Set in Concrete
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For NaPoWriMo
NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 28 Concrete Poetry
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Category Archives: concrete poetry
Rose
Rose
We are all filters of the world,
taking the news in—the happy births
and inane deaths, the charities and cruelties,
the beauties and the gross ugliness
of nature and of human nature.
These things pass through us or get stuck,
taking us with them into the poles of our own natures.
Those ills of the world we choose to dwell on
change us if we are not careful to let them go again
or to act in a manner opposite—
which causes us to seed new hope
which just might, just might
catch hold in the sieves
of others
and bloom.
A concrete poem is one that takes the form of what it describes. I could find no photo of a rose in my photo library, so the form of the poem will have to do to illustrate its meaning.
The prompt today was “filter.”
Companionship
My neighborhood gang. I think we were all five or six years old.
Companions
I did the above poem making use of a screen shot, but I’m not very happy with the quality. I need to leave to go to Guadalajara so can’t fuss with it more, but when I get home will go back to my old method of printing it out, making a jpg file and posting it as a photo from the media file. Back to the drawing board!
Aimless
Here’s a smaller version so you can see the shape on a smaller device. I’ve been working on this shape for seven hours. Sheesh! how time flies. I have versions of four different birds, but I think I like the duck best.
In case you are curious, here is another version of “Aimless.” Same poem, different bird–a plumed exotic with its wings extended.
And, for those who haven’t had enought, here is the first view I did:
Scar
Scar
All bear them as badges of life.
Each marks a wound and then a healing.
Like most of life, good growing out of the bad,
producing proud new flesh to cover the inevitable
that we all face––the cut, the gore, the severing.
Life is arranged for some reason to complete
pain with healing, one way or the other.
Proud flesh, proud heart–an excess
in us all that needs smoothing.
First pain and then succor,
a generation dying and
another one growing.
Forever scarring
the family or
healing
it.
For the past year, I keep getting these heart-shaped wounds on my arm. I think they are from the dogs jumping up on me or from wounds won trimming the bougainvillea, but it is amazing how many times they are in a heart shape. I’d already written this poem before I decided to try to make a concrete poem out of it. As I progressed, it wanted to be a heart.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 