Writing Prompt
POEM STARTER
Write a psalm about a particular place.
Although broadly associated with Christianity, Psalms as a poetic form intend to offer lessons and suggestions for how to live life. What advice might a landmark, building, or landscape give?
Writings
A Christmas Psalm for the Snowy Village
Oh, snowy village nestled in the mountains,
Your rooftops glisten with the winter’s grace,
Teach us the patience of your quiet dawns,
And the joy found in each gentle snowflake’s embrace.
In your humble streets,
where the lights do twinkle,
Guide us to cherish the warmth of home’s glow,
Where love and laughter fill every nook,
And hearts are kind,
despite the cold.
Your evergreen trees, ...
Safe Within the LORD
TW: Christian theme. Such is the prompt.
——✝️——
The LORD is mine refuge,
mine place of security
His structure gleams
with a thousand shields
of bronze and Leviathan’s hide
He is mine fortress, mine respite,
mine tower of steadfast stone,
immovable and stoic against
the siege of mine enemies.
His walls mock the hands of man,
shatter the limbs of Hades,
tarnish the eyes of all fell angels.
...
Psalm Of Graves
LORD You have consumed this people.
By Your mighty right hand,
This people has been broken.
Return us, oh my God, to the ground on which we stand.
I beseech you, bring the end.
Israel has returned to the high places,
Each tribe praising foreign faces.
Inhale the Spirit you breathed into us.
LORD, please return us to the dust.
I lament over her.
I lament over us.
I lament all of this.
...
We Ride On
A workplace
A dining room
Storage facility
And private library
My shuttle, my shelter, my solace
Ride on
though your front left is capriciously low
Coffee splashed blazons your dash
Bumper love taps, mementos of lessons learned
Ride on
Parking garages be your nemeses
Crushed seltzers carpet your floor
Phone holders will fail at the less opportune time
Ride on
Noble chariot
Through thick ...
Lessons from the ocean
Do you see the infinite possibilities,
Reflected in a beach of glass.
An illusion of reality
Washing away, like a mask.
Do you hear my call for silence
Brought forth upon crashing waves,
Bringing you to stillness
In a mind that’s always crazed.
Do you pause upon the open sand
Waiting to be consumed.
All marks of history soon erased
Time slipping through your hands.
Do you hear the lessons t...
Just A Small Town Boy
Sit-still sun;
A luxury,
Given gradient grays that
So often grace these solemn skies;
Pacific peoples preferring
Precipitation for the
Green greens and
Emerald trees.
Population—Portland’s
Promiscuous gift—
Grants a permanent schism:
Social-science study of
Predominant socio-political
Preferences,
Geared toward utopia;
Feared for faulty
Propaganda.
All of this slips furtively
From my mind as...
God Is dead
God is dead
Take me down
Into the ground
I'll be waiting there
With a stone around my neck
Where my body lays
Stuck in the dark
The deeper I go
The more I believe
God is dead
My blood runs slow
My body's old
But I can feel the sky
On my skin again
And the time is right
For feeling good
It's such a lovely way to spend my time...
Library; A Lesson
any library worth the land it
stands on will prove one thing;
there are more words in it than can be
read in one lifetime;
more books to be consumed;
knowledge to always be sought after,
shared & reshaped.
if you think your story unworthy of being told,
trust
there is room still
for whatever you will write....
This Town
Around every corner, a ghost
In this town.
Familiar, creeping, knowing
Invading the unknowing mind with memory and being.
It grabs hold, forcing surrender.
Impossible to see a corner
And not see the apparition lurking in it.
There: that afternoon, the bright sun, the patio, laughter and then…
Here: a woman scuffles forward on the sidewalk, pulling her belongings in a broken-down cart; you know...
A City’s Truth
I see people always moving,
Never stopping
Never looking around but only
Straight ahead
Some are crying for help while some are
Silently suffering
Surrounded by the cold, hard walls of buildings
Towering over
Shadows slowly creep over hope from the
Dying day
I see people stumbling home in a
Drunken haze
Always moving and never looking, always hoping
To escape
These towering buildings that k...