[15 words or less poems] Hard-Headed

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas

Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)!

I love this sculpture?inside a building in downtown Minneapolis. I don’t usually like art of people, but abstractions like this are fun. It makes me think of:

1) Decorated skulls and bones in Europe
2) The framework of a skyscraper
3) An X‑ray

And here’s my poem first draft:

I Am Art
my steel skeleton,

azurite eyes,
welded skin
needs admirers

I tip my hat
to you

–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

What do you think of when you look at this picture? Take any quick idea and jot down a 15 Words or Less poem. It doesn’t have to rhyme or describe this picture. It’s just about whatever you think of when you look at it.

I’m teaching at a Young Authors Conference all week and won’t be able to comment on your poems. I hope you have fun with them!

48 Responses

  1. Thick as steel
    Light as bone
    Brand new body
    But no one home

    Kind of a reference to robots taking over the world… Love this picture!

  2. Thick as steel
    Light as bone
    Brand new body
    But no one home

    Kind of a reference to robots taking over the world… Love this picture!

      1. It was the hat! There’s a photo of him in a straw hat from the film, Second Chorus, which you can view here.

      1. It was the hat! There’s a photo of him in a straw hat from the film, Second Chorus, which you can view here.

  3. I love art that goes beyond what we usually imagine. And like your “welded skin”, Laura. Mine is a bit similar in that he’s wanting to be seen.

    It?s no mystery.
    I seem to be
    ?empty me?.
    Yet I?m admired,
    ?cause I?m ?wired?!

  4. I love art that goes beyond what we usually imagine. And like your “welded skin”, Laura. Mine is a bit similar in that he’s wanting to be seen.

    It?s no mystery.
    I seem to be
    ?empty me?.
    Yet I?m admired,
    ?cause I?m ?wired?!

  5. Brain

    100,000 miles
    of nerve highways,
    100 trillion
    synapse intersections?
    traffic slows, beeps,
    please, no gridlock!

    ?Kate Coombs

  6. Brain

    100,000 miles
    of nerve highways,
    100 trillion
    synapse intersections?
    traffic slows, beeps,
    please, no gridlock!

    ?Kate Coombs

  7. Right brain left brain
    Logic or arts
    Best situations would
    Meld both parts.

  8. Right brain left brain
    Logic or arts
    Best situations would
    Meld both parts.

  9. Kids scramble up to play in my head,
    pounding my steel exterior
    brain falls out. 😛

  10. Kids scramble up to play in my head,
    pounding my steel exterior
    brain falls out. 😛

  11. SEE-THROUGH TEETH
    misplaced ears,
    Concaved nose, hollow eyes,
    I’m a steel-cut skeleton
    No longer in disguise.

    © Charles Waters 2013 all rights reserved.

  12. SEE-THROUGH TEETH
    misplaced ears,
    Concaved nose, hollow eyes,
    I’m a steel-cut skeleton
    No longer in disguise.

    © Charles Waters 2013 all rights reserved.

    1. Buffy, I like that idea of memories escaping as I look at the pic. And that added image of leaves swirling, then scattering-not Autumn, but this brings it to my mind.

    1. Buffy, I like that idea of memories escaping as I look at the pic. And that added image of leaves swirling, then scattering-not Autumn, but this brings it to my mind.

  13. The picture reminds me of lobster traps…
    so my poem on mainelywrite.blogspot.com is:

    Currents of thoughts,
    like water through
    a trap,
    with turning tides,
    return
    yet untapped.

  14. The picture reminds me of lobster traps…
    so my poem on mainelywrite.blogspot.com is:

    Currents of thoughts,
    like water through
    a trap,
    with turning tides,
    return
    yet untapped.

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