Writing Poetry

 

You might surmise that someone whose education was in computer science and business and who spent his work career in those same fields would not have much writing or creative ability. But you’d be wrong. I’ve had the opportunity this week to write two different poems and would like to share them.

 

The first was due to a posting that was shared by a high school English teacher of several discarded first lines of potential poems that had never been written. This inspired me and I chose a first line that I thought would work well. You can see the result below. This took me only 20 minutes or so.

 

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Like a Bowl

 

I am a bowl, chipped at the rim,

Still to be used, but without the fine trim.

Some look at me and turn up their nose

But I'm useful still, and better than those.

 

A lot of people are just like that,

They're worn down from use, but handy to have,

Battered and scraped, and looking quite poor.

So love that old bowl, and use it some more.

 

 

This next one was from an English assignment from one of my grandsons. He freely admits that writing is not one of his skills. But he had to write a sonnet. So he provided the topic, and I gave him possible rhyming words. He then put his ideas down and I did the necessary wordsmithing to put it all into iambic pentameter as required. The below joint effort took about a half-hour.

 

 

Ode to a Choo-choo

 

I see them on the road through nearby town

It’s riding on a track that’s made of steel

It has more cars when going up than down

I love the way it roars and how it feels

 

The wheels on all the cars are set in pairs

The sound they make is always clicky-clack

When going fast they move a lot of air

The engine’s on the front but not the back

 

The ones between might be a box or tank

There’s no caboose, they’re all now very dead

Most cars are written on, and never blank

The final car has lights, it’s called a FRED

 

To know these things I need to use my brain

The thing I love the most is called a train.

 

 

So what do you think? Have I lost touch with my creative side? I freely admit that I’m better at structured writing, i.e. poems with rhyme and meter, than with the blank verse that’s more common these days. But this kind of writing is still quite fun to me.