2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 21
Posted by Robert

We're now 3 weeks into November. Only 1 week and a couple days left. Wow!

For today's prompt, I want you to write an invention poem. The poem can actually be about an invention or an inventor, or you can make the invention the title of your poem and go from there. Every poem is an invention of its own, and I can't wait to see what everyone invents today.

The Invention of the Eye


I.

It was dark for so long
one year in the sea that was everything, everywhere
that maybe was like the sky
(no - there was not yet a sky) or like the space outside
of whatever was outside if there was an outside

a year in the sea
times a million, times a million, times and times

It wasn't even dark
There was no darkness to see
no sea to see though we were there
Blind, soft-bodied
dividing to reproduce
the blind, soft-bodied
not even invisible
nor visible
as there was no such thing as either

and it happened
it had never been before
an eye grew
it opened
and an eye - the first - saw
first to blink
first to see the sea
first to make the world visible

one supposes color,
water, the dumb, blind soft-bodied
creatures swallowed and swallowed
and so we died over and over
becoming part of a creature
a creature with an eye

or
we learned to hide
to look like exactly sand or look exactly like rock
now that sand and rock looked like they did
we learned to agress
see me, see this
i see you too
i am electric
i am blue, now that there is blue
and the tips of my undulating sides are brilliant orange
and spike with poisonous yellow
now that there is orange
now that there is brilliance
and yellow
there must be poison
and seduction
both

i move through the water with filagreed parts
with whirring motors
translucent spines and dicing scales
shells hardening

i will breathe
I will go to the edge and find at the edge
another space to move through - differently
new world
i will move two eyes across its form
find form, find more

i will change before your very eyes.
i'll grow fingers and, someday, touch your face
that i see
and see is so beautiful


II.

and now then what if insight
gains sight
the blind, soft-bodied fears
the gentle, self-dividing loves
the strange formless ways of intuition

we might grow a sense to sense it
the medium we have always been swimming in.
you know what i mean.
we just passed each other in our minds, in it.
Soon we will know where we have been
all this time
all this long, long time of trying.

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "And then (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Some example titles could be: "And then Godzilla attacked Tokyo," "And then McDonald's opened a store on the moon," "And then nothing," "And then everything," "And then you probably have an even better idea for a poem title," etc.


And then they moved

It was a book I wasn't meant to look into
Not personal, exactly, but not for me.
He had shipped it from overseas and prepared it carefully
to help his client envision the pieces in her house.
Her needs were all so considered.
Even pictures of the house were there - the white walls, with artwork
carefully superimposed and a large model boat in front, illuminated,
white as a dove.

On top of each page, balancing on the thin edge
was something to describe that model below:
a chocolate above the cocoa-colored row boat,
a feather above the fast-tilted, trimmed skiff,
a shell (crushed in the shipping)
its many pieces caught for a moment in my hand as I turned the page
above the bright-white, round-keeled sailboat I was drawn to.

The craftsmanship was fantasic - in book and boat.
And then
As I looked at this one from left
it turned vaguely right and the light
reflected from somewhere streaked fast
around the wooden running boards.
As I looked at it from the right it came around
and caught a velocity of wind I didn't know could be on a page
and the port side turned peach - pearlescent,
a light, gentle, I've sailed through in the Bay.

I leaned my body at a pitch
and the page fluttered and the model boat
sailed fast off the picture plane
and I brought it back with a strong lean right
and it sailed through its image

parting the ordinary world
and passing comfortably through the living room
over the stuffed leather couch disappearing
behind the high black polished bookcase
in which another smaller boat sat docked, motionless
illuminated,
like a dove,
bright-white.

I knew I should not sign for the book even
but leave it as I found it. Deeper sunset colors took
the pages and the light clanging tap of jib lines
against the masts (a favorite sound) escaped
just as I closed the book and slipped it back in its
original wrapping: a distressed wooden box,
simple, tied with a rope, softened by time

Beautiful thing, in part and whole

I kept my head tilted for the rest of the day
believing in magic, not doubting it now,
thankful for the blessing of the talent of others.

For today's prompt, I want you to write an attachment poem. There are all kinds of
attachments you could write about: physical, emotional, digital, etc. You could even
write about your fear of attachment OR fear of no attachments OR fear of
seeming to be afraid of attachment when really you're afraid of not being
attached but you don't want other people to know that you know that...where was I?...oh
yeah, write an attachment poem. Write it now.


Attachment, yes
like a mollusk to a rock

(i was happy)

however it is we separate
we seem to

for months it is like being
without a context
without a pool filled with life
in which to simply be

For today's prompt, I want you to write a slow poem. (If you want you can re-read that sentence in your best "slow motion" voice.) I'll let you decide what a slow poem should be.


Slow poem


I went to my mother’s to take out her trash
feed walk the dog fix the computer nine o’clock and I’d been working since seven and the dog peed in eight different places running from one spot to the next
Hurry geez and orange
Not an orange but
Orange caught my eye
Muted oh perfect
Perfect single fall-like thing
Of course on time

Persimmon
Persimmon -with something, I don’t know what,
-in common with the moon

And another
High and up
More more
The tree twice the height of the house
In a rising field of muted
Night-dipped matt leaves:
Orange, orange like a path leading
Up into night and higher
A path of notes
melody

When did all this happen
This beauty?

Slowly, of course
When we weren’t looking

Some of the persimmons
We can’t even see

we interupt this writing challenge for some real cleverness

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/?hp

day 17

As mentioned above, today is Tuesday, which means we've got a "Two for Tuesday" offering. Remember: With "Two for Tuesday" prompts, you can write to either one or both (or none, if that's how you roll). Here are the two prompts:

1. Write an explosion poem.

2. Write an implosion poem.


Implosion

You need one of two things
1) something to knock the legs out
so gravity takes its toll
or 2) pressure outside so great
the walls of the structure
collapse
inward

A.
1.) love
2.) time


Explosion

1) just the way he came in the door was enough
2) my head was gone, my body, for a moment, sense of structure - shot out a mile wide, out, hold, sweet, space filling a void, the self, in particles, settling. a rain of self, settling. Him -holding me in the shape I was to become, again.

A.
1.) pressure
2.) explosion

day 16

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Clouds (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and write the poem. Some examples: "Clouds float," "Clouds rain," "Clouds don't exist," "Clouds block my sunshine," "Clouds are cool," etc.

Clouds gather

somewhere else
and turn black
and broil above the prarie
and bang shutters till the pins knock out
and rain so loud no one could hear any
pair of soaked and sudden lovers
cry out
the horses rearing
the tin buckets banging
and someone pulling safely into the drive
at just the right time

and here
it is almost always perfect
perfect blue
every day
perfect trees still
driveways dry and clean
no need to meet the neighbors
they're fine
their cat is fine
their car is clean
perfect life
still life
life without clouds

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 15

For today's prompt, I want you to write a hanging poem. There are a lot of things that can hang (some a bit more gruesome than others). You can hang clothes, pots and pans, pictures, and other inanimate objects; there's, of course, the kind of hangings that end lives; or you can even leave someone hanging (as Tammy pointed out to me). So, I'm not going to leave anyone hanging anymore today.


Rope

Because I imagine your heart
swings one way to another
(comraderie of the slackened ropes)
and your words are kinder
lighter and weightier to another
(you wouldn't hear of it)
(in each cellar a rope)
(in these, ropes that snapped taut)
(the completions - witnessed)
(you wouldn't hear of it - the taking down)
(words penned to keep -that rope-,
now slack, there, coiled)
(to keep the field birds' song - consoling)
(around the turning world)
(you don't understand)
(would not ask)(or listen)

Because you loved me
(I did) and you hurt me
(I did)
I'll hang you now
from a rope of silence

I am holding on with both hands
though others -mine- dangle there too
and my bitterness must double
to hold you all.

I am strong.
I have grown strong from all this silent weight.
Decades of it.
Don't imagine, I will ever let go.