Scooping almonds
Posted: 06 October 2019
Word Count: 142
Summary: This poem was formed from a writing challenge for a poetry course exam. I had to select a random word from a dictionary. The random word was almond.
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Drupe
Watch brother
Sanctuary of miracles
Ripen almonds
Shaker cultures rough diamonds.
Infused elements form created mass.
Early mile stones climb mountains.
Organic woodwind high octane gas,
Arrangements and assorted varying scenes.
Prescription bags recycled spores garbage heaped.
Cultivated raw husk roadside tajines
Vials scooped, bridges,banks, bottle greens.
Oils treat excessive living orchard heat.
Missions abandon planting almond trees.
Climatise a trance state of California dreams.
Radical in the kingdom of the anti freeze,
Blossoms wild through the exodus of centuries,
Corridors, streets , and mosaic walled valleys.
What do you see? When asked what vision comes to thee,
Fortunate blessings of bittersweet luxuries.
If Pisces is poisoned
As the water for the fields divert
Bare the fruitful seeds of necessity
With help of the hand in the destiny of promised land
Then the pit of my gutted fish scale hurts.
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Comments by other Members
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 V`yonne at 11:38 on 07 October 2019
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a poetry course exam
wow -- never done anything like that! MA in creative writing or something?
Well it's interesting. It's about climate change, am I right?
Might take me a few readings to make sensible comment on it though so I'll get back to you.
Wecome to the group.
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V`yonne at 14:20 on 07 October 2019
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Good. I'll take a closer look later in the week now I know I am not falling too far from the tree 
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 Cliff Hanger at 21:08 on 08 October 2019
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Welcome to the group, Robert.
I'm violently allergic to almonds and anything with its oil in it. I have to admit I learned a lot about them from your poem because it made me look them up on Wikipedia. Not least the fact that they make cyanide - which explains a lot.
This is a piece that's complex and considered. For me, it comes to life when you address the almond directly at
What do you see?
Otherwise it's a clever list of interesting sounding statements. I'm afraid I don't understand them all and would have to spend some time researching them (which isn't necessarily a downside apart from time pressure). I've read the last line a few times but I'm not sure I fathom it although I can feel the drift toward a discussion on climate change through the whole piece. A bit like a slight breeze shaking through almond blossoms.
I get the feeling its written to a stringent structural brief but I'm not qualified to comment on that so if you'd like to explain it further that would help me get even more from your poem.
Well done for writing this for an exam and for posting it. I very much enjoyed reading it.
Regards
Jane
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 Practicer at 09:25 on 09 October 2019
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The poem was written in a structure. However, I am a bit rusty on poetry techniques because I stopped writing poems for a while.
Thank you for your comments.
It is nice to receive a warm welcome into the group and to have other writers read what I have written.
I am quietly enjoying reading other members work.
I enjoy doing some automatic writing, which I find cathartic.
It is nice to find a writing community that allows time to write and develop.
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 michwo at 12:08 on 09 October 2019
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Robert,
I was flummoxed by the very first word of this poem: Drupe. I knew 'dupe'. I knew 'droop'. I looked in the Oxford Dictionary I'm able to access on-line and found the following: A fleshy fruit with thin skin containing a stone as the seed, e.g.plum, etc. Almonds were mentioned too, but I've always in my ignorance considered them as members of the nut family, e.g. peanuts, walnuts, etc. I wasn't too sure about 'tajines' either and discovered that it was a North African stew-type dish, so you can maybe get it as a takeaway from a Moroccan restaurant possibly. All in all there was a lot of resistance to my understanding of this poem - a hard nut to crack, which is, come to think of it, appropriate in this case.
You certainly manage to be critical of Western greed and overindulgence with phrases like excessive living and bittersweet luxuries, the net result of this suspect life-style choice being garbage heaped presumably.
If Pisces is poisoned
As the water for the fields divert
Bare the fruitful seeds of necessity
With help of the hand in the destiny of promised land
Then the pit of my gutted fish scale hurts.
This last stanza was, like the first word in your poem, something of a stumbling block for me. Is 'bare' being used as an adjective or a verb, i.e. 'lay bare'? Surely if the seeds are bare, not watered and exposed to the elements, they blow away don't they and you get a dust bowl? Is that why 'the pit of my gutted fish scale hurts'?
Very stream-of-consciousness and very spiky. I doubt I fully understand where you're coming from to be honest, but what I write, and it's not very frequently I DO write these days, can always be construed as reactionary and stagnantly traditional. On the basis of this poem, that's not a trap you'll ever be in danger of falling into.
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V`yonne at 12:40 on 09 October 2019
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I see a lot of Biblical and mythical and even astrological references in this poem. For me that last stanza worked like a key:
If Pisces is poisoned
As the water for the fields divert
Bare the fruitful seeds of necessity
With help of the hand in the destiny of promised land
Then the pit of my gutted fish scale hurts.
The first line there reminded me of 'if the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?'
The age of pisces was the age of Christ and we are now in the age of aquarius are we not? If the water is poisoned there can be no promised land. So when you put 'anti freeze' there it reminds me of 'anti-Chirst'
The world entire is damaged at the end of this and the final image is visceral indeed. Actually the more readings I give to this, the more I get out of it. The juxtapositions, poisons and drugs and religion are in themselve 'mosaic walled valleys' and 'the exodus of centuries,' leads to the end of time so that history and our lives can be seen as been a series of
Fortunate blessings of bittersweet luxuries.
that cannot last forever as nothing lasts forever.
You've taken us from creation
Infused elements form created mass.
Early mile stones climb mountains.
all the way to planetary destruction in a hop through all the elements of human culture from food to superstition that we invest in. It's a trip, this poem. I think I could read it a hundred times and still get something from it. I also think there are probably things maybe obvious things... I'm missing. But we all read the poem we invent in our head in a way. We all bring 'stuff' to it. There's a lot in this one to take away.
I like the rhymes you've used -- not intrusive and they add to the connections we make. I like the 5 line stanza form.
I hope they gave you a damned good mark!
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Practicer at 13:40 on 09 October 2019
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It makes me feel like a writer to receive analysis and feedback. It also makes feel more confident to upload my work to this site.
Thankyou for the in depth reading of it and I guess my writing is a bit pyschedelic.
The reason I wanted to upload this particular piece was because as an exam piece , it was not critiqued.
The poetry course was with Stonebridge on line college. I received nice wall certificates from them.
They also gave helpful comments on other pieces of coursework.
I recently finished an on line writing course that was designed to stimulate writing ideas. This particular course was with Creative writing Ink. My tutors feedback encouraged me to continue writing and perhaps search for a writing group.
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V`yonne at 15:07 on 09 October 2019
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One good way to 'start' poems we have found here is withing the weekly Flash Poetry forum. If you join that group we try to write a poem a week. They are obviously draft but we get to work up ideas, and it's interesting to take the challenge. This week we are working up a little random word list as inspiration. If you'd like to join that group please do feel free. I've always found it fun and often very inspirational.
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V`yonne at 15:10 on 09 October 2019
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Oh and please do comment on our poems by the way. That's how we work here.
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