This week's challenge was set by the excellent poet-turned-bus-driver Rachel Fox.
The challenge was to come up with a pome using a favorite word. My word is quicksilver, and here's my pome.
Quicksilver
I cast my net
Into a sea of words
And hauled it aboard,
Bulging and writhing
Wriggling and dripping.
Quicksilver thoughts lie
Flapping and snapping
On the deck.
On the desk, though,
The page is empty still.
The quicksilver fades and dies.
I have no words to tell you
I’m leaving.
Aw Argent, - this is lovely, but sad, and so true!!
ReplyDeletegreat word choice
A bit Zen, I thought! The page is empty, but it's not - this poem is on it. I like the paradox.
ReplyDeleteexcellent pome - none from me this week as not entirely sure what my favourite word is - unless maybe "bagder"
ReplyDeletePixies...it doesn't have to be your very favourite word (that's pretty impossible to pick, isn't it?). Just a word you like.
ReplyDeleteAnd Argent...is that first quicksilver meant to be sliver? Either way I really like this. It's slippery...sparkly.
x
@Niamh - Thanks, it was all a bit of a rush this morning and I struggled to think of a word I liked among all of the many that I like.
ReplyDelete@Dominic - Gotta love those paradoxes. Actually, I didn't spot that but thanks for bringing it to my attention.
@DFTP - Let;s have a pome about a badger then!
@Rachel - That was a typo (fixed now). Slippery/sparkly - an excellent combination., thanks.
I like going from deck to desk.
ReplyDeleteIsn't quicksilver mercury?
Have you ever watched that disappearing? Evocative.
@EW - Yeah, I believe quicksilver is mercury. I just love the sound of the word. I played about with some mercury in Science as a kid, it is very strange stuff. Glad you like 'deck to desk', I quite like that bit myself.
ReplyDeleteLovely analogy.You do have to get the words down efore they fade.We were given quicksilver in the science lesson at school with no health warnings/ safety equipment/gloves etc at all.Played with it and kept it in me pocket for weeks.Doh!
ReplyDeleteYou've landed a lovely fish here Argo!
@TFE - Haha, all we were told in Science was not to touch it. We played a kind of football game with it on the desktop using rulers. Happy days, could also explain the madness! Thanks for the kind commentos!
ReplyDeleteThis is a lively piece of writing about the flashing nature of thoughts. They do that, don't they, lie there are wriggle. Quicksilver is beautiful stuff. I had it in my rock collection when I was a kid, and we never knew it was toxic.
ReplyDeleteSo true, Argent, so true. All the really good words happen when we're bereft of anything adequate to catch them in.
ReplyDeletewow!.. this is a beaut! I love the words being caught like a fish... and then the sad ending... just seriously lovely!
ReplyDeleteThis is great. Lovely image of the net of words bulging and writhing,
ReplyDeleteAnd of course the irony of the page being not actually blank any more..
@Enchanted Oak - Thanks you. It's amazing the things they let us play with as kids. We have proper lead soldiers and used to play on a waste tip ear home that asbestos and old batteries lying around on it!
ReplyDelete@NanU - You're right. I've taken to keeping a notebook with me and by the bed for those middle-of-the-night inspirations.
@Watercats - Cheers!
@Peter G - Irony rules! Thanks!
Images of fish shimmering in nets as I read. I also loved the reference to disappearing words. I do have a tendency to suffer from words flitting off. Really enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteBlimey, brilliant and brilliant touch at the end.
ReplyDeleteI'm leaving.
@Ann - Glad you enjoyed, it was fun to write too.
ReplyDelete@Friko - Don't go! don't- Oh, she's gone :-) Thanks for dropping by.
Sometimes I read a poem (pome) and wish I had written it. This is one of those. I love it from beginning image to surprising ending.
ReplyDeleteExcellent! I feel this way quite often - darn blank page!
ReplyDeleteI love this. I feel that way all the time. I have so much to say but really I am saying nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good one! Brilliant choice of word, the fishing imagery fits it so well, and I'm with the rest on loving the movement from deck to desk. Plus it conjures something we surely all know so well - those inspired phrases that skitter away to who knows where - and yet at the end, there is a poem. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteArgent, great stuff, loved it.
ReplyDelete@Karen - To say you wish you'd written it is the highest praise indeed! Thank you!
ReplyDelete@Bug - The blank page gets all of us from time to time.
@Bethany Rae - I find the blankness comes and goes. At the moment it's at bay but I went for nearly 10 years without wiriting a single thing once.
@Titus - Thank you. the deck/desk thing seemed such a natural progression - think I must have channelled it from somewhere :-)
@Domestic Oub - Thank you, glad you enjoyed.
Lovely - Beautifully phrased and compact - really like it. (My own pome this week is weirdly similar)
ReplyDelete@Pure Fiction - Thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnd yet your catch echoes still ... beautiful poem.
ReplyDelete@Matt - Hi, lovely to see a new face around here and many thanks for your kind comments.
ReplyDeleteAwesome poem, love! I need to get cracking on being more disciplined in blogging, lol.
ReplyDelete@Lacherie - Thanks for the kind words and for stopping by.
ReplyDelete