-grown summer,
Leaf colors change, gradual falling of autumn.
Jagged snowy branches
show wrinkles of winter.
I think of my gray hair,
soft middle-aged body,
grateful I do not live
the whole cycle each year.
love this one...so powerful in it's honesty and truth.
Deletebeautiful, I can certainly relate...
Deletemade me cry victoria. karate huh? a girl i know wants to be a ninja. she just can't afford the throwing stars ha ha.
Deleteseriously...nice one - paul.
You are such a fine poet!I admire this and you, Thankss for showing us the way.
Deletei'm sortta in the autumn of my life now, but not all my leaves have fallen off yet ha ha. nice one - paul.
Deletea fruit tramp was always royalty
ReplyDeleteduring apple picking season
and nothing but a nobody
when it was all done
I always felt a sadness
in my soul
when the leaves started
falling from the trees
when all the apples were gone
and we had to travel on...
beautiful and sad... you set the feelings of scene very well.
DeleteVery lovely poem, very interesting commentary, Excellent poem illuminating the theme!.
DeleteAwesome take on the prompt! I love your poems about your migrant years. You might want to think about collecting them into a book. I would be happy to format for you ad I did Bonnie's.
Deletebeautiful. an apple tree saved my life once, but that's another story - paul.
DeleteI like Victoria's idea of collecting the migrant poems. I hope you'll do it, and I hope you'll let her help. This poem is beautiful and moving in its understatement, and it would be even stronger -- less is more -- if you didn't break that understated quality with "sadness in my soul." If you just describe the simple preparations for breaking camp and moving on, that would get the sadness across.
DeleteNot quite ready to do a new one yet. Maybe next week. Here's a poem that sort of fits the theme. It is about seasons changing and a life changing.
ReplyDeleteBLUES
At dawn she
opens her door, separates
herself to the porch,
motorcycle parts, the cold
mist in her lungs, nothing
on from the waist down
and her feet on frost, so
she won’t stay, but before
she turns to go in, she hears
her name on the serrated tongues of geese.
I remember this one. As always your language leaves me breathless.
Deletereally good. did you used to be on gotpoetry a while back? before it fell apart.
DeleteAh, mysterious...I confess myself curious who she is and hat she's doing half naked. There is certainly a bit of a story there, but what? "Course I'm something of a literalist. Intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say I left that deliberately ambiguous. Did she leave a lover inside, or is she alone? Does she live in an isolated rural area, or does she just not care? But I think maybe I wasn't thinking of any of that. Maybe what's on the other side of the door doesn't matter, and her immediate surroundings don't matter, only this one moment in time and place, which won't last. Her feet will get too cold, the geese will have flown south. Next time she goes out on the porch, she'll probably be.dressed for winter.
DeleteShe's a persona I wrote several poems about. Bits of language seemed to coalesce around her. Oddly enough, the immediate stimulus sor this poem was learning that geese have serrated tongues.
Falling
ReplyDeleteBlossoms hang from apple tree,
leaves have yet to grow.
Fragrance drifts upon the breeze
letting insects know
time to visit, reap and share,
spreading pollen here and there.
Green leaves sprout from branch and twig
beneath them hidden well
soaked in summer sunbeams' warmth
little apples swell,
growing larger by the day,
harvest time is on the way.
Ripe fruit falls into the hand
stored against the cold,
winter wind is on the way
leaves are growing old.
Soon the branches will be bare
of what once was hanging there.
Cycles come and as they go
bring time round again,
ripe fruit yields to barren branch
and tree shapes grow plain.
Leaves and fruit together fall
as the harvest comes to all.
The rhythm and rhyme of this fit so well with the pattern of the theme. Everything in patterns and cycles.
DeleteAgree.
DeleteThanks to you both.
Deletelovely as always tash. been picking wild blackberries. probably why the keyboard is all sticky ha ha - paul.
DeleteDear dear, I hoe you didn't stain your fingers. Wild berries are so yum!
DeleteI've hopefully checked enough times so there's no typos! Hope this is in early enough for comments.Thanks in advance.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason the reply buttons aren't working for me today so I will reply here for now...
ReplyDeleteTad: awesome as usual. can't explain why but this poem left me feeling as if I would cry and a longing for something I can't describe. just very emotional for me.
Tasha: beautifully written. it flows so softly it's like a soft mist in the morning just before the day begins. really enjoyed this one.
Thank you, Bonnie.
DeleteAgree with Bonnie, too.
DeleteI recommend that everyone read Keats' "To Autumn."
ReplyDeleteTo Autumn Launch Audio in a New Window
DeleteBY JOHN KEATS
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Nice poem but I don't understand how swallows can use computers.
DeleteWhat a lovely images he projects and what wonderful pictures he paints. Thanks for sharing this.
Deletefunny funny Victoria... sigh.. yes it is a beautiful poem with wonderful imagery
Delete