Write a poem about a place.
That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less. The trick, however, is to write your poem in a way that means something to you, that is interesting and eye-catching (or ear catching), and that other people can relate to. You could write your poem speaking from a different point of view (perhaps a tree or landmark in the location you're writing about) or a letter which personifies the place to which you're writing. This place can be anything: that one nice, quiet park bench, the restaurant you frequent, or even the city in which you live.
If you're stuck on ideas, feel free to check out this video of a poem inspired by this prompt; it's all about the Quad Cities along the Mississippi river on the Iowa/Illinois border:
Have fun and happy writing!
All the door knobs are too low
ReplyDeletein this crooked old house where we found our family sleeping
The lights, always off, find sanctity in the constant flickering of the candles
all the windows closed, but walls so thin that the poem you wrote for me catches the breeze
finds itself on the warped wood boards where someone had once made love, I'm sure of it
some nights I think this whole house smells like love, lust, or luck
like nimble fingers had taken brakes from painting and sat down with their lover to wrap palms around cups of lemonade
Homemade by someones mother dearest, someones lover, someones slumber buddy in the next room
and we pretend that will will inhabit this house for the rest of its days, but some day no one will remember that we use to stick our feet out the windows,
or smoke cigarettes on the fire escape because we thought it ironic
And it was, but only when you said it
you would say at night, before we said our prayers “I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens”
And we would laugh in silence and think of ways to outrun the world, and bring this ancient house with us
because this home looks like what I imagine the inside of my heart to look like, but maybe with a couple more paintings
and a little more tasteful wallpaper
And the doorknobs are too low for us to comfortably reach them
and this house is too old for the doors to open without creaking
sneaking to the bathroom, and back through the kitchen
taking with us the smell of home-cooked bacon
putting the texture of the old floors and tables in our pockets to take with us
so that when our hearts stop feeling like wanderers
this house could bottle our scattered ambitions
Cause we've always got these crooked floor boards, creaking windows, and too low door knobs to come home to
i felt inspired by your topic of places