My brain is in brine.
My neurons are loose stones.
Some things are more dented than a mental image.
The greatest stuff is in soup cans.
Whatever makes you open such a thing.
Is not hunger.
It’s a centipede that reminds you to be hungry.
Blobs.
My neurons are loose.
The greatest stuff is in soup cans.
Prickly, squirmy.
The empty can on the floor.
The carcass.
"I write from the core-
A mythic- street voice imprinted
From lived truth.
Shawdows and light footpaths walks with
Me;
I turn experiences into pulsation
Mental image into momentum,
Silence into something that
Share ideas.
My lines carry fortitude and grace,
Syllabary rising from the everyday
Rhythm shaped by subsistence,
Imagery born from what the
World trained me.
I am a writer of volume,
A poet of emotional transparency,
Building architecture from pain,
Alchemy from the imperfect,
And fire from the spaces I refused to fold.
This is my terrain-
Where honesty stands towering,
Where spirit threads through the grout,
Where every poem is a step evolved
From everything I've lived and everything
I'm becoming."
Japanese haiku brevity rewards economy
Mental image expressed in a few words
Read. Pause. Then follows clarity.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
As we await His second coming
We know not who we look for
As we speak, He walks among us
But as yet closed is our heart’s door
From paintings, movies and dreams
We carry a mental image in mind
But is He a being so limited and bound
Who in narrow church pews we’ll find
Jesus visits the so called fallen atheist
And finds within his heart pure light
Made in God’s image, a child asleep
Who’s yet to awaken to spherical sight
So Jesus takes the hand of his brother
Wake up, He urges, life is but a dream
Love alone is real, light the flame of bliss
Rest where no fears and desires stream
Jesus becomes vast space, that holds all
It’s the first thing we see, right before us
Look not for forms and images, oh hermit
In childlike trust, get aboard Gods bliss bus
There is no judgment, sin is but ignorance
All of existence is entwined by God’s power
Know that we are living light, not this form
Surrender and let His benign grace empower
26-April-2023
My passion is writing poetry
that challenges my muse and energizes my mind,
allowing me to pen my thoughts and feelings freely.
I use words like a carpenter might use wood;
molding and refining each verse
until it fits just right.
As the essence of my existence
gets transcribed onto blank pages
my imagination dons wings: to fly above reality,
and flutter like a butterfly on the winds of time.
For me, there is no greater satisfaction
than having touched someone's soul through my words.
Between the lines: in every poem that I write,
I offer a glimpse of my heart and a peek into my soul.
My poetry is not just about meter, syllables, or rhymes,
they're merely the tools I use: to sculpt a mental image,
that I endeavor to share with my readers.
I strive to be both clear
and distinctive as I can be,
while transforming my feelings into poetry.
This mind looks for a picture,
thinking of mental image
as well as the deep structure
of figurative language.
Note: This form is called Tanaga, a traditional short Filipino poem which is only a quatrain, having 7 syllables in each line. The rhyming schemes may be aaaa, aabb, abab or abba.
There is no design wall to entrap the spirit
Inventiveness is born to last
free of prosody or syllable count
coordinated refrains hide bareness, a virtue
purity string belt for blooming worshippers
sleeping quietly in squatters' glades
who swoons poetry pads?
Fans will be amazed
that lauds syncopations of dazzling pleas
metaphors were constantly shaped and sealed
It's a sparse universe
for those who can't fly inside their walls.
Outside praxis, quill grows from seeds
creating a mental image not visible in a set
It's a voyage without doctrines.
the vibrations within rejuvenate the page
separate thoughts seek an upswing.
1st Place contest winner
Written: March 16, 2022
A BRIAN STRAND 1090 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Senryu poem form
Sketches mental image
Selects human weak points
Someone's lone character
Short amount of words in
Sets of 5 7 5 per line, amount
Seventeen syllables
1/27/2022
Write About A Form Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Joseph May
Poetry soup syllable count
Senryu, a short verse
Structured with a set of
Seventeen sound speeches.
Sibling of haiku, deals
Story of satire which
Stamps mental image and
Sketches human nature
Syllable Count: PS
Write About a Form Poetry Contest
Pleiades poetry form only.
Sponsored by: Joseph May
Date: 23-01-2022.
PLACED: 1st
We stowed behind an enormous flint wall.
Men are battling for control of the appall.
Our covering bastion shuddered and shook.
Brief, yet oddly comfy, relief from the brook.
While grizzly bears wailed in the dimness.
We were inside, getting ready for food distress.
Blue blazes are licking the preparing tray.
Pops reacted with an alleviating sigh.
To warm us up, he prepared a delectable lunch.
In a tin camp cup, bangers we crunch.
We ate with the drapery to some degree closed.
A close by a nearby strike for harm caused.
They were in their gear when it struck.
Tempest thundered as rain pelted the track.
We spread out on our bed and took a nap.
The two fellows were excited by the trap.
That weekend, I was at the lake's edge.
But different lines summon a mental image.
During the tempest, they arose and froze.
Odyssey was being given to me by Hues.
eddy's leftovers from - life's sediment-alley-time currents
-----------------------------------------------------------------
musing a roadside can
send a mental image of...
a sediment-alley time-traveler
stilled yet echoing past times...
in memorium of some time-current beats miss't
that changed an eddy to a send-a-mental tune...
stan sand
"Poetic tools are a means to aid poetry, not an end in themselves'
*******************************************************************
I don't understand why poet use poetic tools so often making a poem so tough to understand
Hiding behind the garb of metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, alliterations and other poetic tools the real thoughts of poet, the message he wants to convey never reaches the mind of readers
Ask any school going child reading english literature he will say "I don't understand this poem what is poet trying to say! Why can't they make it simple? Why use figures of speech?"
Why not call a spade a spade! Be simple straight and clear! Let your message reach others!
Write such that each reader interprets the poem in same manner.
Same meaning, same mental image gets created in reader's mind and poets and readers mind become one such should be poetry!
I have read poems which no one one has understood, each reader giving his own interpretation.
I don't understand what is the fun in that?
Especially when you want to convey a message, use straight clear language as against poetry tools.
Words surround me
Blossoming from the page into my mind
A vivid mental image of the scenes contained so perfectly in paper.
Ink on paper
Nothing so transcending has been invented since
Wide worlds await your presence, begging you to consume their contents wholeheartedly.
Follow this wholeheartedly
Crack open the pages of solidified knowledge
A call to you from the void of human understanding, desolate destruction
Gift or destruction
Our days and lives are numbered, short
Will you hurt, harm, maim, or will your words reflect Truth, Light?
The pictures on the wall are kind of crooked.
The mem’ries in my head, starting to fade.
That guy there in the frame was better looking.
The mirror shows what passing time has made.
Each moment going by is lost forever.
Each day that passes brings with it more gray.
Every “someday” morphs into a “never.”
Every youthful dream given away.
Those pictures, well, they’re all kind of misleading:
A moment frozen, nothing more or less.
The hairline, like the mem’ry is receding.
Makes my mental image quite a mess.
But every moment we have should be treasured.
And each day is much more precious than gold.
The true worth of a life cannot be measured
And a spirit young-at-heart will not grow old.
Those pictures on the wall will not get clearer.
Just one more in the trove of memories.
So I’ll just quit my gazing in the mirror
And try to ponder greater mysteries.
For though I’m growing thicker in the middle
And thinner on the top as days pass by,
I’ll one day find the answer to the riddle
That plagues us as we slowly age: why?
6/3/19
A contest on aging Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Emile Pinet
Far in the distance in the light of day
I viewed crows, swiftly passing by
No doubt they had sounds from propelling wings
I imagined those sounds so far up in the sky.
Captured by that sight, but too far to hear
What would life be with just a vision?
To associate sounds and sights, to formulate an impression
Without justification, it alleviates that decision.
If one can assimilate sounds from such activity
Does a mental image appear and develop sounds within?
Do those sounds substantiate what is seen?
Is there a relation between and do they blend?
Clouds saunter by without sounds
Although you can easily perceive
Do sight and sounds always need a suitable match?
An image can be separate, do you believe
Sub Categories
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.