For Tuesday’s Poetics where Mish is hosting, asks us. “Writing from a perspective other than our own is a great challenge. We’ve had some very interesting prompts over the years where we have climbed out of our comfort zones to look through a new lens. That has usually involved looking through the eyes of another person. I’d like to float a little further into the unknown and suggest we take the perspective of a color. (or “colour’ as we spell it in Canada)”
Amber Hues
Cattle in stark relief exposed black silhouettes juxtaposed against my gentle winter hue would you notice if I were blue perhaps shade of summer green but all unnoticed I remain unseen
Wait for the waxing pink moon as amber buds begin to bloom I am not some lifeless tone but fragile glass and precious stone, like the shine in lovers’ eyes I am fading sunset’s golden prize
The idea here is I’m taking one line from a song and making it the first line of a poem. I have oodles of “prompts” in my jar, time to use them. This week’s song is “Beautiful Day” by Joshua Radin and the line I’ve chosen is the first line of the song, “Gonna wash the dust off my soul.” Here we go.
Gonna wash the dust off my soul rise up once again from night’s dark hole with brilliant colors, the portrait’s drawn twenty-four hours too quickly gone this day is mine to live as I will mine to use for good or for ill so many days are wrecklessly lost when hate and anger ignore the cost with love and light my spirit grows as I wash the dust off my soul
Gonna wash the dust off my soul Gonna listen to some rock ‘n’ roll No cares, come what may I’m making a beautiful day
Gonna drive my car to the sea Swim out far cause I believe That waves will wash the grey away I’m making a beautiful day Let me hear you say
Ooh, oh oh, my my I’m learning to fly Hey, hey, what’s that you said Let’s not forget we’re alive
Gonna climb that hill behind my house See what this place is all about Cause from above it all, you can’t help but say It’s gonna be a beautiful day It’s gonna be a beautiful day But let me hear you say
Ooh, oh oh, my my I’m learning to fly Hey, hey, what’s that you said Let’s not forget we’re alive
Gonna turn my enemies into friends What’s broken gets stronger when it mends When we all come together, this song will play We’ll sing, it’s a beautiful day That’s gonna be my beautiful day
Oh oh, my my I’m learning to fly Hey, hey, what’s that you said Let’s not forget we’re alive, that we’re alive
Peter from Australiain Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft urges us “come on poets, join me at the beginning. Let’s find that best first line:
see if you can hook yourself a new reader with upfront vivid images and unusual word use
Storm Broken
The storm left me broken as it swept through my life like August thunder leaving only the discordant buzz of cicadas the whine of a distant trimmer the static discharge of lightning that singes my lungs and eyes tears fall as I await the rain but none comes to quench the shattered spirit only the distant roll of thunder as the storm moves on leaving me dry and broken
Here where the artesian spring gurgles up through the ground, I pause. My intuition stirs, something. I glance behind and see him there, browsing amongst the fading autumn grass. I sense no fear from him, no tensing of muscle and sinew. Why should he flee? My soft pink form is no threat to him. I wonder if he knows, something inside, outside the bounds of human knowing. I would not harm him, nor his home.
Others are treacherous and wasteful, caring not for the needs of growing things. Contemptuous of all they deem lesser, and all is less. But for now, we are content to share this bit of world, the deer and I. I smile and he turns away from the warmth of sun on waning grass; away from me.
We drink from the stream, with a warm delight – the same the deer and I
Merril is our host at dVerse Poets Pub for prosery.
Prosery is a piece of short prose that includes a line from a poem. I will give you the line, and then you incorporate it into your prose piece. It can be either flash fiction, nonfiction, or creative nonfiction, but it must be prose, not a poem. And it must be no longer than 144 words, not including the title. It does not have to be exactly 144 words. Our prompt is:
“there is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles” from “Drawings By Children” by Lisel Mueller
Shattered
She could still feel the ugly red pressure of the day it happened. The dull grey and orange of the sky, the torrent of air rupturing the early morning stillness like a sonic boom. The day the light died in his steel-grey eyes while he spoke the words that shattered her heart, her world, her soul.
It should have killed her. Pain like that should kill you instantly, like an arrow to the heart. But, alas, it did not. She pulled together the fragments of her shattered self and put them back together. Differently this time. Never again know the pain of love. She built a wall around her heart and to all who knew her, she seemed whole. But there is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles in hollow agony.
Whimsygizmo is hosting this month’s quadrille over at dVerse Poets Pub and asks to polarize ourselves with a poem of 44 words, including “magnet.”
Pull of the Compass
Your voice reached my ears and drew my eyes to you with all the force of an electro-magnet my heart followed the way a compass points north and then my mind with unerring precision I know in a manner unknowing precisely where you are
Kim from Writing in North Norfolk is hosting at dVerse today and would like for us to write a bit of prosery including the following line from D.H. Lawrence’s poem “Hummingbird:”
‘We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time’.
For an added challenge, we are limited to 144 words.
I take his gnarled hand in mine. Papery skin seeming somehow fragile. Hands that gently bottle fed a newborn kitten also struck fearsome taekwondo punches. Big hands, strong hands that made a little girl feel safe, that wiped away the tears and lifted the child back onto the bicycle. Hands that were meant for delicate technical work, not to be the home for needles and tubes. Brothers are weeping. We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time. Somehow the giant of a man appears reduced by the ravages of years. In my mind, I turn the telescope and see the young man diving from high cliffs into the surf far below. His hand caresses my cheek, wiping away one last tear. He whispers “don’t weep for me my angel” as I watch the light fade from his eyes.
The quadrille over at dVerse Poets Pub this week is hosted by merrildsmith who asks us to use “blanket” in our poem of 44 words.
Bland tans and shades of faded ocher blanket the hills, setting the scene with splashes of brilliant canary and saffron Autumn comes to lay her cloak of colored leaves upon the fertile soil, shielding tender seeds from Winter’s chill rich beauty, gone too soon
