A daily poetry practice to generate and sustain the Life/Lines among us, for published and novice poets alike
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Prompt
Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.
edifice
blue
glassy
tender
flow
Send us your poem via our Submissions page or post on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #lifelines.
Today’s words were contributed by your Life/Lines project team: Jean Allman, the J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities and director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University; Ignacio Infante, associate professor of comparative literature and the center’s associate director; and Kathleen Fields, the center’s publications and communications editor.
Poems submitted for April 30
Ima
She stands there
Hard exterior
A massive edifice of divine feminity
Glassy transparency
Revealing the
Beautiful blue ocean
Of emotions
Swimming in her
Tender interior
Dare to enter
Her current, the pull so powerful
Surrender and submit to her flow.
— J. Thomas 4/30/21
***
Ecosystem Blues
Jo Schaper
The tender shoots grow
In the spring branch--
Cerulean reflection
Where glassy water flows.
Crawdad mud edifices,
Tiny towers on the banks
Guard the snail raceways,
Amidst swamp forests of
Shivering watercress.
***
Tender is the day.
The blue empyrean unfurls.
Edifices of longing ascend
To glassy, luminous heights.
Joy: the flow of being.
Robert Henke
***
Orbit
This round edifice, with its delicate mantle
of tender air and the flow of deep blue water,
is all we have. Forever.
It’s not a glassy marble.
It’s our only home.
Rebecca Carron Wood
***
The edifice to profit has begun
To levitate, outline wavering in the sun
Created to appease the Gods of Greed
Mother Earth has said no more
Fouling glassy blue water
With rainbow swirls of oil
Plundering forests, beheading hills
Digging for black gold to fill the tills
In that brand new space beneath
Tender shoots break through concrete
Fresh water burbles, flows out to the sea
Carol Haake
***
Tender offshore wind
The glassy blue flow becomes
Handsome edifice
K.J. Boehler
***
The house's worth I thought I knew
Its stucco tinged a glassy blue.
Made giddy by the edifice
I bid upon the premises.
Going with the flow
Of a market on a bender
I offered up all my legal tender
Only for the bid to bounce back:
Return to sender.
—John Randall
***
Brightness that is tender and warm
The windows of the edifice are blue and glassy
even the brightest light is cut to shadow trying to enter.
But if you stand outside where the concrete
and rebar flow to the earth, flowers
bask in brightness that is tender and warm.
Like this poem that celebrates the end
of April; also, all the words freed from the dark
during poetry month.
— M.E. Hope
***
Hers is not an edifice.
The sun does, however,
bathe it in blue,
rendering the portals
glassy and imposing.
Approaching, I note
her low and unbroken breathing
and assume her dreams tender and beatific.
Unlike mine, which cut like crushing waves
of a living, raging river.
Lisette Dennis
***
I always said:
The edifice of my mind is blue
blue in ways of the sad, the lonely, the bereft.
And yet, I can feel a tender hand on my shoulder
making my eyes appear glassy with tears
that flow for hours
when colliding with human kindness
Sara Burke
***
Did Boniface build an edifice
or did Ed make some good, a bon-bon,
all blue and spritual like the sky,
something you popped in your mouth and tenderly chewed
the juice out of and then dryly orated
until both you and he are glassy-eyed
as the language of faith flowed and nourished
all that was built in the world and the other realm
seemed so green and commonplace it bloomed like spring,
a common flowering so magnificent the discerning eye
couldn't believe and thus grew bored,
the necessary leaf replacing the flower.
— Dan Cuddy
***
In darkness,
an array of pods, antennae, armatures…
edifice of ingenuity, hope, tenacity…
his sole tentative tether to life.
Flowing past,
floating floating floating,
seeing suited reflection in glassy surface,
sensing surprising emotions…
awe eyeing blue orb far below,
tender thinking of her,
fear knowing he was far away
and so alone.
Tom Stringer
***
Hard white and glassy,
an edifice of certainty,
the lake yields nothing.
But oh, when spring comes,
blue water will flow and all
convictions topple,
leaving only
tender wonder.
***
The View from the 35th Floor
A great diamond spear, the glassy edifice
rises to penetrate the blue of the sky,
icy, sleek, pristine.
From the 35th floor the view is endless,
above the city,
but not of the city.
Below, a sea of roofs.
Roofs of houses, roofs of restaurants,
roofs of schools and shops,
of offices and banks and pawnshops and bars.
Streets separating the roofs of buildings,
flow with the crawl of roofs of
cars and cabs, buses and trucks.
No people can be seen.
On the 35th floor one lives in splendid isolation.
No sound from below intrudes, silence broken only by
the quiet whisper of air conditioning.
A sunny Spring morning is unbroken
by excited chatter of the neighbors’ children
as they walk to school, or the singing
of a pair of robins as they work to build their nest.
And from the window, one cannot see
the tender shoots of daffodils bursting eagerly
into the morning sun.
Warren Hauff
***
In the flow
Tender today
I find a grassy
I mean glassy
Blue
Oedipus I mean
Edifice
To lay my weary head
James Goodman
***
Nourishment
The mill, a richly red edifice erected in 1893
On the banks of Alley Springs, from which
81 million gallons of water flow daily,
Its power harnessed by turbines to grind the grain.
Afterwards, emptying into a glassy pool of blue-green water
Almost turquoise or cyan,
Rimmed by stands of old growth oaks and tender grass.
A kind of miracle, really, turning wheat into flour.
Give us this day our Daily Bread.
Pam Hughes
***
balmy breeze
melted snow flows
as the blue glassy tiger alights
on a tender branch
gone is the edifice of winter!
John J. Han
***
Pulltite
Glassy, blue-green edifice gives window to fragile eco-system below
Tender feet cramp as spring's flow joins Current
Kwin
***
Behind that noble edifice
I kept the secret of my discontent.
In those days the street was always busy
with a constant flow of bodies, the hawking
of the street vendors, the pigeons murmuring
like ancient ghosts. I liked to join in occasionally,
pressing my shoulders to those of strangers,
imagining these empty touches as something tender.
Above, the sky was blue, almost violet. I recited
street names like an incantation against evil,
and if my eyes were ever glassy, no one said a word.
Gwyneth Henke
***
Another glassy ediface is built in the town
Reflecting the blue sky and some birds.
It impedes the flow of the wind a little.
We tender our cash for its products.
Margaret Fourt Goka
***
I am; I am
I see as clearly as the glassy lake on a bluest-sky day.
I am as strong as the sturdiest edifice built to withstand the strongest winds.
I am as tender as the soft flow of the calmest river by the banks of the grassy shore.
I am; I am.
Laurie J
***
The flow of water freezes
as glassy ice forms
a castle for the cold soul
in the blue edifice
stone hearts forgo
tender warmth for power
— M.A
***
The American Dream, Democracy, Santa,
More recently the colonized founding of Flow.
Smoke and glassy mirrors, the edifice of
my country, my field, my home.
To the Red, White, and Blue, I tender my claim which
you will not honor, because
This is America.
— Cassie Power
***
Cultural Experience
The docent’s tender flow of words
about his ancestors and the magnificent
edifice of ruins in Tulum, overlooking the glassy,
turquoise blue sea brought me to tears,
especially when he addressed the tourists,
“My friend...”
Linda O’Connell
***
Only a little blue sky
reflected in the glassy edifices
lined by flowing traffic --
only a few clouds to
tenderly shade the sharp glare
of a gloomy Friday.
***
waterfall
its tender flow
spills
into a glassy
blue edifice
Terrie Jacks
***
ON NEEDING STRENGTH TO MOVE ON
Hoping tender words would flow
He crossed his emotional heart
An edifice of strength he’d show
In the wake of his friend’s
Urgent need to depart.
Through her sad glassy eyes
Normally of bright blue cheer
Impossible sorrow to disguise
The sudden senseless loss
Of a loved one so dear.
TED
***
seeing her blue dress,
that same blue dress,
reflected in the glassy edifice
started a flow of tears down her cheeks
as she recalled the tender touch of his hand
d. bates
***
he lifts the blow-pipe
to his mouth
his flow of breath
both strong and tender
swells the molten orb
its glassy surface
glistens blue
for poets too
the flow of breath
forms vessels
the smallest object
to the largest edifice
is blessed by fire
and poets' breath
J. Kiefer
***
Hey, I merely tender
the lines I'm given.
But to get there
the edifice of the ego
had to crack. And
I'm talking beyond blue.
So what if we're a little glassy
and prone to splintering,
so what if it's too late for us
to stop the flow.
— Matthew Freeman
***
the glassy edifice
could not resist
the tender flow of blue
by Lloyd Klinedinst
***
I should rather like to write something blue
upon a public edifice from time to time
to smear the glassy gloss of globalized flow
with something as antisocial as a gay
joke in Klein blue I shan't,
though, instead I tender here my resignation
effective immediately, to some
poetics of tidiness
well, effective after submission
***
Icon
Beyond the steel blue edges
of your glassy edifice,
time flows tenderly like water;
softening my memories of you
and illuminating the fathomless depths
of your inner beauty.
Susan Lively
***
We pulled the car to the side of the road
that cut the Blue Ridge and found,
waiting for us, as if on cue for what we needed,
a stream, tender and glassy in its flow,
an edifice, complex in nature and hue
some blue here, then silver, now gold
never the same twice whether stepped in or not.
Steve Givens
***
Headline image: Thomas Kinto via Unsplash