Give me not statins
those white little pills
give me good greens
let me not eat too much red meat
whose production decimates
our blue marble planet
white meat takes a lesser toll
I will not eschew the yellow yolks
of eggs and go full vegan
limited to the orange, brown
and greens of lentils
the gold of grains the
white of rice and others
of the blond grasses
but let me sway more
in their direction
– to healthy balance
whatever colour that is…
© Andrew Wilson, 2025
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write a poem with a colour motif and optionally, an Imagist poem.
- take one or more literal colours (not a fancy colour name)
- repeat the colour word(s) throughout the poem (e.g. refrain; anaphora, epistrophe)
- use colour synonyms
- employ colour with its specific meaning to the poem’s theme
- let your colour motif(s) also become symbolic
- Your poetry style is optional but you may want to experiment with Imagism. If so these are the guidelines:
- Use language of common speech. direct and economical, using common words and phrases.
- Embrace free verse. Disregard poetic meter but rather, focus on the rhythm of your phrases
- Your choice of subject should reflect real life