44 words – Susan Joy Clark

Creative Life, Poetry

What Do I See?

Hermann Rorschach, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I think I only see a smudge

Or aliens guzzling down fudge,

Seahorses kissing sea urchins

or seaweed undersea lurking,

Eiffel Tower by Picasso,

An odd man with green mustachios,

Strange one-clawed acrobatic crabs

With ostentatious derby hats,

What malady’s inflicting me?

Imagination’s all I see.

This is for dVerse’s Monday quadrille challenge. By their definition, a quadrille is a poem with exactly 44 words. Our poems had to include the word “smudge.”

Creative Life, Poetry

A Writer’s Life

Curious questions plague my mind,

just when I’m ready to unwind,

These thoughts refuse to let me be,

E’en when the clock says it is three,

Compelling me right out of bed,

To straight to the computer head.

So works curiosity,

Mother of creativity.

This was written for dVerse’s Monday quadrille challenge, using just 44 words, and including some form of the word “curious.”

Creative Life, Poetry

Don’t Look!

You don’t want to hear my sad tale,

It was not too pretty a sight,

Cover your eyes and close your ears,

And don’t let me give you a fright,

But I wound Dad’s wound in towels,

After a big dog took a bite.

This poem was written in response to dVerse’s Monday quadrille challenge. I’m not sure how I feel about this poem. It has a strange, almost silly feel for such a serious incident. Then again, a graphic retelling would be far worse, I think. I guess it fulfills all the requirements which is 44 words, no more or less, and the homographs “wound” and “wound.”

When I thought about “wound” and “wound,” this is where my brain took me. I did not know I would make the incident a subject of poetry. 😛 Dad and I were bitten by a dog in mid-August. My injury was more minor. Dad required two surgeries for his wound, but he is doing just fine now. We are thankful to God there was no major damage to joints or structures of the hand.