Skip to main content

WUSTL Life-Lines (4/13/20)

Prompt

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.
     Star
     Stairway
     Memory
     Hour
     Light
***
a pathway of pebbles at night,
memory’s labyrinth of light
reaches a dark star
through an hour ajar
and a heretical power
ascends subterranean
staircases to the heart.
— James B. Moog

Many thanks to Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo who did me the great honor of surprising me with a Spanish translation which I prefer greatly to the original English:

Senda de guijarros nocturnos:
la luz laberíntica de la memoria 
rebasa a la estrella oscura 
de esta hora entreabierta. 
Entonces una fuerza herética
asciende las escaleras sumergidas 
que dan directo a nuestro corazón.

-James B. Moog

Finally, I couldn't help submitting another poem anonymously:

Ambiguous light falls upon
an unsuspecting hour.
Memory, that silver star, refuses
her curtain calls. I am
enchanted by a spiral stairway—
shadow play
before and beneath it—
and a single candle.

Poems submitted for April 13

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HIGH AND DRY IN SANTA FE

It is snowing. Looking out the window- I sit in my room waiting (no car, unmotivated [city on COVID lockdown], oh well).  The snow looks like Dippin Dots. It rests on our balcony. My wife went out, came back in; now cotton candy-like fluff all over.  Only water. I wish I had my car but I really don't have anywhere I want to go. My eyes drift to the yellowing leaves, intermixed with fading greens. The ivy, by contrast, is going red. I want my car. I have nowhere to go. Without it,  I feel stranded in the middle of a desert.
Post a Comment
Read more

Proud Egg Cartoon #2

1. "This here...is Egg City" 2. "Who am I? Okay, sure, I'm an egg" 3. "But not just any egg" 4. "I'm a BAD EGG. Rotten to the CORE" 5. "I got a feverish desire for FAME" 6. "But lately...I been crackin' up" 7. "My head is all scrambled"  8. "So I'm gettin' outta' here... Leavin' Egg City for good!"
Post a Comment
Read more

WUSTL Life-Lines (4/14/20)

April 14 Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.      Gift      Fall      Brief      Still      See Send us your poem via our  Submissions  page or post on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag  # lifelines . I submitted a haiku this time: Spring’s gifts are so brief. Still, I long to see Summer, Fall, and Winter too… -James B. Moog And another poem: The fruit of knowledge, overripe, a gift of gravity after a brief fall.  We see only the necessary. -James B. Moog
Post a Comment
Read more