Tag / Poetry Prompt

by Carol J Forrester

Poems Of Power – A Poetry Link-Up

Last Monday I threw out the idea for a weekly poetry link-up where you write a poem based on a line from another blogger’s work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I often find inspiration in some of the fantastic pieces here on WordPress and I know we have all probably had that moment where you read something and find yourself thinking ‘I really wish I was the one who’d written that.’

So once again I’m inviting you to go onto your reader, hunt through the poetry tag, and find a line that sparks inspiration in you. Make sure to credit the original writer in your post and revel in the wonder that is the fantastic mass of poetry at our fingertips.

For me this week, it’s the following line that’s caught my eye.

Viaducts were built by the conquerors

Auf Wiedersehen by cirque de la nuit

Please make sure to check out the poem it came from in full, it’s a fantastic piece that I fell in love with immediately. The poem just seems to simmer with power when you read it.

If you want to join in then the linky-took is below the quote. Have fun writing.

 

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Stones Throw

The farmers came with calloused hands in need of stone,

to build their boundaries and their hearth walls

among the lands that lost the names we’d forged,

regardless of the laws we’d written,

the last of which were echos in the marsh reeds

our ghosts waving at the workers about their tasks,

backs bent beneath another master lash.

And all in all the stones were taken,

chipped, chiseled, smashed and broken,

and we lay quiet in the waters of the empty marshes

so far from the glories we had dreamed to see,

so distant from the homes we’d wish to see

when reality caught up upon our dreams like grey mist

and it all burnt away on a sunrise

without even a stone to mark where we had been.

 

by Carol J Forrester

A Poem And A Blog Party All In One!

Dream State Darkening

“Slowly we slept into our fears”

Ritwik

Some nights the dreams slip past like minnow,

dark and shadowy in the water.

I am frozen,

mud stuck and slow

with limbs like old trophies

bent, broken, scratched,

the polish flaking like old paint

till the wooden skeleton is left

with all its pitted fragility,

no more than a twig

shivering in the storm.

When I wake,

I am still the scarecrow.

Clothes tacked on in mockery of skin.

Here I know the birds

do not fear me.

Instead they will come in flocks

to peck at what is left

when the last of me is withered

and gone to dust.

Some nights the dreams slip past like minnow,

dark and shadowy in the water,

and dawn is brought on by blinking,

slow and succulent it bleeds through the glass,

an orange splitting from its skin.

In an echo of better days

the dreams swim deeper,

far enough that I can pretend to forget.

These are the moments of peace

between the nightmares.

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We’re slap bang in the middle of the DVerse Poets Pub’s two week break so I’m forced to search for inspiration elsewhere in the blog-a-sphere. Tonight I’ve stumbled into something that I’m thinking about making a feature.

The quote at the top is by a fellow poet/blogger and he kindly enough allowed me to use it as a jumping off point for a new poem. I’ve written poems drawing on inspiration from other poets before but this time I’d like to invite you to do the same. If there’s enough interest then I’ll chuck out the same challenge next Monday as well.

The aim is simple. Find a quote in a poem published here on WordPress. Use this as your starting point to write your poem, but please make sure to credit the original writer for their words if you include them anywhere in the post!

Then add a link to this post to create a pinkback or enter your piece using the InLinkz below.

Either way. Have fun writing!

by Carol J Forrester

Summer Ashes

The sun has turned most of the garden crisp, stems crunching to dust between fingers when I dig in between the leaves. Still, the lavender stands as it should, scent sticky on my skin, determined to be carried home into the house. Its flowers haven’t faded yet. It doesn’t seem to bow to heat the same.

But between the lemon tree and dahlia, the herbs have taken refuge in the shadows of a water butt. There the decking still burns my feet by afternoon and moisture only lingers a little while upon the soil before vanishing. One by one they will succumb, no matter how often I tend them.

Eventually night

falls across this place and time,

soaked in the day’s heat.

Still this garden will shiver,

weeping for the storms not come.

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