Poetry Friday: “Steam Train”

There was a time when I used to wait for inspiration to strike.  Then I decided I needed to challenge myself to become a professional writer of poetry and create my own inspiration. (Or, at the very least, seize upon any and every opportunity to be inspired)

Case in point: Last week, writer and blogger Michelle H. Barnes featured writer/poet/editor/blogger/chocolatier Renee LaTulippe sharing one of her lyrical language lab’s lessons: sentence transformation via mood, effect, and emotion. In this series of posts, Renee encourages prose writers (and poets, as well) to improve their writing using poetic devices and techniques.

In her post, Renee used a sentence about a steam train as an example, and showed how to progressively develop the sentence into something more than “just” a sentence. As I read her suggestions and sentences – and thought about each of the photos she shared – the following four lines came to me. It’s another short poem like the one I shared last Friday, but between electrical wiring issues, a blown boiler, and a father who is in the hospital, life is still pretty nuts around here; fortunately for me, four lines was all the poem requested. Hope you like it…and be sure to visit Becky Shillington’s blog for today’s Poetry Friday Roundup!

Steam Train

Firebox flares,
steam shoots high;
smoky billows
shake the sky.

– © 2014, Matt Forrest Esenwine

===================================================================

Did you like this post? Find something interesting elsewhere in this blog? I really won’t mind at all if you feel compelled to share it with your friends and followers!

To keep abreast of all my posts, please consider subscribing via the links up there on the right!  (I usually only post twice a week – on Tues. and Fri. – so you won’t be inundated with emails every day)  Also feel free to visit my voiceover website HERE, and you can also follow me via Twitter , Facebook, Pinterest, and SoundCloud!