Tweetspeak Poetry

Things Invisible: Poetry Prompt

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things invisible poetry promptIn one scene of  The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the title character befriends a fox. During their conversation, the little prince describes a lone rose on his planet, one he cares about very much. She is a flower that can be demanding and irritating at times—a flower with a dramatic, chronic cough. Soon, the little prince notices a field of roses identical to the solitary bloom on his planet and he becomes disheartened, lamenting how he believed his flower was the only one of its kind. The fox tells him that it’s his love for the rose that makes her unique. “Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world.” The little prince then comprehends the significance of his rose in comparison to all the others. Even though his rose is not a unique type of flower, she is one-of-a-kind to him because he has cared for her and loved her. The two characters part ways but not before the fox shares his wisdom:

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Try It: Things Invisible Poetry

The eyes can often miss what is important. So let’s explore what’s hidden. Consider the qualities that make your rose unique in all the world. Think about the kind of things no one else notices but you; things invisible and beautiful. Share your poem with us in the comment section below.

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Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Rick we enjoyed:

Some scars are not closures,
they want something
to be made of them, a door,
or a vine, like this scar
on my ankle, climbing
the remainder of my life, giving
direction to desire.

We all want this,
a beanstalk to the clouds,
the skin as a map—constant,
easy to fold—
the bend in the road
obscuring the glare
of what we were.

Today the locusts started
their saws singing
and this evening
one left its mask clinging
to the furrows of a cottonwood.

As children we wore their forsaken shells—
hideous face, fishhook legs—
a brittle pouch for hopelessness
and misunderstood longings.

For years my body has been the husk
of something moving inside,
balanced on a thread
high above my life,
while I strained to see
of what the thread was made.

I am the dancer’s motion,
not the step-by-step:

I am the sound of air
in an ear turning;

the press of space
against my skin, torments me;

I am the dream
without a dreamer—

an echo waiting.

—by Rick Maxson

Photo by Lady sing the blues. Creative Commons via Flickr.

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How to Write a Poem 283 high How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.

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Heather Eure
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Comments

  1. Maureen says

    Invisible Scars

    They’ve come back from war
    but the fighting is not over.

    They visit it in dreams, their
    mind’s eye replaying it all:

    how the speeding car pulls
    up, brakes burning, driver’s

    cell phone in hand, pressing
    the single digit that renders

    the morning’s market buys
    un-totaled, the black abayas

    a flutter of shredded threads.

    Later they will have tattooed
    prosthetics, tell their pretty

    blonde nurses where to look
    for lost and longed-for pieces.

    Reply

  2. Donna Falcone says

    I’m really glad to see your poem again, Rick.
    It’s really amazing. This line really stands out for me:
    For years my body has been the husk
    of something moving inside,

    You have so many great invisible images here….

    Reply

  3. Donna Falcone says

    Hello said the woman
    With silvered streaks
    Scattered among aging strands
    Framing her delicate face.

    Aren’t you the blue eyed child
    Who would not stop singing
    No matter where she was,
    No matter what they said or did?

    Wait wait.

    You remind me of that hungry teen
    Asleep with a six stringed friend
    Balanced on her belly, moving to the beat
    Of her own rise and fall rise and fall rise and fall.

    No, wait.

    Wasn’t that you who saw
    God like a dervish whirling
    A golden pool of crackling power,
    Touching all of life?

    You look so familiar.

    Will you sing?
    Amazing Grace floated up like mist,
    While tears flowed down
    like streams in the hills.

    I thought so, she said, and
    Kissing two fingers,
    pressed them to the nose holding steady there
    In the glass.

    Now I remember.

    Reply

  4. Rick Maxson says

    Nice one, Donna. I like these lines:

    “You remind me of that hungry teen
    Asleep with a six stringed friend
    Balanced on her belly, moving to the beat
    Of her own rise and fall rise and fall rise and fall.”

    Reply

  5. Rick Maxson says

    Prism

    I remember the mystery of the rainbow,
    its invisible waves caught in a web of words,
    ending always beyond me—over the ocean,
    nestled in the slow furrows of mountains, repeating
    itself against the snow like the echo of a whisper.
    At nine I thought it was merely a trick of light.

    My life is defined by what hides in light.
    Are we all not the prism, reality the rainbow?
    And those who come and go, leaving a whisper
    or a vision of who we are—paintings, music, words—
    ideas that pry at the world within us, repeating
    the colors, rhythms, and sounds like shores of an ocean,

    or rising like keelhauled treasure freed from depths of ocean,
    the flotsam that floats unknowingly toward the light
    of language lifting it, calling into darkness, repeating
    like a whip-poor-will against the night’s veiled rainbow,
    calling out from the wreck of dreams, waiting for the words
    we heard once through water—distant drum and whisper.

    I live now in mountains, the dry pines whisper
    near my window―clouds in moonlight—recall an ocean
    that showed me the mask of time, left me searching for words
    to describe the terrible force that shatters love to dust, light
    enough that it never falls again, but colors the edge of rainbows
    and sunsets like a delicate heartbeat forever repeating.

    And why do I write these lines, as if in their repeating
    someone will hear after a rain, at the end of day, a whisper,
    because to shout would wake me much too soon—oh rainbow,
    rainbow, forgive me, so long in learning you, I had oceans
    to cross and mountain roads that rattled me before I saw your light.
    Now I am only a prism for you, nothing more—a spectacle of words.

    I am empty except for love and at the risk of repeating,
    forgive us all for our complexity, let us drown in whispers
    of what is truly human, simply light, hidden but for rainbows.

    Reply

  6. Donna Falcone says

    I kept working on this one and put it on my blog along with an image: http://www.donnazfalcone.com/poetry/the-glimmering

    but here is the text of it:

    The Glimmering

    ​Hello said the woman
    With silvered streaks
    Scattered on aging strands
    Framing her delicate face.

    Aren’t you the blue eyed child
    Who would not stop singing
    No matter where she was,
    No matter what they said or did? Wait. WAIT.

    You remind me of that hungry teen
    Asleep with a six stringed friend
    Balanced on her belly, moving to the beat
    Of her own rise and fall rise and fall rise and fall. WAIT. Wait.

    Wasn’t that you who saw
    God like a dervish
    Whirling a golden pool of crackling power,
    Touching all of life? You look so familiar.

    Will you sing? she asked.
    Amazing Grace floated up like mist.
    Tears flowed down
    Like streams in the hills.

    The woman kissed two fingers,
    Pressed them to the nose, holding steady there
    In the glass, and whispered
    ​Now I remember.

    Reply

  7. Linda Kozel says

    Invisible Wind

    Wind moving through trees
    Lifts clouds of snow in a
    Whirling dance, then
    Blasts through the forest
    Knocking branches and bark
    Together, smashing and crashing
    Pieces of forest to the ground.

    First a playful spirit, then a
    Roaring lion, invisible to the
    Eye, yet I see snow scattered,
    I hear the roar as the wind
    Strikes the cords of the tall
    Trees, shaking them, breaking
    Them, pruning the weak and
    The dead from high and low,

    Much like the wind of change
    Moves through my life, pruning
    The dead, the lifeless and tossing
    Out what some invisible God deems
    No longer necessary and the roaring
    Ceases and becomes a breeze,
    Caressing the nakedness of a broken,
    Shattered and scattered soul.
    Linda Kozel
    03/15/2017

    Reply

  8. Linda Kozel says

    Invisible Breeze

    Softly, silently a gentle
    Breeze ruffles feathers and
    Stirs up leaves while sun
    Light warms dark, moist earth.

    Tender shoots of palest
    Green plow through the
    Fragments of dirt, rock and
    Humus, reaching upward toward

    The light that gives life, meanwhile
    The breeze brings the scent of
    Rain and large wet drops fall,
    Feeding roots that are seeking…

    I lift my face to the sun after
    Plunging hands into damp soil
    Feeling the womb of the earth as
    The breeze caresses and dances
    Against my skin, teasing, tempting
    Me back into life.

    Linda Kozel
    3/16/2017

    Reply

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