My dad is on a boat. On his boat, he has a lamp. He likes the lamp. He wrote about the lamp. The resulting poem is lovely, really.
The flame dwindles
as dusk arrives.
I lift the glass chimney
I lift the glass chimney
from the brass oil lamp,
strike a match
and night flame jumps to life.
The lamp barely moves
The lamp barely moves
left or right front or back
the sea being calm.
The flame small,
however, one knows
it is of the same stuff
as it was earlier.
Night will fall,
Night will fall,
I will extinguish this warm glow
with a breath,
the embers giving off black smoke,
the scent of paraffin.
How near to my last,
How near to my last,
I wonder as I lay my head down.
The lesson? Don’t try to write about ideas, only shoving in the imagery afterwards. Write about the imagery, the stuff. Let the ideas come later. If something strikes you enough to write about, it will tell you what it wants you to say.
Elizabeth Joy Levinson 
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