Poetry Train Monday - 145 - Make Me / Take This Tune - 1

For today's Poetry Train Monday, I'm taking a prompt from the Take This Tune meme, which posts on Friday's for a Monday meme. Take This Tune is hosted by Jamie from Durward Discussion and Fairweather from Fairweather's Red Mud Inn.









Here are the Take This Tune guidelines:

A video will be posted each Friday as a theme. Write anything you like based upon that video, the lyrics, or just a story that in some way ties in with the idea. You may use a written piece, photography, or poetry. Post your contribution on your blog the following Monday (the official day, but everybody cheats with any day of the following week) and link back here so that others can read what you have created. Have fun.

This week's prompt is Red Staggerwing by Mark Knopfler. Here are the lyrics I'm using for my prompt:

If I was a Fender guitar
A Fender painted red
You could play me, darlin'
Until your fingers bled

If I was one of them Gibsons
Like a '58 or '9
You could plug me in
And play me anytime

- Mark Knopfler


And now, my poem for both memes:














Make Me


No woman ever held me
The way I hold my guitar
No woman's curves fit into mine
The way my Dobro sighs

If only you could hold me
Coax the sighs from me like that
There's a song inside me yearning
For the right fingers
For the right pressure on my neck

Pick me up
Strum me
Coax me
Make me sigh
Make me sing

- Julia Smith, Mar. 28, 2010

Poetry Train Monday - 143 - American sentence 4

I've been working on two stories this weekend, my vampire story and my convict gardener story. Since one of the supporting characters has been on my mind a lot, here is an American sentence from his point of view.

Mr. Bent is a settler on Van Diemen's Land in the mid-1840's. When he hears that Robbie once worked as a gardener at an English country house, he takes Robbie off the road party to work as a convict laborer on his farm.

I always cast my characters, and Bent is based on English actor Ray Winstone.












Neck cloth soaks with sweat, but hides the scar from the iron one I once wore.



















For more poetry, Ride the Poetry Train!

Poetry Train Monday - 142 - Delighting in Our Tribe

Another meeting of my writers' group this afternoon. Something I look forward to with both arms outstretched.

Thanks for a lovely lunch, thanks for the wisdom of craft, thanks for the example set, thanks for every laugh.

For more poetry, Ride the Poetry Train!
















Delighting in Our Tribe


Delighting in our tribe
We draw our strength from words
A kinship undescribed

Laughter peals, we imbibe
Conversations spun, heard
Delighting in our tribe

Affection slung with jibes
Guffaws at the absurd
A kinship undescribed

Rx so sweet prescribed
Embrace our inner nerd
Delighting in our tribe

Inhale creative vibe
Our dreams, here undeterred
A kinship undescribed

No one to circumscribe
Our muses stroked, chauffeured
Delighting in our tribe
A kinship undescribed

- Julia Smith, Mar. 7, 2010