Writing on the Wall

I suppose you think I do this all the time,
the rest of the graffiti really isn’t mine.
The corona virus has me out of my mind
bored, and the best thing I could find
on my way out for my daily walk
was this stubby piece of chalk.
I considered hopscotch but there’s no
pavement here, just grass verges. So,
I headed for a wall that’d been enhanced.
Spray-painted tags and images danced
before my eyes, colourful temptation,
unexpected poetic motivation.
I know that my poem won’t last long in rain,
but with more weeks of lockdown I can always try again.

Kim M. Russell, 2nd April 2020

33+ Beautiful Examples of Graffiti Artworks for Inspiration ...
Image found on Pinterest

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads NaPoWriMo Day 2 Play it Again in April 2020: Taking it to the Streets

Today’s Play it Again prompt is from April 2, 2014, when Susie asked us to write street poems. She asked us what we would like to leave on the concrete, the wall, a light post, a picnic table… She suggested a bit of wisdom, hope, encouragement, or something to bring a smile. When I started my poem, I didn’t know where it would take me and, when I read it, I realised it was almost a cross between a rap and a sonnet! It’s a first draft, so it could go either way.

 I’m merging this prompt with Kerry’s Skylover Wordlist, sourced from Dylan Thomas’s poetry collection Deaths and Entrances, from which the second word is ‘you’.

Also linking to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.

69 thoughts on “Writing on the Wall”

  3. This is an outstanding poem, Kim 💘💘 It speaks to me of courage mingled with sorrow reaching out in the form of poetry.. of “Spray-painted tags and images” despite the onslaught of rain. 🙂

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  12. It’s cool that you, and others are surfing other poetry sites, and staying so busy. Haiku & quotes find their way onto walls, so why not full blown poems: a wonderful rhyme time and poetic concoction

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  15. I imagine that’s why a lot of grafitti artists do what they do. Young people’s voices will be heard one way or another. Good poem and great idea for anytime!

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  22. We did both of make use of the sidewalk chalk bit.
    Yours? When ya gotta go you gotta go like, when you have to write a poem you have to write your poem. Everyone carries a pocket phone with a camera so use yours and snap a picture, poem graffiti for posterity. Let it rain
    ..

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  27. Oh yes, Kim! A very apt write for this crazy chaotic and frightening time! How we loved the street art when we did our Latin America cruises and started in Valparaiso, Chile for 5 days before we boarded our cruise ship in Santiago. What an amazing place with street art galore. And those were the days of “safe cruising” and safe travel. What a different world it is now. Yep….chalk art or chalk words of encouragement are turning up on sidewalks all over. Kids and adults communicating with others in this way. The rain may wash away the chalk, but not the feelings we are all having…trying to hang together while not.
    Stay healthy!

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  28. I like the idea of being able to chalk something on and up to an experience, to colour/paint something, write a poem, a small piece, even if it’s only temporary …. as the rains will wash it away. The juxtaposition of a more permanent image with an “added commentary” is fascinating …. it makes the viewing of the original more interactive …. and besides, sometimes, this type of idea, just needs must out itself … the permission to colour outside of the lines of something more traditional, like hopscotch. The “wild side” – the expansion in a burst of energy … sometimes, it’s just what the universal doctor orders. (Even if only as an idea in a poem.) And I read in your comments that you have a cunning idea to write on the shed, because it looks so miserable …. HAH! LOVE that! It’s brilliant!

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