The Poet of the Week for the W3 We’ave Poetry Prompt #81 is Jennifer Russo. (you can read her beautiful tanka series Until Spring here)
Jennifer’s prompt guidelines This week’s prompt is to write a “lento” on the topic of dreams. This could be about dreams themselves, the act of dreaming, the dreamer or a dreamlike quality. Lento? Two quatrains (four-line stanzas) with a fixed rhyme scheme of abcb, defe, as the 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza must rhyme; All the FIRST words of each verse should rhyme; click HERE for an example.
Daydreamer
I like to dream all day and float with the clouds… I should be working but my mind drifts far away… My boss doesn’t like it, not one bit, not at all. Why do we pay you? The boss said today. The right time to dream is when you’re at home in your bed! We pay you to work, to be on call, the boss said. Be awake, be on call, be alert, use your head! Key workers do not shirk, or your patients are dead. Lesley Scoble, November 2023
Key Workers
It was only after writing my poem Daydreamer did my thoughts venture back to Lockdown in the year 2020. To that strange time when we stood on our balconies or on the streets to applaud the key workers every Thursday evening. To cheer the frontline of the pandemic where there was no time to daydream.
Perhaps my poem is a memory from then?
I painted this little portrait of clinical lead, Dr Rukhsana, during Lockdown 2020.
To learn a little bit more about the painting please visit the old Lockdown blog THE EYES OF A HERO here or visit another old post THE PORTRAIT OF AN NHS HERO here
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you Jennifer, JJJ Interactive Books, for your dreamy prompt. Thanks as always to David, The Skeptics Kaddish, W3 We’ave Poetry Prompt. Photo Daytime moon in wispy cloud | by me! ©️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.com 
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