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Poetry Thursday

Poetry Thursday   You can probably guess this week’s prompt…

Blue

These things you loved, and left
me: turquoise set in silver buckles;
lapis in a gold band. Tattered jeans;
faded work shirts; one iris in a cobalt
vase. A painted iron bed, with flannel
sheets worn thin and pale. Billie
Holiday, Nina Simone. A delicate
Chinese teacup; a jeweled bird. Two
antique lacquered fountain pens; one
inkwell. Morning glories climbing
an adobe wall. This vast and empty
New Mexico sky.

I had a rule for this poem — can you tell what it was? Did it work?

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11 responses to “Poetry Thursday”

  1. twitches Avatar
    twitches

    A rule? Nah, I can’t tell, but I’m no good at that sort of thing. I like all the little, intimate details in this poem, though.

    Reply
  2. Patia Avatar
    Patia

    Blue!

    Reply
  3. Cathy Avatar
    Cathy

    It had to match your mood lately ?

    Reply
  4. susan Avatar
    susan

    both the poem and the photographs are fantastic! thanks for commenting on my blog cause otherwise i may not have found yours…tried the flckr mosaic thanks to you 🙂

    Reply
  5. prairiemary Avatar
    prairiemary

    Needs some music! “Reeeed roses for a bloooo lady…” Maybe “Mood Indigo?”
    Prairie Mary

    Reply
  6. leonie Avatar
    leonie

    thanks for visiting my poetry thursday blog so i could find yours. i love the list, i could actually visualise each thing as i was reading through your poem and saw them all lined up on the lawn outside. i don’t know if you have a lawn, but that’s the image i got from reading. great poem and awesome photo, thanks!

    Reply
  7. Crafty Green Poet Avatar
    Crafty Green Poet

    Hi there, i think you used the same rule as I did- listing blue things without using the word blue. Your poem works really well, excellent in fact. I particularly love the ending.

    Reply
  8. Paris Parfait Avatar
    Paris Parfait

    Wonderful photo montage and beautiful poem – I like the layers of meaning.

    Reply
  9. SB Avatar
    SB

    Crafty Green Poet got it! I wanted to write a very blue poem, without using the word blue.
    Thanks, all, for your comments. This one was fun.

    Reply
  10. joseph Avatar
    joseph

    I thought it was something involving enjambment. For fun, I “straightened out” the enjambed lines:
    These things you loved, and left me:
    turquoise set in silver buckles;
    lapis in a gold band. Tattered jeans;
    faded work shirts;
    one iris in a cobalt vase.
    A painted iron bed, with flannel sheets worn thin and pale.
    Billie Holiday, Nina Simone.
    A delicate Chinese teacup;
    a jeweled bird.
    Two antique lacquered fountain pens;
    one inkwell.
    Morning glories climbing an adobe wall.
    This vast and empty New Mexico sky.
    Rumor has it that a poem doesn’t hold up if it doesn’t hold up when you straighten it out. I think this one does pretty well.
    ~~~
    I wrote a very similar poem about thirty years ago, so it was with a start that I encountered yours. The color is red, but it may be a little more elliptical. See if this doesn’t remind you of your poem.
    These things made you
    melancholy: red
    wine; Venetian
    paintings; cinnamon
    rolls; the wish
    for motherhood and
    sons; the fact
    that you were six
    years up
    on me.
    The red in motherhood is childbirth, the red in six year up is embarrassment.

    Reply
  11. SB Avatar
    SB

    Joseph — thank you for your comment, and your poem.
    …a poem doesn’t hold up if it doesn’t hold up when you straighten it out.
    I’d never hear this — and it seems not-intuitive to me. Line breaks are so difficult, so carefully chosen (for me, anyway) —
    I expect a poem to perform much better with, than without them.

    Reply

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