A Hydrogen Oxygen Bullseye [Poem] // How To Write Potent Poems

A water ball anticipates

a constellation spoke

gravity, the hypocrite,

sinks some as others float.

Waiting for grandma

like heat searching for sky

as universe generations

sketch a wet bullseye.

One powerful word pair/metaphor that motivates me to write better poetry is Joni Mitchell's "feather canyons" phrase used in Both Sides Now.

All of a sudden, something I normally wouldn't think twice about floods my mind and consumes me as I think about how small I would need to be to consider the details in a feather as vast as a canyon.

I use the following process in my my poetry.

I make two word lists sourced from everything I can see in my room, environment, or anything I can think of. Once I have this list, I put together one word from each list and see what happens. That word war that happens will usually (and unpredictably) shoot me into a highway paced inspiration voyage that gives me the energy to write a new poem.

I either write down my metaphors or visualize them and let the word pairs do their work.

While I typed this out in my Notes app, my son was drawing dragons as we both waited for his grandma to come and visit. It turns out she was coming tomorrow.

For this poem, I made these lists:

No. 1
sketch, cup, water, heat, bikes, search, book

No. 2
ball, black, bullseye, star, dragon, grandma, anticipate

Metaphor List
water ball, constellation spokes, heat search, bullseye sketch

image source: https://unsplash.com

You are more than welcome to enter the ongoing Haiku competition with the chance of winning a book: https://steemit.com/poetry/@steemswede/haiku-contest-write-the-best-haiku-poem-and-win-a-book

I put in my entry. Thanks for letting me know.

You could be very talented if you didn't just chuck ideas together. The ideas in your poem are so disparate and they are never developed, so I felt absolutely no emotion. It's like you took a few lines from different great poems and stuck them together to form a frankenpoem.
This might sound harsh but all the really bad poetry on Steemit is making me want to cry.

I should add that people sucking up to you will not improve your poetry. Think of me as an antidote to sweet -tasting poison.

I haven't experienced anyone sucking up to me, but I still value your perspective. Most times I don't hear anything when I post poetry online. Your words are extremely helpful for me.

Sorry, I think I was kinda in a bad mood yesterday and didn't express very well what I meant. I didn't sucking up and I was trying to point out that it wasn't a bad thing, people liking your work isn't really sucking up-that was unfair of me. You were wise enough to not take offence anyway-thank you.
However, poetry should come from your soul and I was disturbed by your formulaic approach. Just think about something that means something to you and write about that-I promise you that you will see the difference.

I see the process more as crutches until i work up the strength and ability to write poetry as free as you are describing.

Thanks for the feedback. There is a certain style I enjoy and I've seen it in poetry journals. It is a style I connect with and try to recreate. But I get how that isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Can you provide some examples of steemit poetry that you connect with?

Funnily enough your Haiku.