Poetry Challenge: Dictionary Delights
Look through a good dictionary and pick 5 to 10 words based purely on the sound of the word on your tongue. Don’t think about the definitions. Then, once you have your list, write a short poem of no more than 14 lines using all of the selected words. This challenge comes from poet Anna J. Arredondo. Her sample poem is below:
Natural Remedies
Though many folks unwind their minds with daiquiris and juleps,
For me, retreat to earth’s embrace is far more expeditious—
The dew-drenched dawn, resplendent with bright, pirouetting tulips;
The noonday sun whose fierceness makes the slightest shade auspicious;
Subliminal suggestions—the cuneiform of birds:
Their skyward soaring; flitting flights; their flocking in the trees
Whose leafy tessellations caption wild wind’s airy words—
The constant, shifting chorus of the earth sets me at ease.
As I immerse myself in this, of one thing I feel sure:
All medicine’s placebo; this is tantamount to cure!
Write your own and post it in the Comments section below!
“The Entomology of Desire”
Dr Bhairab Barman
At vesper, she unpinned her golden hair,
While susurrus of silk disturbed the room;
He came, a moth, to taste her secret air,
And fed his limerence upon her bloom.
Her wedding ring lay cold beside the bed;
His wings beat softly at her flame-lit knee;
She kissed the forbidden dark and bent her head,
While gloaming veiled the sin they would not flee.
Their palimpsest of vows erased the dawn;
An eldritch hunger swallowed every prayer;
He burned; she watched his little wings withdraw,
Then sang a threnody into the air.
At sunrise, ash lay where his heart had been;
She wore her ring—and mourned the fire within.