Photo: Laura Purdie Salas
Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)!
If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll visit my post from Monday and look at my online holiday card. I especially thought of my 15 Words or Less Poems community as I made it!
A couple of weeks ago, after our first big snow here in the Twin Cities, our basketball hoop was full of snow! This makes me think of:
1) A fishing net full of snow fishes
2) Trying to squeeze into skinny jeans after the holiday cookie season
3) Extruding spritzer cookies
And here’s my poem first draft:
What We Can Catch
Simple rope net–
outstretched, waiting–
holding hands with night,
catching the un-
catchable
–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
What do you think of when you look at this picture? Take any quick idea and jot down a 15 Words or Less poem. It doesn’t have to describe this picture. It’s just about whatever you think of when you look at it.
FROZEN
Vapors take off
In a flurry downcourt
Cuts through Air Currents … BOOM! Natures
Slam dunk!
(C) Charles Waters
The title was SNOW BALL but the poem had 16 words so I made the first word the title.
Wow–great image here. Love the frozen vapors and the flurry downcourt. I guess you could have used flurry as a verb and gotten rid of “in a” if you really wanted SNOW BALL as your title. I like FROZEN, but the pun of SNOW BALL is great, too:>) It’s a slam dunk by Charles!
Wow, so many wonderful poems this week! I got nuthin’ but wanted to give my compliments to everyone else – you’re all so inspired. Merry Christmas!
Thanks for stopping by, Renee–Merry Christmas! :>)
What a neat poem, Laura! I especially like the last two lines. Here’s what I thought of as soon as I saw the picture:
ADVICE FOR FROSTY, GIVEN A LITTLE LATE
When shooting hoops,
heed my call:
Keep your head and
use a ball!
Oh I love the double meaning in this, brilliant!
Thank you!
Hysterical, Janelle! So clever.
Thanks, Renee!
Too funny!!!
So much good stuff this week! Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays), everyone!
You, too, Kate–and thanks for your stark, lovely poem!
All these are super. Happy Christmas everyone!
Stuck up here
I am
waiting fer me perm
t’is makin me dizzy
Somehow I love the combo of “perm” and “t’is.” Unexpected, to say the least! Merry, Christmas, Catherine!
I hope the northern English accent shows through. It just reminds me of my grandma lol.
Love that last line!
Ha! Catherine, what an image and what a character created in just a couple of lines.
You are so funny, Catherine. You never fail to make me smile!
I drift and whirl
blanket and hush
sparkle and swirl
then melt into slush.
I love the “sparkle and swirl”!
Ooh, I love the blanket and hush. And nice ending!
Love the rhymes and all the images.
Really fun words!
I just got over here. What a nice bunch of poems! First thing I thought of was Santa’s beard.
Santa Scores
Santa overshot the flue
Made his basketball debut…
Jump! Slam dunk!
His beard scored 2!
~Penny Klostermann
Genius, Penny! Those first two lines…so funny!
Oh Penny what a cute Christmas poem!
Clever picture you’ve painted! I can imagine a terrific illustration with this.
This one makes me giggle.
Very funny, Penny!
Laura, some terrific poems here! Here’s mine, simple as it is:
WHO’DA THUNK?
Seen crazy things
in this life I live,
but never water
held by a sieve.
- © 2012 Matt Forrest Esenwine
I hear a twang in this simple, conversational voice:>)
Cool!
Oh, this is great!
Love this observation! I hear the twang, too.
Nice! And…you know…now that they mentioned it…I can’t help but read this with twang!
What an intriguing photo–full of possibilities! I especially like your “catching the un-/catchable.” Here’s mine:
Someday, I’ll be tall enough
to unstick stuff the giants stuff.
Love that, JoAnn. It’s so fun to say~
Oooh, a tongue twister–that last line is fun to say.
How fun!
Love it!!!!
Who would have thought–SNOW!
Captured in the basketball net
Freezing our balls.
Oh, Joy! Snicker, snicker:>)
LOL!
HAHAHA! I’m telling Santa you’ve been naughty.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ho! Ho! Ho!
He! He! He!
Wishing everyone a white Christmas. Here’s to catching the uncatchable, if even for a moment.
Hoarding happiness -
like keeping snow
in a net:
when the magic
slips away,
memories linger.
ellie, this is beautiful. I especially love the first three lines. You can embrace happiness, but you can’t really hoard it. Love it!
Love this!
How lovely… and true. Love that last line!
Ah…really nice!
Loved your poem, Laura. “Holding hands with night”- beautiful thought, and “catching the uncatchable” caught me off-guard. Fun!
WINTER GAME
Ball applied.
Shot wide-
Entrance denied.
Re-tried.
Got inside.
Exit denied.
I can see the whole game. Love the last line.
Thanks, Cindyb. Ha! I loved this play-by-play poem. Be careful what you wish for, right? :>)
Great rhymes!
This is awesome! Nice rhymes!
winter park…
pigeons the only players
on the court
© Diane Mayr
Laura, happy holidays to you and all your readers! May all of you catch the uncatchable in 2013!
Love this. I hear silence.
Thank you, Diane–what a lovely thought. It’s what we all as writers try to do…. Love this image. Paints an urban, snow-covered picture in my head.
This is so visual–lovely!
I love this!
Oh yes! I can picture that! Nice!
Snowball
falls
and breaks
like a heart.
–Kate Coombs (Book Aunt)
Love this stark image and the heat and cold I feel from it.
So sad. That last line – oh.
Such sadness in only seven words…
Beautiful. Oh, and…sniff!
Nice imagery!
Snowflakes whirling
Swishing swirling
Flying floating
Jack Frost shoots
And scores
Ms. Salas, your poem is very moving! I love the sound of the words put together- very nice! And for once I’m wishing for more snow so we can have a White Christmas here in New York!
Thanks, Amelia. I appreciate that. This was one that felt good to write:>) Ha! LOVE that image of Jack Frost playing basketball. So original–never would have occurred to me. I hope you do have a white Christmas–I always feel sad when we have a brown one. We have a few inches of worn out snow that held on through the rain last weekend, but a fresh dusting would sure be nice!
Well done. Love this!
Fun poem! I like the rhymes and the idea behind it.
So great! Love it! And Jack would play with a snowball…perfect!