Week 5 words from @clairemosleyart: ports, river, kingfisher, chips, drive.

the gate to the sally port clangs shut behind her
ahead the river glitters in the afternoon sun
throwing diamonds of light like confetti

miniature waves ripple as a leaf sails downstream
navigating the rapids and riding the current
taking with it her prayers

a flash of blue from an azure kingfisher
catches her eye as it dives into the water
chasing a dream
 
she walks along the path by the river's edge
and past the carpenter's hut
chips of wood fly from the carver's chisel
a face looms from the wood
metal drives it home

~~~~

Here are the words and my poem for the fifth week of the 2019 Poetry Challenge. I really struggled with this week's poem. I'm not sure why. I found it difficult to get the words to behave and play nicely. My first attempt was okay but lacked oomph. So I turned to one of my favourite poetry writing tools - Rhyme Zone. It's brilliant and has synonyms, antonyms, consonants, adjectives and more. However, it didn't give me what I needed.

So I turned to my second poet's tool - the dictionary (I use Oxford Dictionaries online). Words often have more than one meaning. For the first word of this week's challenge - ports - I was thinking about fishing ports and the alcoholic drink from Portugal. The dictionary gave me the third definition which was the key to the poem. If you're curious the definition of a sally port is: "A small exit point in a fortification for the passage of troops when making a sally."

This is my second shot - heavily influenced by the book I am re-reading at the moment (Septimus Heap by Angie Sage, a children's medieval fantasy). I've been thinking a lot about stories and story telling lately. I've been wanting to explore stories and narrative through my poetry. 

If you want to join the 2019 Poetry Challenge, head on over to my Instagram account where I post the words for the week on Mondays in my story. Be sure to tag me and use the hashtags #2019poetrychallenge and #livepoetsclub. 

If you don't want to write a poem, you can still be part of the 2019 Poetry Challenge. Send me five random words and I'll use them in a poem. Either DM me on Instagram with the words or send me an email (indrani at indraniperera dot com).

Happy writing!