The Wordsmith's Forge

Yesterday's fishbowl was on the slow side; not so many people participated or donated. I started at noon and closed at 9:30 PM since no more prompts had arrived for several hours, so that's about 7 1/2 hours accounting for breaks. I wrote 13 poems, mostly medium and a few long. Two were quaterns, a form I find myself liking. There were 32 comments including mine; 8 people sent prompts.

[EDIT 4/22/09 adding poems]

Several of the fishbowl poems have already been posted:
"The Architects of Love"
"Frontal Exposure"
"The Key to My Heart Is Upside Down"
"Like the Dew on the Leaves"
"Silicon Skin and Carbon Hearts"
"Starblossom"
"Stronger Than Concrete"

"Like the Dew on the Leaves" happens to be one of the quaterns, a form that works well as lyrical poetry, and indeed a discussion has arisen about its suitability for performance. If somebody wants to set it to music and sing it, that would be lovely.

This month's donors are: jenny_evergreen, minor_architect, laturner, and janetmiles. There will be a poll shortly to determine the poem from the general sponsorship. Thank you all for your support.

EDITED 2-21-09 to add donors and poems.

This poem was prompted and sponsored by minor_architect ... and I was several verses into it before I realized that I was using the metaphor of architecture in a poem inspired by someone who has "architect" in her username!

Love is not
the whole of the arch
through which the days of our lives must pass.

Love is
only the keystone
that holds the pieces together.

We are
the architects
who carve the blocks from sandstone.

We are
the ones who shape
loyalty, desire, fidelity, confidence, hope, reliance.

Our hands
are roughened
by the work of building a life together.

Our hands
are not the same,
yours and mine, skilled at different things.

I carve
the blocks of my being
broad on the outside, narrowing inward.

You carve
the coarse stone
of yourself for the sake of me.

We take
time for each other,
the things I love that you don’t, and vice versa.

We make
time together,
moving in unison, breathing in communion.

We curve
toward each other
like the sides of an arch.

We curve
until we touch,
united by our love.

We are
stronger together
than either would be a pillar apart.

We are
the arch holding the world’s weight
so that our days may pass freely through the center.

This poem was prompted by jenny_evergreen although the line itself came from her husband Tom. She has sponsored it here for everyone to enjoy.

Like the dew on the leaves of the fruit-bearing trees,
All the tears of our hearts are the least of the scene.
They will come, and then go, and will leave behind ease;
And the love that they water will flourish and green.

When the mist of confusion comes forth with the dawn,
Like the dew on the leaves of the fruit-bearing trees,
Merely wait for the day to bring truth, and it’s gone
With the light of the sun and the kiss of the breeze.

If the frost of indifference creeps forth to freeze,
It will meet with a heat that releases its flow,
Like the dew on the leaves of the fruit-bearing trees
Falling off to replenish the roots far below.

For the apples and cherries and pears are the goal
Of the orchard, as love is the seed that we seize;
And our sorrow is only the sweat of the soul,
Like the dew on the leaves of the fruit-bearing trees.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is romance, science and love, selected by the audience in an earlier poll. I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things relating to that theme. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems. Consider sponsoring a poem or commissioning a scrapbook page as a Valentine's Day present for someone you love!

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