Skip to main content

Secrets and Unsettled Sleep Poem

 This poetry presentation is all about keeping secrets with siblings, or  rather the inherent folly of such agreements. 

My poem is loosely based on childhood experiences.  It is also about form and structure. 

 I have consciously off set the couplets to symbolize the unsettling sleep experiences that frequently arise around such matters.  








Unsettled Sleep

As I stumbled through the forest dark

A green witch grabbed my hand

 

I raced upon an open plain


Through soft and shifting sand

 

I stood upon a craggy bluff


While the wind began to scream

 

Then I awoke in tangled sheets


From this disturbing dream

 

I think I know the reason

I got wrapped up in this twister

 

I’m concerned about a secret shared

With my loose-lipped little sister.


Alan j Wright.



Poetry Friday has rolled around again and our host this time is Jane Whittingham. Jane delivers an ode to the chaos that frequently surrounds family scheduling.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous1 August 2025 at 23:28

    Alan: I can relate, if you'll excuse the pun. In my case it's an older sister. In either case, I enjoyed your poem. The offset couplets offered excellent dimension.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alan j Wright2 August 2025 at 10:45

      Thank you for your kind remarks. Experience runs deep in family relationships.

      Delete
  2. Tabatha2 August 2025 at 09:18

    Nice twist! I don't have siblings, but anyone who has told a secret ill-advisedly can relate!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alan j Wright2 August 2025 at 10:46

      Thank you, Tabatha. Glad you found a connection.

      Delete
  3. Michelle Kogan2 August 2025 at 15:07

    Captivating visuals Alan, and I love the screaming wind too, thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alan j Wright2 August 2025 at 15:09

      Thanks, Michelle. It was fun to write this poem.

      Delete
  4. Linda Mitchell2 August 2025 at 21:13

    Ha! Oh, those little sisters--they can be such loose cannons. What a great suspense building poem. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Patricia Franz3 August 2025 at 00:24

    You intertwined both form and subject well with the offsetting—and the end-humor, Alan.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York.  I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co...
24 comments
Read more

Opposite Poems

O pp o s ite P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,'  Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will  notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. N...
26 comments
Read more

Powerful Poetry, 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston

  This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully  @ Salt City Verse where Janice shares some original words and offers us a taste of Thomas Carlyle to ponder. I encourage you to join a host of poets from all around the globe and visit Janice's page... Almost two years to the day, I wrote a post featuring the poem 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston. The poem was included in Brian's first book of poetry, 'You Took The Last Bus Home.' A very powerful Reverso poem and technically brilliant.  A Reverso poem can be read from top to bottom or bottom to top. It will often express opposite opinions depending on which way you read it. Such poems really make us think. A Reverso poem is like a picture turned upside down, a frowning face upended to reveal a smiling one. The poem read in reverse, contradicts itself with an opposing message. In 'Refugee' Brian Bilston focuses on a societal issue that tends to polarize feelings and the opposing views are clearly in eviden...
14 comments
Read more