Blackout poetry 2

Further to yesterday’s blackout poetry fun, I thought I’d do another. Took a while to find a book I was willing to let go off, but finally settled on one.

Oh, it’s that section of the library, is it?

Books in court,

their words binding the defendant

to the table

wrapping the air with motive,

mystery,

evidence that is pure fiction,

until the jury

stands up and reads

aloud.

The books fall down

blown away,

scattered, pages billowing

like petticoats

in a stiff morning breeze.

Inside outside

These small little things,

These drifting bottles,

Hidden under sand, under castles, under twisting boughs.

The key to you.

Also the lock.

Dedications

For my missing sock; the remaining one will never forget you.

To the monster in the attic who always made me run to the bathroom.

In memory of all the balloons I’ve accidentally let go of.

For the secret agents who secretly cheer me on.

To the elderly gentleman who waves his walking stick at me everyday. What a friendly guy!

Painting with words

When I first started this blog three months ago, I wrote very little poetry, and it wasn’t even my intention to start writing any, let alone post them. Then, after a few days of trying to find new things to write about, I stumbled across a folder of poems I’d written a few years ago. They weren’t really meaningful poems, but I liked the imagery in them, so with a few tweaks here and there I decided they were worth sharing.

To my surprise, people seemed to like them (and I say surprise because I had, and still have, no idea what makes a good poem. I can’t even tell you why I like the poems that I like, only that something in them speaks to me, and for the ones I don’t like, they’re lacking that something). So, because those poems caught readers’ eyes, I decided to write more. And the more I wrote, the more I enjoyed writing them, and the more I enjoyed writing them, the more vast and focused my ideas became. There’s something about concentrating on a certain image and taking it apart to examine it in detail that I find really therapeutic, and I’ve discovered that I can say so much in just a few short lines.

I can paint with words, and that’s a neat thing to do.