☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
E.A. Poe
Such transports as true poetry provides
In raptures of the soul, and lyric rides,
May carry one beyond the lofty heights
In chariots of sun on drunken nights.
Whether true odyssey or shorter trip,
Homeric craft or humbler sort of ship,
The poet’s chosen stowaway rides free;
The ticket paid for literarily.
And afterward, the traveler comes home
Enriched by distant sights and worlds unknown.
PROMPT #2: write a poem about a specific place —
a particular house or store or school or office.
Try to incorporate concrete details, like street names, distances, types of trees or flowers, color of the shirts on people there.
By the trash-strewn brook of sewage
midst plastic bags snagged on bushes
below the rusting bridge of Calle Nueva
tropic flowers bloom in rotten muck.
Past the bridge three blocks up
on Calle Comercio
Schoolchildren come and go
dark blue uniforms buttoned down
in the Latin sun.
Pastel guayaberas and frilled aprons pass. . .
street vendors cry out their wares,
baskets of abundance head-borne
while car-horns blare cacophony.
There, in pharmaceutical shade,
the pedestrian is welcomed into
Farmacia Carcache —
FORGET IT. I can’t do this.
(seriously some of the NaPo prompts are so lame)
