I’m back! Thanks for participating last week with your wonderful poems.
Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)!
Photo: NASA
This is a star-forming region within the Tarantula Nebula. It’s a composite of images taken by the Hubble Telescope. Isn’t it amazing? This image makes me think of:
1. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
2. A marble
3. Dragons–I see several of them in there!
Here’s my poem first draft:
You See a Marble
I see a planet:
glass, cast, miraculousI curl inside,
only knees protruding,
and roll–Laura Purdie Salas
No idea what that one’s even about, except that I picture this lonely boy who somehow has the ability to curl into this tiny magic orb and disappear when he wants to.
So, what does this picture make YOU think of? Think fast, and then write a 15 words or less poem and share it in the comments! Your poem doesn’t have to describe the actual picture. Feel free to comment on each others’ poems and tell what your favorite part is:>)
A VIP LIGHTNING SHOW
Spirals,
dots,
drips
and
splashes.
god’s personal
lightning
flashes.
(c) Charles Waters 2012 all rights reserved.
I love the word “personal” in here. These aren’t just any lightning flashes. So there are two kinds–the usual, run of the mill, natural lightning (which I love, too) and then kind of cosmic ones, straight from the hand of god. It gives a whole new weight to that first stanza, which sounded whimsical at first…
uncertain
beyond the curtain
strike a worried frown
looks like up
feels like down
I love those first three lines, especially. They put me in a very mysterious mood!
reading this i thought about what it’s like to go on stage, waiting in he wings, and how a forming galaxy could feel anxiety. wonderfully satisfying all around
A snowy deer gracefully prances through the atmosphere
searching out her offspring
That’s lovely, Catherine! I like how spring in offspring makes me circle back to prancing. A lot of movement in this poem:>)
Thanks Laura
Great poems, everybody!
Tarantula Nebula
spiderweb in
starry sky—
strands of silver,
streaks of white—
silken sty
in heaven’s eye.
juliekrantz, 2012
All those s and long i sounds are delicious, Julie. And those last two lines are stunning to me. How some something be silken, which is so lovely, and be a sty, which is decidedly unlovely. Great paradox…
Thank you, Laura! I loved writing this one.
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But What if it Happens When I’m in School?
Leaking
like bathwater
between my legs,
painted, flaming
streaks
of shame
of fear,
of life
-Pamela Ross
This poem will make every woman cringe to remember some junior high moments. I love painted, and the ending to put it all in perspective…:>)
Wow, Pam, this is stunning!
A very delayed gratification. Thank you, thank you, Laura and Diane. I guess you can say this is a poem from my.. confessional period.
xoox
No pun intended?
Harharhar
Matt is so bloody… wrong.
Where did my winky, silly, snarky, smiling face go in my response to Matt?!
Undecided Beginnings
Webs of Cosmic Stardust
Dreams Shift Into Life,
Creation’s Silken Vapor
Balanced on a Knife…
Oh, I love the twist of that last line, Matt. It’s all beautiful and lovely until then (I especially like that Silken Vapor), but then it’s Balanced on a Knife… Tenuous, uncertain, vulnerable. Makes me think of the Haunted House at Disney where you’re in that little octagonal (I think) room at the beginning, and there are paintings on the wall. All lovely, carefree paintings. You think. Then the ceiling and upper walls raise and more of the paintings are revealed. A girl with a parasol turns out to be walking on a tightrope with hungry crocs snapping below. Or something like that–it’s been a few years! That’s how this poem makes me feel. Like the darker underside was just revealed. I love the use of shift, too.
When I reread this after posting, I thought that “shifting” might have sounded or flowed better. I am not sure how the pros do it, but I find myself just sounding out the lines in my head. I guess it sometimes depends on the reader. Sometimes I hear more in the silences than in the actual spoken words. I imagine two different recitations of the same poem could have two very different outcomes. As for the twist, I am always fascinated by the randomness of our universe and how many things had to go right for our part of it to exist.
Most of the pros don’t know how they do it:>) Or they all do it differently. I like “shift” because it’s an action, whereas “shifting” gives me more the feeling of a state of being. So using present tense verbs makes me feel like I am IN that moment, the action of the poem happening at the very instant I read it. But that’s just me. For some poets, sound is most important. For others, it’s meaning. For others, it’s meter. Usually, I guess it’s a mix of all three, though many poets strongly emphasize one area…
And I agree…the pauses in poems are every bit as important as the words. It’s like when I watch So You Think You Can Dance, and a dancer auditions with a frantic piece, filling every moment with tricks and motion. It’s cool but unsettling. A dancer who knows how to be still, to use the pauses, really makes an impact.
And hearing a wonderful reading of a poem has more than once made me love a poem that previously had little impact on me. I suddenly hear what I was missing in the poem before. It’s like love, very mysterious and random, I think!
Too many donuts.
Too much pie.
Why’d I eat them,
Why, oh why???
Oh dear, Cindy! Does this mean the image made you think of vomit? Or maybe I’m just thinking that because I went to pick up some fast-food trash out of our elderly neighbors’ yard, and it was not just trash. Ugh. I can just see a kid (or a bunch) standing up and reciting this poem in front of the class–with great dramatics, groaning, stomach gripping, and–yes–fake throwing up!
Ha! Ha! Not quite to the vomit stage- but I was experiencing indigestion and I thought that picture was probably showing what was going on in my stomach!
I just ate four cupcakes at a viewing party of Cupcake Champions (a local Mpls. baker won!). I can really relate even more strongly to your poem now!
I could see a frog in the white part of this. Feeling a little musical today…
Froggie went a-courtin’ and he did ride
um-hum
through Tarantula Nebulas he would glide
um-hum
Haha! Love that–I don’t see the frog, but in looking for it, I found a scorpion in the white part that I hadn’t noticed before. Lovely thing about poems–even if I don’t see what the poet sees, it makes me look more closely!
beyond
rockets
and spaceships
daring visionaries
birth entire
universes that become our
radiant
yesterdays
(bit of an acrostic for the dearly departed mr b)
RIP Ray
David, this is really wonderful. Visionaries is just the right word. And I love beyond, because I keep seeing him referred to as a science fiction writer, which is so inadequate and doesn’t apply to most of his work. I suppose this is heresy to some, but I’m much more lessened by Bradbury’s death than Sendak’s.
In a cobalt mug
Glorious cumulus cream clouds
Swirl in my java
Awesome imagery!
Fantastic image! I don’t drink coffee, but even I can relate! Awesome middle line…
I like your marble ‘roll’ Laura. Here’s mine:
don’t need Pollock
flinging paint
just the Hubble’s
space art exhibition-
better than MOMA
Yes! I, too, find science/nature to be the best art. Not that I hate art or anything. Love the Pollock reference and the flinging paint…makes me look at this image yet again, in another new way.
Memories
My thoughts swirl
the dust
of unforgotten blasts
through the whispers
of wished-upon stars.
Ooooooo Lovely!
Really like “whispers of wished-upon stars”…
This is a fun one to read aloud–very whooshy in my mouth! I especially adore those last two lines.
Nebulous
Telescope arrests
clouds of dust and gases
–the imperceptible
movement of a spider
in the corner.
I’m in love with the verb arrests here, Diane. And then the contrast from that stopping to the tiny movement of the spider. And, of course, the play on the Tarantula Nebula…so much to love here!
Nebula
Endless black lonely
distances between
stars like scattered leaves.
–Kate Coombs (Book Aunt)
Oh, Kate. I’m picturing those sparse, dry leaves on a late, cold, autumn night. What a great and melancholy image…
There!
within
celestial swirls
of
- chemicals
- compounds
- coalescing gasses
Stars!
Planets!
Life?
I love celestial swirls and coalescing gasses the best! And the excitement of those first and last lines:>)
GUARDIAN ANGELS
I see guardian angels
On every cloud
up there ever watching
Among our heavenly stars
- Anne McKenna
guardian angels/On every cloud – what a beautiful image, Anne!
Thank you , I like to write of Angels