VIBRANT
Red, vibrant
Poppies or hot coals
A brick road
Over cool green and yellow
Powerful and warm.
Alma Thomas, Delightful Song by Red Dahlia, 1976, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum
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PRINCESS
Princess pinks
Scattered over gold
Everything
Feminine
Visions of what’s inside of
A little girl’s dream
Alma Thomas, Wind and Crepe Myrtle Concerto, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum
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THE LAKE
Calm and blue
Reflecting the sky,
Flowers, trees.
Breeze rippling
Rings that never end over
Water that is life.
Alma Thomas, Celestial Fantasy, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum
©2025 Lisa Paul
Melissa writes: Hello, friends! Melissa, here, from Mom With a Blog, bringing you today’s syllabic poetry challenge. May you be inspired.
Today, let’s focus on Shadorma:
“The Shadorma consists of a six-line stanza (or sestet). Each stanza is written as 3-5-3-3-7-5 for a total of 26 syllables with no set rhyme scheme. When writing a Shadorma, I would concentrate on a specific subject. Add a title to the Shadorma.”
With this in mind, let’s write a Shadorma series (two or three, I’ll let you pick) using the paintings in this post. You may use one painting to inspire all your syllabic poetry, or perhaps you’d like to use several. Look at the paintings, their colors, and titles, and see where they take you.
A Little Bit of Everything, With Love 