PROMPT #129 – PERSONIFICATION

Humans seem to love attaching human qualities to other animals and inanimate objects. Ships are usually referred to as feminine; and objects such as automobiles, firearms, and sewing machines have been named. Dogs, cats, horses, pigs, and other animals have been said to “know” or “feel,” in ways understood to be human. Write a poem about an object or animal that has been personified in some way.

MARIE ELENA’S LIMERICK

She’s a Great Grandfather

Perplexed by the words he is choosing –
His mixing of gender’s amusing.
He says, “She’s a beauty,”
While doing the duty
Of winding our clock.  It’s confusing!

© copyright 2013,  Marie Elena Good

WILLIAM’S ATTEMPT

U.S.S. YORKTOWN, OFF MIDWAY, 4 JUNE 1942

She was hurt before she started.
Injured in battle at the Coral Sea,
she had to be patched and jury-rigged
and sent into battle again
toward another objective.
She met her mates upon the sea
at a spot on the open ocean
called, perhaps prayerfully, Point Luck.
There, she awaited the Emperor’s fleet
steaming toward its objective.
She met her enemy and they were hers.
In rapid succession and shot with luck,
she and her mates flung funeral pyres
on three of four Japanese carriers
deflected from their objective,
but the remaining carrier, determined
to fight on for the Son of Heaven;
sent planes aloft to scan the sea.
They found her, and she knew
that she was their objective.
She was injured again. And again:
bombs and torpedoes from planes
and a spread of torpedoes from a submarine
raised fires and spawned explosions;
they had met their objective.
She burned; she listed, she slipped beneath the sea;
with tears accompanying her,
she sought the bottom, to join her victims.
She was gone, leaving her mates
midway to their objective.

© copyright 2013, William Preston

WALT COMES ALIVE

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Roses smell sweet, and their beauty
is their sworn duty to nature.
In any nomenclature, their stature blooms
filling every room with their fragrant fare.

Shall I call a woman a rose?
By any other name she would be as sweet
and beautiful, a dutiful inspiration
in any nomenclature. A flower amongst thorns.

Well worn on a well-worn sleeve,
she leaves an impression, that says her heart,
the blush of a rose, has chosen you to be her gardener.
And you are blessed to hold her bloom.

Her perfume, like the rose, flows to your nostrils,
filling you with her heavenly scent,
for she was heaven sent. She was meant to be nurtured
and cared for, and what’s more, to be admired

and loved. Above all else, she will grace your life
brightening your days as long as she stays in view.
Just like roses too, a women is most beautiful.
A woman is a rose. What’s in a name?

© copyright 2013, Walter J Wojtanik