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Yvette M. Calleiro is the Poet of the Week for the W3 Poetry Prompt (#209).
This week, she invites us to write a poem of twenty lines or fewer that explores a fictional world—utopian or dystopian.
For the full details of the prompt, click below.

Yvette’s prompt: Elsewhere

With so much chaos in the world, let’s step away from reality and imagine something entirely new. Create a poem that explores a fictional world—utopian or dystopian, your choice. This world must be wholly imagined and not reflect the current reality we live in. Let your imagination run freely.

Requirements

• Use 20 lines or fewer.
• Write about a fictional utopian or dystopian world.
• Do not portray the current state of our world in your poem.

I went with the dystopian and hope you enjoy it.

Nowhere

yellow eyes
look through the hatch
they store us here

we are
the next batch

the pale grey face
smiles
as it opens the door
I smile back
then look down 
at the floor

we form a queue
on grey stone steps
that lead up and down
in a square

I know 
they go 
nowhere



—Lesley Scoble, April 2026

Nowhere – Audio narration

Narrated by me

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My enormous thanks to Yvette for the mighty utopian/dystopian prompt she set us this week.

My gratitude, as always, to the redoubtable genius of David Bogomolny and his weekly W3 Poetry Prompts.

And my thanks — with apologies — to Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972) for his influence on my illustration. His prints of illogical stairways leading nowhere first impressed me many years ago.

And last but not least, my thanks to you, the reader, for being here.

Museum Escher in Het Paleis

W3 Prompt #209: Wea’ve Written Weekly