Poem: "Fitzcarraldo"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls. It fills the "Sun Catchers" square in my 3-1-24 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the series A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows.


"Fitzcarraldo"
a random image that becomes lodged deep
in your brain -- maybe washed there by a dream,
or smuggled inside a book, or planted during
a casual conversation -- which then grows
into a wild and impractical vision that keeps
scrambling around in your head, itching for
a chance to leap headlong into reality


Ideas, dazzling
as suncatchers,
spark and whirl
in a writer's mind.

They are always there,
spinning in the hidden light,
throwing rainbows around
the inside of the skull.

The eyes are windows
filled with splinters of light,
scattered by dancing prisms.

Glimpses of other worlds
and distant times flit by
in little fragments of color.

Writing is just a matter
of tracing their shapes
onto the waiting page

in hopes of catching
a hint of their brilliance.

* * *

Notes:

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, p. 14. Simon & Schuster, 2021.