Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.
If you didn’t see my note earlier, sorry about last week! Major blog/Wordpress fail, and I lost several posts. Boo. And I was traveling without my laptop and couldn’t do anything about it. I hope you all had fabulous Thanksgivings!
I took this picture of a bike rack while walking with my daughter on my birthday!
This image makes me think of several things:
- the bike rack at my childhood library (I rode there at least a couple times a week)
- zoo bars
- the cheese slicer with the wire
And here’s my first draft. Even though I am mostly silent when I go to a library, it always somehow feels like a place I go to to not only hear/read other people’s voices but also to express mine, even if it’s only through my reading choices.
It’s your turn! Have fun and stick to 15 WORDS OR LESS! (Title doesn’t count toward word count.)
29 Responses
With the blue accent in the filter, the bike rack reminds me of a stream that salmon are swimming toward for spawning. And, what a memory of my childhood library bike rack. Oh, I loved that little library. It’s unbelievable how small it was.…it was a world to me. I love to go back and visit it. Thanks for the memories! Have a great day.
1.
Red, orange, yellow
leaves swim upstream
against a coming
cold current
library bike-rack
rust, red and golden leaves hold
a place until spring
Have you looked beautiful, Linda! I especially love the idea of the leaves holding that place until spring. It captures that feeling that the library is always just there, waiting for me, whenever I’m ready to go.
Linda, I like the contrast in the two verses; the struggle and then the rest before spring.
Linda, I also saw water/waterfall before I saw the bike rack. Love the idea of leaves swimming upstream.
Linda this was beautiful, I hadn’t noticed the “stream” until you mentioned it, then I went back and all of a sudden it was so obvious.
My eye was more attracted to the fall leaves than the bike rack.
Flutter of leaves
color the sidewalk.
Take a stroll
along rainbow chalk.
Love the invitation to take a stroll.…I’m ready for a nice stroll along rainbow chalk.
I thought that fluttered of leaves, Margaret, and the whimsical feel of this poem!
Margaret, love the rainbow chalk phrase.
Laura, the pastels in this pic are lovely, especially on this “dead of winter” gray day. I laughed at the cheese cutter reminder. In light of the recent Thanksgiving holidays, as well as the coming Christmas/New Year school breaks, I imagine the bike rack also enjoying a respite. And, those “sigh“berspace gremlins never take a holiday!
Winter Holidays
If I look forlorn
do not grieve
kids get a break
I get a reprieve.
Hehehe. Great mask poem, Martha. It could come from the bike rack, but also from a school, a backpack, etc. Fun!
Martha, great perspective from the bike rack.
Thank you Jean. Unfortunately I was never able to use a bike rack. I lived too near school to ride; I walked to school, home for lunch, back after lunch and home in the afternoon. And, the nearest library was too far away to ride bikes; had to take public transportation. I loved seeing the racks full and when you had a lock for your bike, wow!
Laura, I like your use of homonyms in the ending of your poem.
GROWING PAINS
It’s empty- wondering
where you are.
It doesn’t realize
you now drive a car.
Bittersweet! For every new joy or freedom or privilege, we do leave something behind…
Refu-leaves
Many bars
may make a wall
but still
they find a way.
Oh. My. I’m actually working on a project related to this topic. So many bars. What an analogy!
Wow! It’s amazing how everything going on in the world today can even seep into 15 words of poetry. I love this.
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving
poem by Jessica Bigi
a giant combs his leafy hear
plays a tune on the harmonica
swinging bars across worlds
It’s always so fun to think of how really big or really tiny creatures would put human stuff to use! Love the idea of this giant comb!
Ah, you made me recall the bike rack at the back of the Richard Salter Storrs Library, in my hometown… those days of freedom when parents let their 8 year olds ride to the library, stay as long as they wanted, and come home with a basketful of books.
Who Am I?
My empty slats
hold ice and snow.
I wait for spring
and skinny wheels.
I used to ride my bike everywhere also. Skinny wheels — an excellent clue.
skinny wheels!
Ah skinny wheels, I remember getting my foot caught in those skinny wheels…ouch. Love your poem.
I missed you last week, Laura. I am glad to hear you weren’t ill.
Like Linda, the blue filter reminded me of a stream.
Like a River Split and Rejoined -
Our adult children
home for the holidays
the family whole again,
however briefly.
Thanks, Lauren:) Oh, this is just lovely. I really like the comparison–how seamless and natural the river and the reunion feel…
Wow! That’s really beautiful
Just finishing my shift so better late than never. The colors in this picture are beautiful. I truly loved the way you wrote your poem today. I saw this picture and felt sad for the bike rack. Silly I know, but it looks lonely and empty, so that is what inspired my poem.
Thanksgiving Break
Cold, steel ribs aching, lonely.
Laughter, and rattling chains mute.
Urban tracks cloaked in absence.
Not silly at all, Jean! I love that colors and shapes and looking at something not currently being used for its purpose make us feel emotions. It’s one reason I filter my images–to heighten that a little bit. You did a wonderful job of conveying loneliness–aching, cold, mute, absence. Great words! And those rattling chains–as soon as you said it, I heard them, even though you have them mute, so I, too, felt their absence.