We The Poets

  We're in April, and Spring is catching up with us !   Over the past three months I have been inviting local poets to send me poems, usually in response to simple prompts.   Here follows a selection of this work - such a variety of voices and subjects! Thank you, everyone who sent me such riches - I am publishing here just my own limited selection, with only one or two poems per person.   Browse away ! I hope to extend our scope from here, recruit more poets, and try to keep up with weekly posts.   So here, to begin, is my anthology: If I have missed anyone, my apologies -.  What if we didn’t need to scintillate our dulled senses with spectacle – if ordinary miracles weren’t hidden at all, but offered: cathedrals of the forest, spires of pine and oak nearly transparent in the deepening dusk, such moments of wonder strung through our days like pearls, lit from within, waiting to be seen?   --Peaco Todd - .  Silent   silence is thunde...

THE SIX WORD PROMPT, APRIL 3RD.: ADJECTIVES!         Tolerable                                  Challenging                                  Breath-taking                                  Gigantic                                  Murky                                  Endless Extra challenge - Fit these into a poem of no more than fifty words. I look forward to seeing them ! Richard

 Citizen Poets: It's still snowy here! Not the time of year to think about snow with much pleasure? I really don't believe that we are done yet ! Five years ago I wrote this to my students: What if Each snowflake Were a hexagonal piece To jigsaw together To play the game of the universe? For this week, how about a poem which is a question, and  has to use the following words ? Scintillate Hidden Transparent Spire Pearls Deepening I hope to be ready to post poems on the exchanges and the blog promptly this week - does anyone prefer anonymity or a pseudonym ? Richard Posner

Over some past weeks I published some rafts of a poem, showing how its words, form and meaning gradually emerged from  the clutter of my mind. Today I discovered the origin of the central image of the space ladder, the idea of which I first encountered some years ago. 

 

  By draft 3 some lines are clearing, but much still to do - In the shadow of the Earth How dark is the night? I am on geostation A sign of intelligent life Tethered to my little box of warmth Floating in a cold sky. My carbon fibre beanstalk  Climbs up to the giants  Brooding beyond the clouds. I am held in the angels' path The wind of lights The curtains of the north At the pause of gravity I am a flourish of Nature The momentum of the moment Sewn to the globe with gossamer thread Pick me out in the plenitude of stars - Are we common, rare, unique?

Draft 2 - the fog clears a little, but where is it going ?  How are the space elevator and the barrage balloon emerging as images, and of what? How dark is the night ? In the shadow of the Earth I am on geostation Tethered to my little box of warmth Floating above in a cold sky. My cable is my lifeline My carbon fibre beanstalk  Climbs up to the giants  Brooding in the clouds. I am held in the angels' path The wind of lights The curtains of the north At the pause of gravity I become a flourish of Nature A moment's momentum A sequence of sequins Sewn to the globe with gossamer thread How dark is the night ?