shaped like mini Quasimodos, multi-coloured
flexible and hardy as rubber balls
onward, they bounce into each other
the children jounce loudly, they call
to one another, spilling in sprints
they occupy all the playground corners
with jocular songs and slapping feet
names are called in sweetened tongues
coloured red and blue, artificial berries
sisters, brothers, mamas and dads
during the day are occupied away
grandparents they sometimes see
age wears the best bright fabrics
reds and greens, bright pinks and yellow
at the last push of an electric bell
they scramble crayons and books to shelves
fold aprons and wash off poster paints
take their satchels on their backs
and run to the reception and waiting room
stay while playing, where parents collect
sons and daughters, until an empty school
Saffron – 5th April 2021
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Napowrimo Prompt Day 5:
This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “W,” and the third line with “A.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong, but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas. I have found this prompt particularly inspiring when I use a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point, but if you’re having trouble finding one, perhaps you might consider Mary Szybist’s "We Think We Do Not Have Medieval Eyes” or for something shorter, Natalie Shapero’s "Pennsylvania.”
Poem chosen:
"Old Ladies' Home" - by Sylvia Plath
Sharded in black, like beetles,
Frail as antique earthenwear
One breath might shiver to bits,
The old women creep out here
To sun on the rocks or prop
Themselves up against the wall
Whose stones keep a little heat.
Needles knit in a bird-beaked
Counterpoint to their voices:
Sons, daughters, daughters and sons,
Distant and cold as photos,
Grandchildren nobody knows.
Age wears the best black fabric
Rust-red or green as lichens.
At owl-call the old ghosts flock
To hustle them off the lawn.
From beds boxed-in like coffins
The bonneted ladies grin.
And Death, that bald-head buzzard,
Stalls in halls where the lamp wick
Shortens with each breath drawn.