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Poets create marvels of linguistic delights about anything and everything… but what about nothing? Can your Muse capture the essence of nothing? This could be the hardest challenge your Muse has ever faced! I look forward to reading your take on the subject of “Nothing” in the comments section below.
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In Praise of Nothing
Nothing taunts my tranquil mind
Or haunts the hymn I sing.
Nothing kills the joy entwined
In thrills the day may bring.
Nothing robs my eyes of sun.
Nothing foils my fling with fun.
Nothing leaves my heart undone…
That’s how I’ve come to find
Nothing governs dreams within—
Nothing’s everything.
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Post your poem on “Nothing” in the comments section below.
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Desert
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Thank you very much for your contribution, G.M.H. Thompson. See my comment on the content of your poem below:
😉
I didn’t mean to put the one without the “.”– for some reason, it automatically posted it twice when I posted it once, but then through it telling me that it posted it twice & had automatically deleted the second posting, I thought I had to post it again, but I had to change something about it, which I didn’t really want to do. So, the one without the period should be removed, is what I’m trying to get to.
Perhaps moderator Mike will sort it out… although, the Desert devoid of the embellishment of punctuation is my favorite of the two versions… where ‘Nothing’ is concerned less is always more. Thank you for your smile of a contribution.
… actually, your response to the challenge is more than a smile. My brain is now travelling down untrodden avenues to realms of the unfathomable.
Well, the main advantage of the one with the period is that it makes it clear that “Desert” is the title of the poem. It has a second advantage in giving the poem a sort of shape to it, while remaining very unobtrusive at the same time, like the picture of a desert. Also, a period suggests a grain of sand, so that’s another thing that’s nice (more than one period doesn’t look good, if anyone was wondering “Why not more than one period if it looks like a grain of sand & deserts have billions of grains of sand?”). A final note I might add about the period is that it suggests a black hole, which is perhaps the most nothing you can get, but also according to some theories the source of the big bang, which is an interesting paradoxical twist to think about on the subject.
“Desert.”
Now for a haiku
that will leave nothing to the
imagination…
Clever, BenB!
Nothing is the gentleness of snow,
of silent flakes descending from the sky.
Nothing is a forest-shrouded doe,
its camouflage deceiving to the eye.
Nothing is the bland, unseasoned fare
that leaves your un-assaulted tastebuds dull.
Nothing is the arid, desert air,
without a briny tang on which to mull.
Nothing is the polished table top
your palm explores that yields no contoured face.
Nothing is your journey’s mortal stop,
that terminates a spell of earthly grace.
Paul, this is truly beautiful… I thank you for rising to the challenge so admirably.
Thanks for your comment, Susan. It took a while to get there, and several rewrites.
Nothing poem
I took out my book
and sat near a brook
With a pen in my hand
it took
5 minutes to think
What I wanted to write
Suddenly
I saw my words run down the brook
Oh the look the words gave me
They laughed and giggled
As they rolled down the brook
I ran behind them and
it took
An hour to find all the words together
Stuck in a jar at the end of the brook
I put in my hand and pulled out a few words
But they made no sense
So I threw them back into the jar and into the flowing brook
I ran back home
Turned on my computer
And the thought to write what thoughts had come to my mind
But the thoughts were nothing
But of the words that
I threw back into the brook
Thank you for this, Debra. You describe a dilemma I am all too familiar with as a poet… I am imagining those words as slippery eels escaping your grip and stoking despair.
Sad sighing haunted rooms
And corridors long untouched
By laughter, light, or brooms.
I roamed the home. I clutched
A hope to see the source
Of so forlorn a sound.
Some soul’s too late remorse?
A shade whose body’d drowned?
Each creaking step I stepped,
In hall or down a stair;
In every hall I crept—
Nothing but me was there.
Atmospheric, melancholic, and thoroughly engaging! Thank you for rising to the ‘Nothing’ challenge with a fine poem, Patrick.
Thank you. A friend just introduced me to this Society. I am intrigued and interested.
Welcome, Patrick.
Thank you.
Yes, a warm welcome indeed, Patrick.
Ascent in Fall
For getting up the mount
You take the open road.
Turnoffs bend to waylay.
Pass them by! Pass them by!
Chasing wealth in leaf fall,
I wandered far and wide.
Tempting autumn fool’s gold
Surrounds you. Let it lie!
Forest veils hang tattered,
The whisper of each tear
One attachment breaking,
One more wingbeat southing.
Gong sounds, cymbal tinkles,
Raise voices of despair.
To know – and not to love!– is
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Monika, this is a melodious marvel of a poem that rises to the challenge admirably. I love the pictures you paint especially in stanza 3… and I adore the closing couplet. Thank you for joining in!
Thank you, Susan. The poem owes something to one of the Hobbit walking songs. The third stanza is my favorite too; I was afraid it laid me open to the charge of gratuitous mysteriousness but you get it! I’m glad and thank you also for another irresistible challenge.
Ho-Hum
He sinks in shifting sand –
The man with fluid views.
No leg on which to stand –
She bows to mainstream schmooze.
They’ve fallen for the brand
Of nothing-left-to-choose.
They dare not think
They dare not say
So, nothing bad
will mar their day…
And nothing good will sail their way.
Much Ado
Art is anything you can get away with – Andy Warhol
An empty frame the artist called “Invisible”
The people queue, then stand and stare and smile
And most can see (belatedly) it’s risible
But still they look, and ponder for a while
And hesitate to give an honest view
Concerned the lacking is perhaps their own:
“It’s witty and provocative and new
She makes you think about what isn’t shown”
They do not see till told where they should look
Nor recognize until they’re told what’s seen:
“It’s in the Tate, and therefore must be good
I’ll check the Web and find out what it means”
But nothing comes to nothing just the same
When labelled and surrounded by a frame
No One Likes It
“No one likes your poem, it stinks!”
They said. “Don’t open-mic it!”
So I asked No One what he thinks;
He read and said, “I like it.”
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS
As Morpheus had said to a sleeping Neo,
“No one can tell you what the Matrix is,
You have to see it for yourself,” I switched
To the red pill my freshman year at Buffalo
And joined the midnight museum goers,
Lined up outside the then locked A&P,
To stare at the soup cans and soda bottles,
The enwrapped 20th century models
Some unsuspecting Van Gogh or Vermeer
Had placed on crowded shelves to be revered –
The same as Warhol would later immortalize
To the chagrin of a bemused world.
To write a poem about nothing itself is something
to have a prompt written as to say capture the essence of nothing is still capturing the essence of something even nothing has a presence
to sit here and watch time spin
to sit here and write something about the essence of nothing just to what to win
there is a certain beauty that comes with writing about nothing
there is a certain beauty that comes with writing about something so who are you to decide that regardless of the way that the tide moves
you choose the inspiration you choose the muse
nothing is something and something is nothing
To capture the beauty of anything regardless of if that is nothing is still something
Nothing Poem
I met shadowed brightness, frail and strong,
Ugly as thorn bush, lovely as song,
Cruel as the Winter’s wind, sweet as the Spring’s,
Solid and liquid and air and all things,
Burning and living, and dying and cold,
Both loud and silent, both young and old,
Life-giving, breath-taking, in all its effects,
Elab’rately simple, Simply Complex.
A Dream and a Nightmare, a Hope and a Fear,
Immeasurably distant, unbearably near
I did not understand it. I still do not, now.
I knew what it was, yet I do not know how
To explain or describe or portray it to you.
You can question me, pry me, but nothing will do.
Encourage me, force me, do all that you may,
I can’t tell of the things of which words cannot say.
-Clara, written at age 14