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.
Here’s a photo from last summer:
I like roller coasters, but not things like this. So I wrote poems while Randy and Maddie rode the Extreme Swing. This image makes me think of several things:
- stomach dropping
- underdogs
- cotton candy (and that raccoon/cotton candy video–so sad!)
And here’s my first draft. This looks different because it’s also my daily haiku for National Poetry Month!
And shoot–I just realized it’s 16 words! I didn’t even count, because who could go over 15 words in a haiku? Me, apparently!
It’s your turn! Have fun and stick to 15 WORDS OR LESS! (Title doesn’t count toward word count.)
53 Responses
LOL. I think your 16 words are perfect. If you really want to get it below 15 words you could get rid of “hop in” because we readers know what those scared frogs are doing!
I’m having fun in National Poetry Month. What a grand thing that your book came out last month and you can spend THIS month letting it soar. I’d hate to have to compete with National Poetry Month and a book launch!
I’m completely overstimulated with all the prompts to respond to this morning. So, my poem is simple!
It’s a brave thing
to endure this extreme swing
up, up, up, up, up,
Dooooooowwwwwwwnnnn
I feel like I’m on the swing with you, Linda.
A brave thing indeed to get on some rides. Your last two lines are wonderful.
Isn’t that the truth! Next year I will have 3 poetry books coming out, 1 in Feb, 1 in Mar, 1 in Apr. I will be a mess. I really like the contrast between your last two lines. Captures the exhilaration of up and then the endless fall of down. Nice!
That’s wonderful, Laura! And Linda’s poem takes my stomach clear down with it. Yikes!
Simple is good Linda. Clever use of words!!!
So true Linda, you must be very brave to get on those rides! Love how you captured the up and down motion.
Love your haiku/shape poem, Laura.
I cut several words, but I’m still a bit over on word count. Anyway, here’s what came to me:
Yes I can
Try, try!
Reach cotton clouds
Fly, fly!
Touch blanket blue
Sky Sky!
I fall back
Sigh. Bye.
I like how the repetition lends excitement to your poem.
I love the whole story worked in here…and especially the metaphors of cotton and blanket. How wonderful that you got those in even in such a short poem!
I love the progression in this poem Kimberly.
I love this Kimberly, you can just feel those riders reaching for the sky.
I love amusement park rides, especially roller coasters. Isn’t it too bad that the really fun rides aren’t fun for everyone?
Spin, twirl
tilt-a-whirl.
Coaster zip,
loop, flip.
Swing high!
Laugh, cry,
stomach lurch
… blurch
Forgot to say, I like the visual of your poem, Laura, and share your enthusiasm for roller coasters.
Ha! Love the enthusiasm in your poem…and the unfortunate ending. I also really enjoyed your poem on Your Daily Poem the other day! Fun to find your voice in my inbox!
Thank you, Laura. That little poem was a fun one. It is so nice to have YDP active again, at least for April.
Amusement parks make for amusement in verse. Visuals seem real Lauren.
So much action in your short terse verse, Lauren. The great ride was worth the end! 🙂
Lauren I am one of those blurchers. Great poem!
Thank you all for your kind words. Hope you enjoyed the ride. 😉
Good morning Laura. I borrowed one of your lines, hoping that is okay. I first saw “upside down red table umbrellas.” I’m with you, I can be a bit daring but one has to draw the line, especially after being stranded in a sky bucket at Six Flags Over Georgia due to a power outage. Thankfully all ended safely, but never again!
Whoopsie Daisy
Pause at the top,
red umbrellas
en pointe from the swing,
brace for the drop.
Martha, I love this poem. My daughter and I rode in a sky bucket over our state fair last summer. The ride was full of starts and stops, and I will never ride in one again either.
Oh Martha that must have been scary. Glad it all ended safely.
Love your red umbrellas en pointe.
I went with the feeling I got by looking at the photo an your explanation, Laura: the excitement, the fear, the relief of the return to earth and this memory popped in my heard. A true story. The backstory is pretty funny. After I finished my audition the head of the community theater group came and said that he thought I did a fantastic job and wanted me to get the part, but since I was a newbie and for marital peace, he hoped it would go to his wife as expected. Not a surprise as she was also a leader in the group and perfect for the part. I really had auditioned on a whim and didn’t want the part, but I forced myself to do something I knew would be hard. I wasn’t prepared for the feeling of thinking I might actually have a heart attack though! I didn’t try again. I stuck to the comfortable fun stuff after that. But it is a good memory.
First Audition Jitters
Walk to the stage,
heart pounding,
grab the script,
Wait. Get in character.
Nail it!
oops: editing needed. “an” should be and, heard should be head.
Janet, elusive wording but “you nailed it.” Great!
I love that you took the very same feeling and put it into completely different circumstances.
Nicely done, both your poem and audition.
Love this, Janet, and how you used the emotional gut reaction to build your poem on a completely different topic!
Laura I just got back from Universal Orlando spring break with my kids, and I’m all too familiar with scary rides. I don’t usually do any of them (they make me sick, except for the Harry Potter rides), but my kids tricked me into going on the Mummy ride, an indoor, high speed, roller coaster. They told me it was as easy as Harry Potter…it wasn’t! I screamed like a crazy person on a runaway train…all in good fun. I’d say a biblical amount of frogs were hopping in my chest! I have been enjoying your haiku series, you definitely captured the feeling of the swing.
The Ride of My Life
Stomach tight,
chest pounding,
eyes squeezed tight,
W
H
E
E
E
E
E
E
E…
Face Green!
Oh no my Wheeeee reformatted, I had it shaped like the swing going back and forth.
I think I like the way it formatted. To me, it was like I was going over a hill of the roller coaster with you and heading straight down. Love this!
Sorry your formatting didn’t work Jean, but that did not take away from the motion in the poem. Good job.
My mother is afraid of rides. We were sure if we got her on one, a tame one, she would see how fun it is. I feel for you, because like her, it still was not fun for you to ride. Hopefully you did not stay green long.
Oh, dear! I’m glad you came through it ok. “Biblical amount of frogs”–heehee:>)
My parent’s had a Grandfather’s Clock in the front hall of the house where I grew up. My insomnia memories start there…
Midnight Noises
Tick, tock, tick, tock
pendulum swings
on grandfather’s clock
marching hoofbeats
of sheep-counting flock.
Another take on the swing. I love this Buffy, sitting at my computer with my great-grandfather’s clock ticking away in the background.
Fantastic job emphasizing that monotonous drone that is synonymous with insomnia to me. Ugh. I only have it very rarely, and I’m thankful!
What a great writing exercise to warm up to this morning!
High above the ground,
hearts pound.
Why didn’t I choose
the Merry-Go-Round?
You speak my language Leslie. And, at my age I don’t have to explain myself because I can ride with my great-grandchildren and be perfectly legitimate! Thanks for the smile and the Goodman name flows through my ancestry.
I’m happy you’re here warming up with us! Those 3 lines of rhyme pound home the fear here:>)
TO AND FRO
Should be Spring-
temperature swing.
Rains and snows,
flooding that froze.
Anything goes!
Hahaha. Love that you took a swing and made it the swing between the seasons! We’ll have freezing temps here this weekend.
This is great Cindy. I like the way you interpreted “swing.”
This kind of ride is right up there with root canals for me. The only roller coasters I like are the ones with lots of curves, not steep hills. Disneyland has one like that called Space Mountain.
Thor’s hammer lost
in carnival town—
thunder up,
lightning down.
—Kate Coombs
Oooh. I love the different direction you went with this, Kate. Very clever! I grew up in Orlando w/Disney World, and I know Space Mountain well. I’m OK with most roller coasters–but the swings where you feel like you’re falling out…nope. Or the scrambler rides that take you several different directions at once…nope!
poem By Jessica Bigi
coasters
are fun bumpy rids
this last year
Fells like the
Worlds
spinning from threads
Sometimes it DOES feel like the whole world is spinning from tiny threads that can’t hold it. Like the whole world is on some kind of thrill ride (that we could do without)…
I’m a go-cart kinda gal, that’s my kinda speed. I definitely would feel “frogs hop in my chest,” too Laura!
EXTREME SWING
Call me
Mean Monster–
My mechanical
movement
emits
trilling
joy
or
dire
Dread!
Michelle Kogan
Love “dire Dread!” And the alliteration:>)
I’m getting all chunder‑y just looking at that picture. It’s not just a frog hop in my chest, it’s the belly flop in my gut that’s the problem…!
Chunder‑y…you come up with the best words, Tanita!