read write prompt #107, lighting the way
by Andre Tan
Write a poem based upon your own response to a photograph.
(Read the prompt for full details and the complete photograph.)
(Read other participants responses to this prompt.)
Shotgun Blast by Shane Gorski (here, reduced and cropped)
What a window does
Light makes no sense looking
like yellow now. Maybe because
it’s crashing on the shore, turbulent
because it matters here.
Five-fingered. How primal, how
human I suppose, but believing is
akin to a hot frying pan. Just right
is rather brief.
Disrobed of neglect brilliant
waves confirm a pulse submerged,
someone’s slumber interrupted
with uncertainty. A rose withered
is, yes, still a rose.
Inside this shell they rested,
wrestled remembering by chalk
outlines. Painted dust onto brick.
Stood on limbs once coniferous.
How many destinations here
contained, fallow now?
Let lightning plow, none shy
of sun. Fertile as a river is.
As it is here in a single breath.
Hand me some chalk.
Here’s my life and bright.
Neil Reid © December 2009
Very nice poem, Neil. I like the ambiguity you allow to permeate the poem. The life-affirming quality of chalk graffiti made of “chalk outlines.” The rose being a rose in any other state of existence. The senseless yellow of the light. It took me a second read to see the aptness of the title.
I love your final lines:
Hand me some chalk.
Here’s my life and bright.
I love the play on “chalk,” and I wonder if graffiti inscribed with spray paint is as life-affirming.
Nice!
I appreciate your comments Paul. Pardon if I expand a bit, as well the lines you quoted, do for me come to this focal point. At the risk of seeming trite or half-sighted, I just don’t have the heart to rest my gaze upon what’s hard and painful of this world and life, and isn’t it obvious anyway? I acknowledge my stance comes from a deliberate stance, my intention to be in life. And that is to see, understand and express the beauty inherent of existence. Even in a scene of seeming abandonment as this photograph – but abandoned from who? If I close my eyes does the world change its real nature? I work to let go my own blindness, however it is.
I know well enough what harm is in this world, but by whose hand, and then just where and how am I to look and see? That’s my conscious choice. I’d rather look toward the heaven we have covered up (meaning too, it is still right here).
Reading right now another book by Terry Tempest Williams, “Finding Beauty in a Broken World”. And her first topic is learning to create mosaics – how utterly brilliant and appropriate!
I hope to approach that sentiment expressively.
Thanks again Paul.
hi Neil,
I like these lines,
Five-fingered. How primal, how
human I suppose, but believing is
akin to a hot frying pan.
Your technique is what I’m trying to master.
Every line luminiscent.
Thank you Irene. And don’t even the sciences now say that all life is essentially light! More than even a matter of belief!
I work to live and write with that understanding. So if a little light meets the eye, I am only pleased to have said something right. Thanks again!
Beautifully composed, and I loved the analogy of the hot frying pan.
Thank you Anthony. Sometimes it is boil and bubble, toil and strife – the way I understand understanding! Thanks.
I love the perspective you chose to write this from. Starting with the light. It seems obvious now that you’ve done it, though I certainly didn’t think of it, which is a sign of just how perfect the choice was.
Thank you Elizabeth. I appreciate your comment here. Light just seemed what illuminated the scene – so yes, obvious then.
“Painted dust onto brick.
Stood on limbs once coniferous.”
I loved these lines because they were death and life all at once. And I agree with Irene about the luminescence of your words. Great form and a provocative read, Neil. Thank you for sharing and have a wonderful New Year with glowing warmth and light!
Just show me a place that isn’t busy making and remaking itself! Some, more obvious, some more pretty and some not.
And you too – a good new day and days of writing poems too. For all of us! Thank you Linda.
this is beautiful, Neil!
and echo Elizabeth — a wonderful perspective. so much to think about in “what a window does.” you could get an entire series of poems out of this, I think!
have a wonderful 2010!
Thanks Angie. Appreciate you kind words here, and maybe yes, perhaps to consider some sort of series from this poem too. Wrote two poems of this prompt, and of late wanting to freshen my voice, took the less “me” of the two. We’ll see.
Look forward to more of your poems in the new year!
I love the second stanza especially – how believing is akin to a hot frying pan. Wow!
Thanks! Seems a popular reference! Appreciate your visit with me.
There is much honesty in this piece, honesty that strikes the quick and pulls truth from hidden places. Lovely!
Thank you for your very kind comment!
The second stanza is very interesting.Primal and human to believe but then reason and experience kicks in.
‘Hand me some chalk
Here’s my life and bright’
This is wickedly funny…well, to a mind like mine!
Happy New Year.
Thank you for the comment. Hmm… well funny was not what I was going for, but I’ll be glad to amuse however it comes! And I like an inventive mind! Happy Year to you too.
very lovely words, Neil. “Believing is akin to a hot frying pan”. Very interesting idea…
Thank you Cynthia. I always appreciate your visits here!
Sort of meaning – very useful, even necessary, but hot enough to burn the fingers if not held gingerly. If that makes sense.
nicely done Neil with some great use of words…..thanks for sharing this….cheers
Thank you Wayne. And a good new year and year of writing to you, to all of us!
So beautiful and interesting. I liked the approach you took to this poem. Your use of words are both compelling and unique. I think the whole poem is well done but my favorite section is the imagery I perceive here:
“Disrobed of neglect brilliant
waves confirm a pulse submerged,
someone’s slumber interrupted
with uncertainty. A rose withered
is, yes, still a rose.”
-Roberta
Thank you so much Roberta. I appreciate your time and attention – and generous words. Poems they sort of leave the hand, stand on their own. And that’s just fine. But still it is nice when someone says hello, says thanks. Makes a difference. So, my thanks.
This is an intriguing use of the prompt. The poem acts like the light it describes, transforming and reawakening as it illuminates its subjects. As the narrative voice is inspired to grab the chalk and add his life’s outlines to the walls, so I’m inspired by what you’ve crafted here to grab a pen (or keyboard) and pitch in my own words.
Sweet, as your description is, then reflects too, your own sense of what it does and do yourself. A red star for you! And simply, thank you is what I mean. Thanks Francis!