And Not a Drop to Drink...#letsmakeacollage and #tellastorytome Contests
When inspiration fails, I turn to the classics. In this case, my muse was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge evokes a watery hell that I thought fit perfectly with a prompt offered by @calluna in her #tellastorytome contest. She wanted a bit of fiction about a world covered in water. The Mariner with his "glittering eye" and "skinny hand" showed the way.
It followed naturally that when I saw @shaka's photo prompt this week in his #letsmakeacollage contest, water would be in the picture. I imagined @shaka's simple forest scene inundated by biblical flood.
The gulls in the collage sense that soon the raft will be their domain, and so they cluster.
Here's @shaka's original photo:
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I must add that I do not imagine myself a poet. However, a watery story would not come to mind, so I resorted to verse. My crutch, my confidence to go forward, came from Coleridge. You'll see that in the title of the poem:
And Not a Drop to Drink...
We floated free.
Sun blazed on high,
A ruthless orb
In cloudless sky
Yawning mouths of
Desiccate pails
Showed dismal fruit
Of windless sails
Count ninety days
Since last we came
Upon fresh streams,
Or sight of rain
In each our eyes
We spied the sign
Of death, tracking
Our slow decline
How fell the earth
From grassy land
To this brine sea
And lifeless sand?
We did not note
The saline lakes
Instead, indulged
Vain thirsts, unslaked
It happened fast,
The waters rise.
Horizons joined
Vast seas to skies
Oh, to have curbed
That appetite
Which, unbridled,
Brought this grim plight!
Now, hope is but
A memory.
Our fate, we know
Lies in the sea.
To make my collage I used the water from one pixabay image, and the raft from another (by Pedro Torres.) The gulls, and the human, were taken from Paint3D. Other effects were created using GIMP.
Both @shaka's and @calluna's (sponsored by @bananfish) contests are open. Shaka's for another day, and @calluna's for another five days. Join the fun! Make a collage. Write a story. Exercise your imagination and be part of a creative community.
A rather gloomy mood gripped me while reading the poem. Did you write it? Kudos!
I felt the thirst of life and was afraid to hand my fate over to the sea. It can wait a while longer. I want to taste so much, a life is too short.
Hi Erika, Thanks for stopping by!
Yes, I wrote it :)) Ordinarily, I would not publish verse, because I'm not a poet, but I couldn't come up with an appropriate story and wanted to support @calluna in her #letsmakeastory contest.
Gloomy, yes. If you read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, from which I took my cue, Coleridge is quite gloomy. I'm just a poor imitator--with an an environmental message. Great fun engaging in this exercise. That's the point, isn't it?
Hope your summer is going well.
Warm regards, AG
Dear @agmoore, these words got me filled with pessimism about a doomed future. But you know what? The salty waters may kill us, but they keep on spreading life to other creatures. After all life always prevails no matter in which form!
I like the gif composition! Really clever! Good luck with the contest!
Greetings and hugs from cloudy Greece.
😘💖🤗
I love your perspective. Even if we doom ourselves (and I hope not!), the multitude, the vast array of life will continue.
Thanks for liking my gif...I'm addicted to @shaka's #LMAC. This is the most wonderful exercise for someone who has little artistic talent. Art is good for the heart and spirit.
I hope you are having a peaceful, happy summer. I'm glad to see you here. A very, very bright spot in my day.
With affection,
Your friend from across the sea (and steamy New York)
AG
I love how the seagulls arrive, your collage looks beautiful @agmoore
Thank you! I really appreciate that :)
Maybe it's fitting since you claim not to be a poet, but I really like this as someone who has a limited appreciation for poetry. It does a great job of painting a picture of the ocean as a lifeless desert.
Every time I write, I hope to affect someone, somewhere. So, maybe I'm not a poet, but I am an effective writer, because you were moved. That makes me very happy. Thank you so much for the compliment.
You said that you do not imagine yourself as a poet...you are now! I loved it!!! I could feel the despair. You know that I am a big fan of your collages and I loved this one too. You are so talented @agmoore!
Thank you my friend! The idea is to have fun, isn't it? And to put pride aside and just go for it.
I counted the feet, really carefully :) I can to that
Thanks again!
The union of collage and poetry creates an assembly that I like. I think the poem has a nice rhythm, I tried to read it aloud with my bad English and it flowed very well.
I think you could try composing verses more often :)
You are really kind, and I glow from the compliment...especially from you :) However, I'm no poet. I know how to count feet (keep the meter consistent) and I can put rhyming words together. However, that's not poetry. Poetry is the gift of touching spirit and heart by artful use of language. Poetry soars. My simple verse is way too pedestrian to classify as poetry. But still, if it pleased you, I am happy.
Thank you.
You may have been feeling uninspired, but my, this is wonderful. I always love getting poetry entries, but I rarely get full stories told through poems, and this has just made me so very happy <3 There is such a great rhythm to this, the verses are short, but they carry so well, it works all the more for it. There is almost a lightness to this, despite the grim outlook, and almost a sense of fun. The snappy memorable verses seem like a playground game, and like so many, are really a warning to watch out for the signs of something more sinister. I can just picture kids clapping along merrily, not fully understanding the words but enjoying it thoroughly anyway. Thank you so very much, I am so very glad you brought this one to the table!
Thank you! The rhyme scheme is almost worthy of doggerel, but I'm no poet so this is how I had to roll ::
I appreciate your gracious description.
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