vox poetica
prompts
Because we all need a creative push from time to time and amazing things happen when great pictures inspire great words! Art will be posted here for your inspiration, so look, write the poem you're spurred to write, and submit it here: prompts@voxpoetica.com (please include your name and the city where you write). Selected submissions will be posted here and the art will change from time to time (timing will depend on how much prompt writing you talented people can tolerate) so check in often to see what's been written and what the next picture looks like. Here's the first poem inspired by this photograph. Write your own and add another dimension.
Winter Burial
By Annmarie Lockhart
There had just been snow, and it lasted
longer than it should have, what with no wind
and just that enduring cold to keep the warming
sun and its angled rays at bay.
It seemed like all the living creatures of the world
had come out to breathe, sled, and skate inside
the crystals, reflecting, refracting the light, snow
dust like sand shifting under the feet.
But this is not a beach. The cold makes my skin
red and my tears freeze and my lungs scratch.
Those crystals are lost to me in the blue
that shadows the naked trees
and kisses the tips of my freezing-cold fingers
raised against the window, too deaf to wave
as the truck, red, laden with all that's left, drives
off down the mountain road toward town.
Red Maple
By KC Bosch
lucky tree, lucky me
an unplanned visit
and an unexpected snow
woodstove doing
what it does best
just feed it
and stoke it
early fall pile
is almost gone
take a quick ride
across the pond
load white covered
and dirty wet logs
for a couple day's warmth
ground wet and still
not frozen
slick as grease
covered with snow
slow motion
sliding and turning
hold on, hold on, OK
I had it all along
Crossing the Donner Pass
By Neil Ellman
A crossing in the middle of winter
was a mad idea for a family like ours
from New Jersey.
Looking back over the tracks
in the foot-high snow
and aspen that stood as sentries
guarding what was once a path
it never seemed that we would ever
cross the Donner Pass
even with chains on our 4x4
enough batteries and candy bars
to hold out for a week.
We wondered how those others felt
when they were marooned in 1847
with the taste of human flesh
in their mouths
but we could almost see the other side
and felt only the primal urge
for legs and thighs
just beyond the trees at KFC.
longer than it should have, what with no wind
and just that enduring cold to keep the warming
sun and its angled rays at bay.
It seemed like all the living creatures of the world
had come out to breathe, sled, and skate inside
the crystals, reflecting, refracting the light, snow
dust like sand shifting under the feet.
But this is not a beach. The cold makes my skin
red and my tears freeze and my lungs scratch.
Those crystals are lost to me in the blue
that shadows the naked trees
and kisses the tips of my freezing-cold fingers
raised against the window, too deaf to wave
as the truck, red, laden with all that's left, drives
off down the mountain road toward town.
Red Maple
By KC Bosch
lucky tree, lucky me
an unplanned visit
and an unexpected snow
woodstove doing
what it does best
just feed it
and stoke it
early fall pile
is almost gone
take a quick ride
across the pond
load white covered
and dirty wet logs
for a couple day's warmth
ground wet and still
not frozen
slick as grease
covered with snow
slow motion
sliding and turning
hold on, hold on, OK
I had it all along
Crossing the Donner Pass
By Neil Ellman
A crossing in the middle of winter
was a mad idea for a family like ours
from New Jersey.
Looking back over the tracks
in the foot-high snow
and aspen that stood as sentries
guarding what was once a path
it never seemed that we would ever
cross the Donner Pass
even with chains on our 4x4
enough batteries and candy bars
to hold out for a week.
We wondered how those others felt
when they were marooned in 1847
with the taste of human flesh
in their mouths
but we could almost see the other side
and felt only the primal urge
for legs and thighs
just beyond the trees at KFC.
Ol' Red
By Nicole Yurcaba
I.
worn-out U-joints; broken-latch driver-side door;
mountain mud,
caking the floor boards,
an aluminum dogbox, where we stowed Ike, ratchet-strapped on the eight-
foot bed ... the priceless Ford pick-up of my early twenties.
II.
How many arctic December days did I waste away bouncing brain-
jarringly along ice-slicked logging roads
in that ol' Red Ford,
after having run breathlessly on leather-booted feet after Ike and the
hounds and the ol' black bear bruin
through winter-deadened briars, endlessly tangled laurel thickets;
riding shotgun beside The Ol' Bear Hunter who apprenticed me--his
youthful protégé--in his bear hunter's ways: to unnecessarily cuss when
the dogs sniffed the bear back from where he came instead of to where
he was going, to drink the five-dollar-and-thirty-nine-cent a bottle cheap
liquor when winter's cold nipped our bones, to turn a straining ear again'
the wind searching for the crossing hounds' cries?
Winter Escape
By Laura Zucca-Scott
Skeletal trees were grazing the skies
Cold winter memories
Buried in fresh fallen snow
Our truck stopped just long enough to look back
A red stain on the pristine trail
A city girl like me
Lost deep in my thoughts
Amazed
I hugged him lightly
It is time to go
Before the winter wins
And we can't run anymore
Upper Big Branch
By Ray Sharp
Skidding down the holler from Upper Big Branch
to Montcoal after the first snow of the season,
a blessed relief when the dust is tamped down
and all is quiet save the chattering blue jays
and my heart beating in my ears the way it has
from panic ever since we lost them 29 souls
down in the hole. When we followed the hearse
up the hill to First Baptist last April and saw them
tulips poking up in the fresh dirt and heard the preacher
say our souls are like them bulbs born again into
God's holy light, I was numb like the sun could never
warm me again. But today, loading Jimmy's
old bureau into the truck to donate it to the orphans
after sorting through the old checkbooks and letters
and shouldering it into the bed and strapping it down,
I broke out in a cold sweat, and then, after catching
my breath, I lit another cigarette and drug it down
deep in my lungs and leaned back against the truck
and exhaled, and squinted up into the sun splintering
through the jack pines, and for the first time
in a long time, I felt like I was alive, out of the mine
and back on top in the sun, one of the lucky ones.
It was winter when we were children
By Cassie Premo Steele
It was winter when we were children
and snow was on the yard across
From the house where we stayed
when our mother was away.
Where we were was wet and muddy
with brown grass. We learned then
That everything will pass. The sun,
the snow, the winter, the absence
Of our mother. We had spring in us.
We went to play with the neighbors.
Three Winter Scenes
By Joan McNerney
1. Hushed cool mindless
snow innocently spread
smiles up.
2. Straining twisted arms
trees stretch to trap me
in their bare branches.
3. Winter enchanted
of iced lakes nude trees fierce winds
I am a witness.
Brain Freeze
By Mark Gooch
Restful night
Dreamlike state
Visualization of cascading hills
Marshmallow topping
Hugging the sky
Voices of sparrows
Rehearsing for spring
Scampering rabbit
Annoying a squirrel
Searching the ground
For a frozen meal.
Fragrance of wood
Apple and oak
Caressing the air
While the campfire's
Warmth overshadows the
Winter's hold.
Simpler place
Frozen in time
Memories
Not forgotten.
Destination Decease
By Jeanette Cheezum
His old red truck trudged through
the snow carrying him one
more time.
The whistle of wind barreled
around the mountain side.
Once the trumpets
played taps the chill of
winter went unnoticed.
Family members cried.
A young officer had died.
How many more?
The widow shook with sadness,
while military guards cocked their rifles.
How many deaths for the sake of
big money and power?
Reality began to set in. The ride
home was daunting.
He would never grace their table,
Warm her bed or share a child.
God bless the soldiers near
and far.
Tickets
By Clarissa McFairy
In the lush green days
before my hair turned to snow,
we couldn't see the top of the hill
or even what lay on the other side
Now we are on the slippery slope
and that scary tree
my mother said would grow
inside me,
if I kept swallowing grape pips,
is bare of all crazy possibilities
such as painting mermaid murals
in seafood restaurants
or singing in a nightclub;
for suddenly, without warning,
the hearse,
disguised as a truck
with firm tyres
that can get you over rough terrain,
hoots, and you drop your dreams
in an overnight bag
that you can't take with you;
all you can clutch is the hope
that the truck will transport you
to the main movie
and that THIS is just the trailer!
