short poems

Poetry: Nightlights

| marandarussell

51oaiN2Sq6L

I got a new blackout poetry journal that uses classic literature to inspire new works of poetry. This first one is my attempt at making original poetry from a random page of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan:

Nightlights

My love,
were not all natural
dreams forgotten?

The skeleton
crawled about the floor,
rattled up the chimney,
and bathed her hand in sleep.

Nightlights pulsed
while strange children
found new mothers
in the faces of the night.

Once all were safe
her fears sat down
by the quickening fire,
warming the nursery.

3 New Elfchen Poems – Rock On, Ephemeral, Projection

| marandarussell

out-on-a-limb-1454681_960_720

Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment and haven’t been feeling too good anyhow, so thought I would post tonight. Here are a few more elfchen poems for your reading pleasure (with a few slight poetry form rule breaks lol):

1.
Woosh!
Down the
electric slide feet
first and head banging.
Rock on!

2.
Captivating,
moonlight glinting
off a rocky
ocean shoreline, lonesome
yet ephemeral

3.
Projection
please stop
blaming others for
your own bad ideas –
evolve

Poetry – When I Was Hit By a Truck

| marandarussell

mobile-van-312257_960_720

Not many 10-year-olds
could be hit
by a speeding
delivery truck
while crossing the street
and live
to tell the tale…
but I always was
a weird statistic.

The truck ran
me over
with the ease
of a speed bump.
I even had the
tire tracks
and imbedded gravel
across my stomach
to prove it.

When I woke up
in the ER
I screamed out the names
of all the people
I was going to sue…
until my mother
bought my silence by
bribing me
with the promise
of a brand new
Barbie doll.

(Poetry by Maranda Russell, marandarussell.com)

Micropoetry: 3 Elfchen Poems

| marandarussell

child-2443969_960_720

Recently I discovered Elfchen poems, which are 5-line poems that follow this pattern:
Line 1 – 1 word
Line 2 – 2 words
Line 3 – 3 words
Line 4 – 4 words
Line 5 – 1 word (different than the first line word)

It is also common to take the last word of someone else’s Elfchen poem to start off your own new one.

Here are several of my first tries with this poetic genre:

1.
Always
means never
when you live
in an unstable world,
alone.

2.
Stronger
and yet
weakness creeps in
settles on the edge,
waiting.

3.
Unsaid
the words
lie firmly under
your tongue in cheek,
bitter.

Poetry – Malice

| marandarussell

9780545160438

This little poem was inspired by a middle grade book series called “Malice” by Chris Wooding. I liked the world that was created, and decided to capture just a bit of it in poetry (my favorite line is the “mushroom lamps” one):

Malice
By: Maranda Russell

Take the evening train
into the cavernous abyss.
Light up the darkness
with your mushroom lamps
and a fist full
of round trip tickets.