Totally Optional Prompts says:
Carl Sandburg wrote about people from time to time. Sometimes historical figures like Lincoln or Billy Sunday, and sometimes a stock character (i.e. waiter, steel worker). This week's challenge is to think of a specific person and write about them.
Campfire Service
Near the cusp
of legal emancipation
they huddle
this summer night
in silent supplication.
Moving shadows
decorate tall pines
cross their tub of beer
mirror a trinity of spirits
wrenched from friends
on recent days.
A central flame
forged to cremate fear
echoes the colors
of their spiked hair,
in that fire’s wispy smoke
they seek bravado
against the somber face
of random death.
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18 comments:
this reminds me of the little rituals we performed in junior high surrounding the death of one of our own... susan schneider... i wrote a poem to be read at the eulogy, a part of which i can recite to this day..
"A central flame
.....
of their spiked hair"
What a beautifully vivid picture you have drawn there !
The poem really conveys the dreary existence as they clutch at any purpose to change their existence to a living.
I was wondering if I could interest you in a poem I wrote about a 39 year old who suffered from cancer. It isn't for any prompt .
http://la-muse07.blogspot.com/2008/04/life-in-hurry.html
i like this a lot, very visual.
Your words not only speak volumes, I can slso visualise the picture as well!
An amazing poem, one of the most vivid and heartfelt I've read in a long time. And yet you maintain your own author's voice-recognizable as Tumblewords!
Great poem.
What always amazes me about your work is how much you manage to express with so few words.....this is gutwrenchingly good, really powerful, fine images, and all that emotion woven in, the final stanza amazing.
This one is really mysterious to me... it has a very eerie sense to it. Intriguing!
An intriguing poem. I see it as almost cultishly secret in a kind of ritual.
Yeah, this is good stuff! Random death! Wow!
A central flame
forged to cremate fear
I love the idea of cremating fear! Great images and a bit mysterious!
Oh yeah, those tribal rituals...good poem...loved the spiked hair detail. Way to go, Tumble.
Incredible poetry, tumblewords! So weel done! "In that fire's wispy smoke they seek bravado..." Marvelous image...
A powerful poem - the images you created were so vivid.
Very vivid.
your poem made me think
This is quite sombre compared to what I've read of yours before.. I liked it a lot.
you really evoke atmosphere well here,
Amazing, I think Susan, not amazing that you wrote it, but amazing images, clearer than a movie. It is a poem I will mark to return to.
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