poetic journeys: yearnings

YEARNINGS

In the orange ozone of blush desert
among slant-faced grasshoppers and lizards,

I’m dandelion disenchantment and
a hymn flickering to firefly heaven.

I’m a diamond girl in a salad bowl,
a page torn out of a landscape, a song

lamented. I am blurred nostalgia.
I am a chameleon, dreaming change.

In the tattered fog of morning glories,
tinkling silver bangles intoxicate

end entice me like hyacinth incense
from my faithful cornfield complacency,

from my straightjacket simplicity days
of middle-aged motherhooded marriage.

I become a table-dancing wildcat,
a nomad of our emerald green earth.

I become a river-riding cowgirl
and a Chinook wind unraveling snow.

I’m a capricious ramble of crooked
corridors – like I used to be in youth.

Then the quiet roar of the garage door
snaps me back to black and white prediction

of wrinkled burlap skin and silver-tipped
medium brown hair of oblivion.

*March 10, 2001*

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“POETRY” Invitation:  I invite you to write a poem of any poetic form on your own blog about a particular travel destination.  Or you can write about travel in general. Concentrate on any intention you set for your poetry.

In this case, I was given an assignment to write a poem that evoked a “vivid dream-like landscape.”

• Try to recreate the strangeness of a dream or nightmare, or create a surreal landscape with images that make “intuitive” sense rather than logical or literal sense.
• Impose some order (but not logical meaning) on this landscape by using a specific syllable count pattern to arrange your poem.  For example, use the standard Haiku arrangement of 3 lines of 5-7-5 syllables per stanza. OR, create your own pattern.  You might write in ten couplets (two line stanzas) with 10 syllables per line, for example, or in tercets (3 line stanzas) with lines 3/6/9 syllables long.
• Use assonance, alliteration, and internal rhyme to make the sound of the poem evoke a certain mood to match the landscape.

In this case I wrote 12 stanzas of non-rhyming couplets with 10 syllables per line. While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme.

I was surprised that I won second place in a poetry writing contest at Northern Virginia Community College for this poem in spring of 2001.

You can either set your own poetic intentions, or use one of the prompts I’ve listed on this page: writing prompts: poetry.  (This page is a work in process).  You can also include photos, of course.

Include the link in the comments below by Thursday, May 2 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this challenge on Friday, May 3, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the first Friday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community.  I promise, you’ll be inspired. 🙂

I am traveling from April 4 to May 10. If I cannot respond to or add your links due to wi-fi problems or time constraints, please feel free to add your links in both this post and my next scheduled post. If I can’t read them when you post them, I will get to them as soon as I can. Thanks for your understanding! 🙂

Thanks to all of you who wrote poetic posts following intentions you set for yourself. 🙂