Hard Questions

𐩣𐩧𐩨/𐩣𐩧𐩺𐩨

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree . . .
Coleridge: Kubla Khan

Sheba’s ghost, lamenting, wails for Yemen:

Her incense trees are lacerated, scarred.

Sapped for their fragrance, drained of life and marred

Their smoking blood offered up to heaven.

No sinuous rills flow forth to bless the dead;

Beneath her ruined dam no gardens grow;

And Bedouins only sing of what they know

In wastelands of the nomad past. It’s said

That all those spices, all that golden smoke

and irrigated dreams beneath the sand

were just a subtle Solomonic joke.

The yearly weight of gold, the camel-trains,

Are cryptic numbers—chanted in refrains

That only Marib’s phantoms understand.

 

PROMPT #4: write a poem based on an image from a dream.

Blind Date

 

Frumptart meets Trumptard:  it’s bliss forever!

Rainbow twins make pink Indian Summer

Poke your hontas, indigenous lover,

Till Twitter-dumb gets Twittering-dumber.

Having had my fill of a noxious brew

(Militant Marxist Genderqueer free verse),

My soul now seeks a less venomous view:

Write more poetry!  Dispel this global curse.

Today’s prompt asked me to do what I always do when I attempt a poem:
PROMPT #3: Today’s optional prompt asks you to make a list of ten words. You can generate this list however you’d like – pull a book off the shelf and find ten words you like, name ten things you can see from where you’re sitting, etc. Now, for each word, use Rhymezone to identify two to four similar-sounding or rhyming words.

 

A rousing hymn to techno-spring.
Please kneel for social distancing.
(Consider what you’re worshiping.)

New strains infect the melody:
A chord of biochemistry
Invading imperceptibly . . .

No longer dim or vague, but viral
Airborne fears begin to spiral.
Breath: a pulmonary trial.

Parties perish. Nations sigh.
Decrees are ordered from on high
Intending to demystify.

Our faces pushed to lifeless screens
Seeking solace from machines,
Placing faith in new vaccines . . .

Breaking news appears satanic:
Lemmings, in Pavlovian panic
Render rulers megalomanic.

City-dwellers bought the farm;
Chinese numbers quell alarm,
Mother Nature to disarm.

Bureaucrats drone on. World health:
A strategy of Marxist stealth
To siphon off our nation’s wealth.

Consolidating more control,
A cashless one-world rule their goal.
Read your Bible. Guard your soul.

Nicean Barks

 
 

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 . . .