LesleyScoble.com

Sunflowers For Sale: 3 free verse poems + a haiku

The photo prompt offered to us by #Tanka Tuesday host Colleen Chesebro for the Tuesday Tanka Challenge is a sunflower. Photograph by Terri Webster Schrandt, from secondwindleisure.com. Thank you for this inspiration.

For this challenge, I wrote three poems. Each poem has six lines with syllables between eight to ten (thereabouts). I include a haiku just in case the first three poems don’t fit the syllabic poetry rules.

Sunflowers for Sale

Sunflowers for sale | Photo©️Lesley Scoble
SUNFLOWERS FOR SALE

Cut sunflowers trapped in suffrage
Once wild spirits, now confined in a pail,
Bundled beauty, a fleeting stage,
In the city’s brutalist concrete jail,
Sold for one moment of transient grace,
Life severed, contained for its sunshine face.

Lesley Clare Scoble,  August 2023

Sunflower in a Terracotta Pot

Sunflower in a Terracotta Pot | Photo©️Lesley Scoble
SUNFLOWER IN A TERRACOTTA POT

The sunflower stood alone in a terracotta pot 
It is all by itself—is it left on the shelf? 
The sun shines upon the solitary flower head
Hour after hour after hour 
It cannot move from the lonely spot. 
Instead, 
it grows tall and strong 
In the urban jungle of night and song.

Lesley Clare Scoble,  August 2023

Sunflower Crop

Sunflower Field after Van Gogh | Digital Oil Painting©️Lesley Scoble
SUNFLOWER CROP

A field of blooms face up toward the sun
Side by side, they lean and sway—to and fro 
A hundred suns basking beneath the one
Row upon row, day by day—they grow
Sunflower crops in a farmland field
Cooking oil is the yield

Lesley Clare Scoble,  August 2023

Sunflower Haiku

Field of Sunflowers 
Basking in the summer sun
Golden beauty blooms.

Lesley Scoble, August 2023

Where did our petals go?

In late summer, on a walk in the Sussex Downs, we came across this field of sunflowers that were denuded of petals. Their sunny blooms were gone. One of the of the wilting seed heads has a face that to me, appears to ask, Where did our petals go?

Sunflowers in late summer | Photo©️Lesley Scoble

A little bit of personal history

Sunflowers

At seventeen, I sold my paintings in London’s Bayswater Road, weekend art market. The first painting I sold there was an oil painting of sunflowers.

My father took this photo of me with it outside our home in Ravenscourt Park.

The first painting I sold at the Bayswater Road | Sunflowers, oil painting on canvas, Lesley Scoble

I hung my paintings on the fencing along the Bayswater Road and spent the weekend flogging my work. I was well chuffed when the sunflowers sold straight away.

Selling my art at the Bayswater Road, London | Lesley Scoble

Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright, (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.

lesleyscoble

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42 responses to “Sunflowers For Sale: 3 free verse poems + a haiku”

  7. Wow, not only are your poems delightful, Lesley, your artwork is stunning! You surely have a heart for the sunflower. I almost shed a tear when I read your poem about the cut sunflowers! By the way, those ones are “Teddy Bears,” I grew some of those myself when I lived in California, but they were much smaller. Beautiful picture of your painting and yourself. Your digital oil painting is amazing–is that done on an app?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Wow, thank you Chu! 🌟
      I’m over the moon that you like the painting. It’s a digital painting, so Gicleé prints are possible on fine art paper. (I am pleased with the picture myself, and considering painting it on canvas at some point). If you’re interested in a fine art print, I can let you have some details if you wish? I also plan to set up an art print page in the future on my site.
      I appreciate your comments a lot. 🙏😊Thank you 💕

      Liked by 1 person

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