Sam has asked what tree we would choose to be and perhaps this is fudging a bit, but this is a poem I wrote a few years ago about the tree I am no doubt fated to become:
Fallen Woman
For Sam’s prompt: https://mcouvillion.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/which-tree-would-you-be/
Photo by Glenn Buttkus
Concrete Poem
(Exposed Aggregate)
You cut a channel through my flat heart,
straight and sure, as though it had not already been set.
Miracle worker. Perfect craftsman,
sculpting the impossible medium.
For the dVerse Poets Pub prompt. Go HERE to see poems by other poets answering the prompt.
The dVerse Poet’s prompt today is the word “flush.” The poem is to be a quadrille—-exactly 44 words, not counting the title.
Below is a collage of concrete poetry I’ve done over the past six years. Please click on images to increase the size and read the poems.
The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a concrete poem. Here are a few.
Doll by Judy jdb photo
Tailor of Mankind
He thought he would be a tailor of men.
Then, “Woman!” he thought,
laughing as he
extracted a rib, seaming
hills and valleys, taking a subtle tuck
here, folding an excessive curve there
and there. Smoothing it over, shortening
a length. Extending another.
Making them fit and not fit.
Not a perfect pair but rather
thesis and antithesis,
yin
and
yang.
Anima
and
Animus
he shaped into each
in different quantities.
Then, he clothed perfection,
sheathing it and obscuring
differences to be discovered
under falling leaves, in darkness,
setting a whole world in motion.
Then he wept.
The prompt today is tailor.
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.”
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!
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:
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 