During a witchcraft ritual
the human brain surreptitiously enters
the surreal states of elevated focus,
lofty emotion, and altered awareness,
as the spell acts as a powerful metaphor
for an internal intention or flustering fear.
People may feel like birds with frozen wings
under the misty sky, swept by the polar winds.
In the congealed hearts lapped by the Arctic sea
petrified emotions congeal, unexpressed.
Warm embrace of empathy they can’t proffer,
for they turn into cold unfeeling people.
People may feel as if their lives have changed
into desolate deserts where the oasis desiccates
in the blaze of their burning minds,
the fallen foliage of ardent passions glows,
doesn’t rustle with the fossil cadence of their hearts,
for they turn into wooden inert people.
Once the ritual concludes,
the cognitive system undergoes a sudden shift
with the intense concentration,
leading to a feeling of poignant emptiness,
excruciating exhaustion, or sudden susceptibility,
epitomizing the impulsive comedown
after a concerted emotional event.
An empty chair sits beneath an old oak tree,
sitting with the memories of pixies
dancing in the yard;
children playing tag or catch
under the watchful eye
of a gnome now turned to stone
and resting in the nearby grass.
In the tree above
lie years of visions and notions,
angels climbing among the branches,
higher and higher
until they leapt with joy
and flew away on a smile of the wind.
The lawn parties and picnics
through the years left glimpses
of brownies peeping,
though none could hear
the ancient, whispered wisdom
that came with open eyes and daydreams.
Today there is only an empty chair,
abandoned by the siren song of imagination,
the days when we were young
and anything was possible.
EYES CAN LIE
There is something in a glance
like a midway game of chance
As a thousand colored lights
Exploding high, the sky
Listen when the water talks
All those voices calling us
A half forgotten dream
Haunting you, a restless night
In a sudden, all is lost
Like so much, cosmic dust
When you turn away and walk
Eyes can lie and break your heart
Fell in love a few times ... For a few seconds.
And some you never forget.
decisive declaration
Einstein said it best
first class philosopher
generating intelligent observational directives
harvesting well thought out theories
“imagination trumps knowledge”
Strike a match light a fire eliminate the dark
Have a dance sing a song give your life some spark
Share a laugh have some fun life will be a lark
Join with friends join with family gather somewhere in a park
Walk the street, to the beat that's in your head
Grab a partner, swing her round to the music that's been fed
Have much fun have much joy, tonight it's later into bed
Off to sleep. dreaming romantic words that have been said
Now betrothed both determined to do it all in style
The day has now come walk together down the aisle
Honeymoon a riverboat let's go sailing down the Nile
Now you're planning for a family there'll be children in a while
Now it's time to reminisce how quickly years go by
Suddenly there are grand children for whom you sing a lullaby
Playing games all together whilst still feeling rather spry
Another life is nearing, we can't deny no matter how hard we try
Make the most of every instance make the most of every day
Deliver and receive all the love that comes your way
Let peace love and harmony surround the world without delay
A better future for ours and others families, let us hope and pray
My love of books changes the mood that I’m in.
And engages me in a life other than my own.
A life that I can relive in my mind
And feel love, loss, joy, and despair in my heart.
The power of storytelling can make me feel young or old,
A mystery writer like Edgar Allan Poe
Or a master in brilliant colors like Michelangelo.
A gymnast with artistic expression,
Or a leisure bicyclist riding along the road.
Or on a luxurious voyaging Caribbean ship,
Or a pirate ship raiding the seas.
Hiking in the beautiful wooded mountains,
Or freshwater fishing off the shore or in a small boat.
I can be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solving a mystery.
I can laugh with all my heart and soul,
Or I can grieve a death.
The power of fiction can empower me to be anything I want to be.
Tense, to create my own reality
Create my own world in my mind
The mind is so creative when given a vision,
A feeling; one can create and escape into it.
I Looked Up Toward the Sky
There's only Half a Moon, Why?
Where's the Rest of Her
Maybe it's Lunar
Some Meteorlogical Thing
A Meteorite?
Now What Shall We Do?
Looks Like Someone Broke the Moon
How Shall We Fix it?
Use a Giant Bandaid?
Taken by a Rocket Ship?
By the Astronauts?
Landing on the Moon
The Astronauts put it on
Fixing her Boo Boo
What About Landscape?
Maybe we'll Rebuild the Moon
Put Back what's Broke
Once Beautiful Place
Now the Moon has Half a Face
Nice at any Rate
I can Fix The Moon
I will get a Long Ladder
Go and Spackle Her
I'm no Genius Yet
I Know when she's Fooling and
It's a Lunar Thing
Maybe Over Time
Luna will go and Heal Up
Then she will be Full
I Waited a Month
It Rained Night of Full Moon
Nothing could I See
A Few Nights Later
When the Clouds had Cleared Away
Moon Came out to Play
She Looked Full that Night
She had Healed Up Alright
Now she Rules the Sky
Copyright ©? Jeff W. Watson, September 29, 2026
Baby tooth left under pillow
Next morning,nothing there.
Stolen,perhaps by a toothless Fairy.
The power of fiction, classified- untrue
Imaginative stories precisely on cue
Through ordinary people found in their mind
Aliens, monsters whatever they find
As they search for a person, a place, or things
Santa, utopia... a horse with some wings
They search deep in their heads expanding their brains
To find yellow submarines and Alice in chains
Tiny Tim, Thumbelina and Little Bo Peep...
the shepherdess girl who fell fast asleep
Superman, Spiderman, Batman and the Cat Woman too
Little Jack Horner and Little Boy Blue
The power of fiction makes falsehood look real
Like an octagon seesaw and a triangle wheel
Even a person with the lowest IQ
Can tell imaginative stories just like me and you
Rust flaked signposts,
from dew-stain,
era enigmatic,
omen, symbol,
scratched by,
yellow fog weather,
floating visual,
or pigment’s,
crumpled inmost span,
waned crossing,
I peer with,
hazed whimsy,
on my prime flush,
streetscape ambit,
what is destination,
but infinity of kismet,
elliptic nudge from afar,
“BLINDLY” lolling in,
circular pursuit,
then founding paradigm,
raise the “BLINDS,”
wisps of unearthly whisper,
almost orange-red robin,
yet impactful brain stroke,
luminous and lucid,
a close kin carols,
your inlying map,
is weatherproof,
absorb urban soundings,
with gut sense hunch
On a lustrous November night
Along each gliding way;
The thrill of my childhood beckoned
Into the woods that day--
Where in the hush so intricate
That pulsed lithesome yet clear,
I heard a dulcet voice singing
Only those pure may hear-
A jingle through fall's pewter leaves
A quiver through the boughs ...
Till a maiden fey drifted by
My, that was long ago
Did some young magic enthrall me?
I'll really never know !
1st place
Back to the future,
the matured drawing bord...
The indelible sword of the allure that seduces her.
Her edge, it does not end...
instead, it bends into the infinite,
the undefinitive depth of what was and what is,
attractive...
reflective...
primitive...
Her pulse, pressing immovably
against her immutable mind...
She is a goddess, I must confess,
a kind of powerful rhyme,
a dime a dozen a thousand times.
Oh why!
Why does my poetry live and die
at the inception of her word?
The amenable nerd,
the affection of my mental arection.
I am not ashamed, nor do I wish to subdue...
or tame...
the flame burning in my name.
In the name of liberty and luxury
and lust...I must!
For it would surely be, a bona fide crime,
to decline the art just waiting to climb
from your lips, my prolific truth drips and dribbles,
Tantalizing...
Realizing...
Fantasizing...
There is a particular kind of hunger
That learns to live without being fed.
And perhaps the cruelest mercy:
Even the compass bends towards the star it cannot touch,
And mine has never learned another north.
So I let the longing stay,
Knowing I was never meant to find my way out
From wandering beneath the same unreachable sky,
For I feared
That home, once found would wrench the way to you.
If it is conceived by the mind,
sanctioned by the heart,
it’s not fiction, a measure
of the real in every storied work.
Above me is a shelf-full having outlived
their authors, many their civilizations
along with their gods. There are not fictions!
Instead, transitory dimensions of being --
journeys limited only by one’s dragging
imagination --
I will consign a heaven where poets are
royalty; seated on thrones surrounded by
fawning fans. We autograph their copies as
they wipe our profuse brows, having laboriously
bleed one’s soul into the pages. Wherever
they are future carried and read, we are also there,
spirit cursing through Time’s Lyric Arteries….
The ancient Mariner!
That raging infernal!
Am I not the saga of my parent’s love,
each a manufacture of our God?
There is no fiction after the fact.
And woe to you, critics and editors,
savage murders of my fond text!
Barking Madly at the Shore
The early morning wakes to find
the sun struggling above the horizon,
offering what warmth it can,
to a shivering sweep of sky
that is blue with cold.
Below, the sea whispers secrets,
playfully licking at the shoreline
while litter starts to sprint the beach
and jigsaw pieces of cloud
slowly smudge-grey the sky.
Before long, the sea has gained
a mischievous glint in its watery eye
and is barking madly at the shore
as it sends waves to froth and foam
around a finger of lighthouse.
As the day ages, the sea rhythms on
while distant ships slip and slide by
and the occasional winged seagull,
like a torn piece of white paper,
is ripped from the scene.
Eventually as a distant hand
throws darkness all around,
the lighthouse can be seen
silvering the moonless sea;
a detective on its latest case.
Ian Souter
Imagination Categories
Definition | What is Imagination in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.
Related Poetry Forms
thought, artistry, imagery, ingenuity, intelligence, image, insight, idea, fancy, resourcefulness, originality, fantasy, wit, awareness, inventiveness, vision, inspiration, conception, perceptibility, cognition, creation, creativity, supposition, illusion, invention