I remember shooting marbles during recess time.
There were puries, tiny worlds of milky blindedness.
Big heavy steelies, bearings from salvaged, derelict machines,
Hematite cores of some new known planets.
And cats' eyes with color-filled center swirls.
I horded them in a sweat darkened leather pouch.
A drawstring puckered shut this purse's mouth.
Sanctioned by an adult playground guard:
Risking all for a marble that you want,
You might lose the marble you liked best.
Until marbles everything was
A sideshow midway carnival arcade
With plastic ducks you paid to overturn
And received a prize of a number underneath.
Everybody won.
Years count fewer and fewer ducks
And more and more the marbles grow. (8/3/22)
About Marbles Are Many Theories
About marbles there are many theories,
So we then decided to develop a series,
Name of mess,
A wild guess;
Called them agates, steelies and clearies.
Jim Horn
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.