A brilliant prompt for NaPoWriMo today:
Today’s prompt asks you to write a poem of the five senses. Pick an experience that is very sensory, and of which you have a strong sense memory — like hearing a train whistle, jumping into a rain puddle, catching that first whiff of lilac on a spring day, eating ice cream at the beach. One of those might work for you, or you might have one from your own past (eating jelly sandwiches in the woods springs to my particular mind). Then try to bring all five senses into it. What do you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear? Try to be as specific as possible, capturing that moment across all five senses.Package all that up, and you’ll have your poem. Good luck!
I have tried to capture a childhood memory, not very eloquently, but nevertheless… Here it is, as sensory as it got:
Cocoa
The acrid smell of freshly-polished
Floorboards and your clear laughter,
Bouncing from wall to wall, from the kitchen,
Into the bedroom, dispelling noon-time
Nightmares. The cheap paper of a retold
Novel in my sweaty hands, bleeding
Black ink through its pores, rough
But also gentle – as though stories were
Seeping into my skin, a transfusion of
Safely-contained adventures. The mug
Of lukewarm cocoa on the shelf,
Untouched, but even from a distance
I can feel your words bubbling inside it:
‘Drink it now, don’t let it turn cold.’
And I, allowing myself to forget…
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 