Tags

, , , ,

Good evening, everyone!

Sanaa here (aka adashofsunny) delighted to host Open Link Night, which serves as an opportunity for us to link ONE poem of our choice for reading pleasure.

There is no specific form or theme required for OLN but if you are looking for a little inspiration, here is an optional mini prompt:

City Roofs – Edward Hopper 1932 wikiart.org

  1. Use the image above as a muse for your poem. Write an ekphrastic poem.
  2. Or use the title of the image as part of your poem: City Roofs.

For further inspiration, here is a poem by Timothy Steele

From a Rooftop

At dawn, down in the streets, from pavement grills,
Steam rises like the spent breath of the night.
At open windows, curtains stir on sills;
There’s caging drawn across a market’s face;
An empty crane, at its construction site,
Suspends a cable into chasmed space.

The roof shows other rooftops, their plateaus
Marked with antennas from which lines are tied
And strung with water beads or hung with clothes.
And here and there a pigeon comes to peck
At opaque puddles, its stiff walk supplied
By herky-jerky motions of its neck.

Downtown, tall buildings surmount a thinning haze.
The newest, the world center of a bank,
Has sides swept upward from a block-broad base,
Obsidian glass, fifty stories tall;
Against it hangs a window-washer’s plank,
An aerie on a frozen waterfall.

Nearer and eastward, past still-sleeping blocks,
Crews on the waterfront are changing shifts.
Trucks load at warehouses at the foot of docks;
A tug out in the bay, gathering speed,
With a short hollow blast of puffed smoke, lifts
Gulls to a cawing and air-borne stampede.

It is as if dawn pliantly compels
The city to relax to sounds and shapes,
To its diagonals and parallels:
Long streets with traffic signals blinking red,
Small squares of parks, alleys with fire escapes,
Rooftops above which cloudless day is spread.

And it’s as if the roofs’ breeze-freshened shelves,
Their level surfaces of gravelled tar
Where glassy fragments glitter, are themselves
A measure of the intermediate worth

Of all the stories to the morning star
And all the stories to the morning earth.

Out of courtesy, please link back to dVerse Poets Pub if you are sharing your poem. I look forward to reading you over the weekend!

To join us for Thursday’s Open Link Night, here’s how to join:

  • Write a poem in your blog. You have the option to use our optional prompt as described above.
  • Enter a link directly to your 1 poem and your name by clicking Mr. Linky below and remember to check the little box to accept the use/privacy policy.
  • There you will find links to other poets and more will join during the next 48 hours so check back to read other entries.
  • Read and comment on other poet’s work, we all go here to have our poems read
  • Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog.
  • Comment and participate in our discussion below, if you like.
  • Have fun.