Gizmo [15 Words or Less]

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. 

Thanks for making time to join our community during what is a very busy holiday week for many!

Photo: Laura P. Salas

One last photo from Houston. This is a gizmo over a shop or restaurant that I walked by on my way to the Convention Center.

This image makes me think of several things:

  1. the going-a-million-different-directions feeling of the end of the year
  2. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
  3. Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting video
  4. social media

And here’s my first draft.  I got the cutest set of Scratchy Scratch Notes from Tabatha Yeatts from The Opposite of Indifference. What a fun holiday surprise–with the sweetest note, too. So I had to do this week’s first draft on one of these fun rainbow-colored scratchboards! Seems a perfect fit for the topic and photo, too!

The New Year 15wol

It’s your turn! Have fun and stick to 15 WORDS OR LESS! (Title doesn’t count toward word count.)

I have family visiting this week and next. I will do my best to comment on poems, but it could be that I only get to click Like to let you know I did read it. But I will read and enjoy each one, as I always do!

 

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33 Responses

  1. What a wonderful image and your poem is perfectly presented on that fabulous scratchy scratch paper! I love the energy and inherent optimism of your final line. Wishing you and your family all the best in 2019.

    Here’s my effort, influenced by a sudden, recent loss:

    Life Clock

    magnificent, intricate system
    each whirligig
    and curlicue
    mysteriously synchronized
    in rhythmic beat

    until it’s not

    ©Molly Hogan, 2018

    1. Oh, Molly, I’m so sorry for your loss. I love this celebration and reminder. Life IS magnificent. And short. Hugs to you.

    1. What a reminder. I remember one of these fortune-teller machines on the boardwalk at Daytona Beach when I was a kid. I’ve seen a couple elsewhere throughout my life, and for some reason they always bring back Daytona Beach. I love your reversal/repetition. Happy New Year!

  2. Happy New Year, Poets! My first comment disappeared into space. Sorry if it shows up again later. I tried to remember what I wrote.…but this version is different. Better, I’m sure! I wish all of you a wonderful holiday time full of love.

    whir
    twist
    turn
    spin
    fortell future
    future begins
    spin
    turn
    twist
    whir

    1. Your first one had to be approved, and I did that before seeing you wrote again. Sorry! Love your attitude, though, about just recreating it and celebrating the differences, if there are any:>)

  3. Wow! That is some awesome notepaper!
    Wishing you great days in this new year, Laura!
    This looked like a Seuss Christmas tree to me.…

    All New

    Pack up the tree
    All tinseled and gizmoed
    Unroll ‘19
    With stories yet untold.

    By Donna JT Smith

    Happy New Year all!

    1. You’re right–it does! I love this–my holidays have been great. And we got snow last night for our Florida visitors! Not enough, but some, at lease. But after my daughter and her boyfriend visit this weekend, I will be so ready to pack up 2018 and unroll 2019. Whee!

  4. BIRTH OF AN INVENTOR

    Directions. Who needs them-
    ’cause I build whatever.
    And every time,
    Dad says “How clever!”

  5. Good morning to all; sending wishes for a healthy and happy 2019. Gizmo is a perfect title Laura and your colorful verse permits us to make what we can of it.

    Mish-Mash

    Nuts, bolts
    toucan’s beak
    perching vultures
    Christmas socks
    peacock feathers:
    blocks
    for patchwork quilt.

      1. Thank you Jean. Somehow I lost a day yesterday, so I’ll take this opportunity to show appreciation for all of the participants in Thursday’s 15 WOL. Now back to my book and “soft quilt.”

    1. We just went to an opening at a gallery not long ago, and the artist uses other’s trash to create his art. It was fascinating!

  6. poem By Jessica Bigi

    Under our Christmas Tree

    teas
    dad’s golf clubs
    bikes
    sister got her nails done
    coffer maker
    tools
    mom’s gold bracelet
    Santa’s monsters bills
    clamed out of boxes
    a doll for me

  7. I’m afraid I’m a 15-word-or-less-hyphenating cheater today! Oh well.… I have admired the fork/spoon/screws-and-bolts sculptures that keep popping up at local crafts fair, and that’s what your photo reminded me of. Wishing all a happy new year!

    Junk-Drawer Sculpture

    Broken fork
    rusted spoon
    jammed propeller
    popped balloon

    twist-and-turn
    bolt-and-screw
    crafting old
    into new!

  8. Laura this picture is so much fun but I’m looking at it on my phone today and can’t tell which way is up or down lol. So I guess I’m having a hard time choosing what to make of it! Great poem today and I love your new paper! When I saw all the metal and gears my mind was drawn to Steampunk. Happy New Year to you and your family!

    Steampunk Traveler

    A clockwork machine:
    metal and feathers,
    Propels me through time
    On a path less traveled.

  9. Art Project
    by Dianne Moritz

    A little of this,
    A little of that.
    Scraps, yarn, glue…
    My collage cat!

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