Free Verse – Soldier, Lake, Glass – SD

Post-Traumatic

Alone she sits in a white padded room,
Trapped in a box it only feels like a tomb,
While the white-coated man coaxes out her tune,
Sippin’ from a mug runneth over with gloom. Continue reading “Free Verse – Soldier, Lake, Glass – SD”

November Theme: Galumphing Returns!

So kind of a dead month for the October poetry theme, huh? After rolling through various themes with a few submissions each, October featured a grand total of two submissions for the charity theme. Maybe I’ll just have to start spamming all of your message boards with poetry requests!

Or maybe the theme just wasn’t all that interesting, which is understandable, considering the last time we featured a non-sins/virtues theme was way back in June. (I agree, the charity theme was a bit lackluster, but do yourself a favor and go back and read through some of those previous sins/virtues poems from our writers. There were a lot of fascinating submissions.) Continue reading “November Theme: Galumphing Returns!”

Submission for October’s Theme – Poem on Charity

CharityRubai

Maybe it was not wanting to let go of the seven sins and virtues theme we did all summer, but the poem on charity took a while to mature and be ready for posting. I did deviate from the assignment a tad – this poem is in the form of a ruba’i – a form derived from the Persian quatrain with the rhyme scheme aaba. In honor of All Hallows’ Eve, I call the accompanying illustration “Deconstructed Pumpkin.” Cheers!

 

Charity – Free Verse – SD

The Pan-Handler

Pacing at an intersection along US-Forty,
Dirty hat in his hands, asking for some charity.
The cars whiz by, ignoring the disparity,
Of being homeless yet surrounded by prosperity. Continue reading “Charity – Free Verse – SD”

Theme for October – the Virtue of Giving

Okay, so I realize that I promised to get this up yesterday, and that totally did not happen. But at least we have a whole month to write these poems! Oh right, unless you read my post on Tuesday, you probably don’t know that Schizophrenic Summers is changing to a month-long submission period.

Our last round of poems featured chastity as the theme, and produced one poem about holding women to certain standards (ideals?) and one about holding love to no standards at all.

Theme: Charity

Structure: Free verse Continue reading “Theme for October – the Virtue of Giving”

New Plans for Schizophrenic Summers

For those of you who have been keeping tabs on Red Strings in recent weeks, you may have noticed that the well has been… drier than usual. This can be attributed to numerous reasons: vacations, weddings, new jobs, crashing computers, more weddings; our writers have had a busy August and September. Continue reading “New Plans for Schizophrenic Summers”

Theme for September 23rd – Chastity – and you thought it was simple!

The virtue of temperance has historically encompassed a wide range of activities – after all, it “simply” means moderation via personal restraint or will. Although associated in modern parlance with food and drink, in particular alcohol, last week’s poems decided to look at temperance as it applies to less calorie-laden subjects: in speech and in modifying self-doubt
 
Chastity is another virtue that has been reduced to a sound bite in the modern day, but was historically much more complex. Chastity today seems to revolve around sexual activity, and if the news is any indication, contemporary conversations about chastity focus on teenagers and pre-marital sex.
 

Continue reading “Theme for September 23rd – Chastity – and you thought it was simple!”