Monday May 24th, 2010

The exercise:

Your prompt today: distant city lights.

We're back and I shall get to the comments that arrived while I was away shortly.

Tomorrow I head back to work for the first time in four weeks. Hurray?

Mine:

The street lights are so far away
They twinkle like electric stars;
The soft calls of nocturnal birds
Drown out the shrieks of angry cars.

A shy moon hides behind black clouds,
The air has been sprayed by lilies;
The grass beneath my naked feet
Has been flattened by our fillies.

In the morning the sun will rise
And the city will reclaim me;
But tonight I am nature's son,
And that is all I wish to be.

5 comments:

Greg said...

Work tomorrow (probably today by the time you read this) won't be that bad -- you'll spend the first part of the day catching up with everyone you know there, so the day'll seem to go quite quickly. First day back after a trip is always a trial for me, because I get so little done just answering email and catching up with everyone.

Great take on the prompt today, both the first and third verses resonate with me. I love the bird-call drowning out the cars and the transience of being part of nature. The second verse is good too, but the last line feels a little... forced, I suppose. The fillies aren't mentioned anywhere else, and it's such a specific word for horses that it feels like it should have more significance.
That all said, I was rereading my effort from yesterday and I realised that the third verse just wanders around all over the place and is absolutely dreadful. If I can bring myself to look at it again, I may have to see if I can bring it up to the standard of the rest of the poem!

Distant city lights

Oh Romeo, driver of my getaway car,
Escort from the city lights,
The man who's brought me now this far,
To the distant Canyon Heights,
Can you love me, here outside?
Away from the cities' busy roar.
With all I've stolen we have to hide,
For a little while, until there's more
Freedom to enjoy our wealth.
But here in darkness where birds still sing,
The air is pure and good for health,
We'll forage, and gathering
In food will draw us close together.
As renegades we'll live so lightly,
Eschewing plastic, metal, leather,
Our lives will be gay and spritely.
Romeo? Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
Why do you leave me, here alone?
What do you mean, you're going homeo?
Is your heart made all of stone?

Ewan Walker said...

I love your use of imagery here. It really makes the poem fantastic.

Ewan
*****
www.walker287.wordpress.com

morganna said...

Marc, I love your poem (although I think I agree with Greg about the last line).

Here's mine:
The glow spreads over the horizon
Blocking the stars
Stealing the dark
An accident? A disaster?
No, just another city.

And a link you might enjoy :)
http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/dragon-land-i/

Marc said...

Greg - yeah, it was nice seeing everyone again and the morning went by quite quickly. The afternoon dragged until I finally decided to call it a day though.

As for the 'fillies' line - I didn't like it much myself, but I was quite set on keeping lilies and that didn't leave me much wiggle room.

Your poem made me happy, particularly the 'homeo' line :)

Ewan - thanks very much, that's greatly appreciated :)

Morganna - that's excellent, I really liked the 'stealing the dark' line.

And is that more dragons I see?

*excited*

morganna said...

Yes, it's more dragons. :)