Poetry Snippets

This Thanksgiving weekend is a writing weekend. I have thus far written a critique, posted a story for critique, started editing said story, and begun trying to make an incomprehensible poem into something comprehensible. (I am thinking the last is a lost cause, but I'm gonna keep trying. ^_^)

The story and poem are the ones I wrote for my creative writing class. I won't bother posting them here yet, but I feel like putting up some of the exercises I've done (one of which I wrote about in my previous post). They're not good, but they were fun to write~

***

Write an unrhymed poem that incorporates the following six words (among others): ROAD, DEAR, SICKLY, GLASS, DISPERSES, BLOSSOMS

Dear Friend,

You took the left turn and I the right
and I wished it had been a knife in the road instead
because then my feet would not have wanted to be right.
The sickly scent of your new perfume
dispersed with the distance and I hated it--
its presence, its disappearance.
Red blossoms on the hedgerows were your cheeks
and bees buzzed around blushing petals.
My dull face did not attract such suitors
and I swatted down your butterfly.

Guilty feet shuffled and scuffed
the dirt, the pebbles, the dust
and later they found their way back to town.
You stood behind the glass of a shop window
and my feet tripped one over the other--
but I saw that you had two left feet
equal to my two right feet.

I waved, and you smiled.

***

Write a poem in which one color (ex: red) is frequently repeated. Consider the symbolic associations of your chosen color (ex: anger, passion, death). Make color your unifying motif. Pay close attention to where, when, and why you're breaking the language where you are.

Viola Brown

The brown sound seeps deep into my bones
and I am the one who owns these strings.
Brown wood sings in mellow melody,
rich rhapsody thrilling down my arms,
and it warms like coffee on an autumn day.

I am a chestnut rooted in brown earth,
my leaves unfurling in rebirth to the sound
resonating all around. My heart begins to heal
as my flying fingers feel and my ears hear
the color of brown.

***

The second is very shallow, but I had so much fun messing around with sounds I really can't bring myself to care. ^_^