Imagination

One of the fun things that the poetry group I was once a part of did was what we called “poemwork,” that is, writing a poem from a prompt that was provided at the previous meeting. One month the prompt was to take any 3-5 consecutive lines from the index of Bartlett's Famous Quotations. Filling in the gaps with your imagination, expand on the thoughts and feelings you glimpse between the lines to compose your poem.

My five lines were:
Imagination, cold and barren
Imaginations are as foul
Imagine why or whence
Imagining fear in the night
Imagining the grave

And I wrote not one, but two poems. :-D

Imagination, cold and barren,
a bleak landscape stretching forth
into a wasteland of empty dreams.

Imaginations are as foul creatures,
intentionally misleading,
inspiring hope that has no place here.

Imagine why or whence we came
into this space between realities,
the great void that enshrouds us.

Imagining fear in the night
surpassed only by
the waking dream.

Imagining the grave that awaits
Reality shatters, fragmenting,
a downward spiral into madness.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Imagination,
cold and barren as the grave,
like a demon
darkly filled with things I crave;
proliferation,
thoughts and feelings of despair
like an omen,
a vivid fantasy to ensnare.

Imaginations
are as foul as phantom screaming,
sounds of terror
within your darkest dreaming.
Abomination
raids the landscape of your mind,
a standard-bearer
of future curses intertwined.

Imagine why
or whence this inner madness springs.
What wrong committed?
What spiteful spirit to you clings?
Nightmare outcry,
sticky web of madness daunting;
a dread submitted
to a darkened inward haunting.

Imagining fear
in the night, time of darkest sin.
Fractured sanity,
your thoughts have let the chaos in.
You persevere
and hope to end this nightmare soon.
Be gone humanity,
you’re dancing to the devil’s tune.

Imagining
the grave in which your conscience lies,
dark illusion
holds you fast before it dies.
A fragile thing
this life you cling to valiantly;
while dark delusion
transmits your uncertainty.