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 pic from a recent road trip. This image makes me think of several things:
- an airport runway
- a conveyor belt with all the candy pieces heading toward the big machine
- woodcut printing
- slalom skiing
And here’s my first draft. I ended up writing about an aircraft carrier! I didn’t have room, in 15 words, to really include much factual info, but I had fun reading about how planes land on aircraft carriers:>)
It’s your turn! Have fun and stick to 15 WORDS OR LESS! (Title doesn’t count toward word count.)
35 Responses
Neat picture and poem–it made me think of flight too–someone heading towards a space shuttle launch or maybe towards a futuristic city.
Pushing back nerves
Boldly pushing on
Steeling self
For knife’s edged flight
beautiful last line.…knife’s edged flight.
Ooh, especially love that last line!
Oh, you determined pilot, you! Your flight is perfect. I like the landing. The word airport got me.
That time
gold morning
pushed against
night’s blue
the airport
was too soon
for
goodbye
“Too soon for goodbye” hits you right in the gut.
Linda, this is lovely. Just enough concrete colors and setting to ground me for the emotional impact of the ending!
Laura, congratulations on “Meet my Family.” Today, I definitely see an airport runway, except for the car. My brain (maybe because I’m left-handed, lol) recorded trash bins on the right and lighted Christmas candles on the left. Go figure!
The Christmas Parade
Early arrivals
claim space
final vehicle
waved aside
trash bins
accept breakfast
refuse.
HARKEN! DRUMBEATS!
I love hearing what people see in the images. Your poem makes me see every big family gathering where the driveway fills up and people jockey for space and move cars around when folks have to leave :>)
Poem By Jessica Bigi
sorry that it a few words over
Construction On The Highway
Inching like caterpillars
on a roller-coaster
pump of gas slam of breaks
slowdown dad
I ‘ll spilled my shake
I like the feeling of that third line, Jessica–I feel the slam!
My very first thought was that this looked like driving into a modernistic Disney World. From that came this:
Future World looms ahead.
Could Walt imagine
What we would be
At this time,
Now?
Love the wondering here, Beth. The future is hard to imagine as change seems to happen more and more rapidly!
Angle and tangle, love the way this reads. The building in the distance of your picture looked very industrial to me.
Tires shudder on pitted concrete.
Industrial chains sequester.
I took the road more traveled.
I love “the road more traveled”!
Jean, that first line is amazing. I can feel the shudder and feel/see the pitted concrete. Love that!
ha! love it.….it’s pleasing on the ear and also funny.
STAY ON TARGET!
Swerving neither left nor right,
anticipating with delight,
my long awaited goal in sight.
Love this anthem to focus, Cindyb!
A useful reminder in rhyme. Love it.
There are a LOT of traffic cones on the roads in Utah, including on the freeway as you head into the southern part of the state. My brother’s joke is that the state simply stores the cones on the roads.
Orange cones, where
are you taking me?
Is it somewhere I’ll really
want to be?
—Kate Coombs
Love this. Proof that truth is funny.
Ha! It’s like the detour signs that take you off your path and then never tell you where you’re supposed to actually go.
I am trying to adjust to new progressive lenses–quite the light show in my periphery at night!
New Glasses
Pinpoint lights
bend into colorful arcs–
jeweled necklaces adorn every car
speeding through the night.
Oh, I love that third line especially, Buffy! (Sounds dangerous, though!)
Wow.…you make the weirdness of new glasses downright pretty! Bravo, you!
The straight and narrow way…
Safe Keeping
Tempted
But not turning
Left or right;
Shepherd herds me
In the night.
The cozy rhyme and meter reinforces your words here, Donna:>)
Staying in the lines makes for a nice, tight poem. I like it.
I am impressed with how much you fit into your poem, Laura. Love those first two lines especially. My eye went straight to the traffic cones in your picture.
road construction
multiple lanes
squeezed into one
speed dropping
stress rising!
Ah, yes, that last line rings true!
Ha! Truth!
Those last two lines say it all, Lauren. Randy now has a commute to work (he bused until he got this new job), and with winter and ice upon us, not to mention road construction, it is a super stressful way to start and end his day.
Powerful pic Laura–so much is there to draw on, thanks! I like the echo between “angle” and “tangle” in your poem.
twighlight warmth
welcomes your time-warped
roadtrip rendezvous.
I love the echoes in yours, as well! warmth-warped, twilight-time and then all the lovely alliteration:>)
warmth, wrapped, rendezvous.….sounds so cozy