2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 28
Posted by Robert

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Through this (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Examples could be: "Through this door," "Through this spider," "Through this rope wrapped around this person trying to get free before the bomb stops ticking," "Through this garden," etc.


Through this prism
I look at you
and your face
breaks into its simplest planes

Your nose could be from an african mask
Your body the body of a woman
I can see you looking at me
and turning away from me in the same moment

I can see that your skin is green
You are unwell
You are breaking up

Parts of you are completely invisible now
I am left with the memory of a voice
An accent without sound

A blur of brilliant color

third late one. all caught up now.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem involving a shape (or multiple shapes). You can make the shape the title of your poem, or you can work the shapes into the actual poem in some way. There are two dimensional shapes, of course, like squares and circles, but don't forget some of the other shapes available out there: horseshoes, coffee cups, houses, etc. After all, some objects become so iconic that they actually are considered shapes unto themselves.


Shape

I talk about shape
the rectilinear, the curvilinear,
the iconic, the abstract and organic.
Lord knows, I think about shape.
In the end shape is simply shorthand
- the boundary of the purposeful agency
of the drifting, wide, intermittent
possible meanings of the thing.

The heart, for example, heart shape,
iconic, (red pen) can be scribbled on a card
and set the world in motion again

My body, for example,
is everything anyone could identify as me
but it's just a shape (oh that maddening shape)
I climb back into
in the morning
so you can see me
and I can say hello

though mostly i hover nearby to my body
quite near (just outside of its shape so I can return quickly
and be defined by its edges if there is a knock at the door)
I stay close to my shape, except when i leave it,
lying there, in the glow of the digital clock,
vulnerable, I leave it without a thought,
as if I'm not married to it

while I flow like water over canyons and wander into heated palaces
and make love to whomever i choose
as if I don't have to come back before morning
and look at the shape of my face in the mirror
shape that appears to be me
and try to find someplace to put the wide, dusty street
i took, alone, for my return.
My loyal shape takes me back
but is worn
just a bit
and quiet.

Every shape has a shape for meaning
because meaning itself, poor homeless and misunderstood,
has no shape.

If I gave you a heart
you might understand.

second late one - for Gary

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 26
Posted by Robert

Well, now that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is over, I guess it's time to move on to other pressing matters, such as getting to today's prompt and poem. But first, let me thank every single person who participates in these challenges and reads the blog throughout the year. I am so thankful for you, especially those of you who go through the frustration of adding a comment 50 billion times before it takes. Today's prompt may come as no surprise, because...

For today's prompt, I want you to write a thankful poem.

Enjoying the Harvest and Tucking the Garden In

This, after
Wide, Deep Raised Beds
and From Seed to Harvest,
and A Self-Sufficient Garden
This before, of course,
Rot and Recycle

Enjoying the Harvest and Tucking the Garden In

I turn the pages because he no longer can
This book will tell me everything I need to know
How to start from seedlings even late in the year
how to nourish from the root
how to dig deeper, deeper than you'd think
was necessary.
He was going to loan the guide to me
but when he says he is giving it to me
well, yes.

His head hands from a weak neck like a huge Italian sunflower.
Musclerot. Infestation. Mulch.

What can I grow from your life?
Teach me to tend it properly,
to bring your stunning black humor
to pink and fluttering flower.

This is all we can do for each other.
Nourish the root, year round, with gratitude
with respect for inevitable transition
for all these bountiful gifts
and those things we can pull from the dirt to eat

Enjoy this with wine and laughter at least once more
before we turn the giving garden
and tuck it, properly, in.

first late one.

re we really only five days away from December? Is Thanksgiving really tomorrow morning? This week, my house has been filled with boys and noise and a lot of joy. I hope everyone's been enjoying this November PAD Chapbook Challenge. I'll post more details about what to do next on December 1. Until then, keep poeming and being thankful for the muse.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a temperature poem. Remember: Temperature can mean the heat outside, the heat of something (or someone), or even the temperament of someone.


Hot. Warm. Cold.

At this point it's all about temperature
The cold sheets that turn to smolder some time
in the middle of the night
so I peel one layer than the other then the other
and the sleeping cap must come off
(sweetest gift I ever got that makes me cry and keeps me warm)

The outside, where the leaves fall, warmer than the inside
by far. Perfect day.
The inside - I can see my breath.

In each assessment of warmth, some question of
"am I loved?"

When its warm:
I think so, sure, yes
Lucky, lucky life

Too warm:
I think I can't breathe
I think I must leave
find a new house, new country, new everything
furniture, boots, name, past.
I must go. Soon

Too cold:
I don't know if I can do this
all by myself
get warmer
here, inside,
all by myself.

Here's the last "Two for Tuesday" prompt in November:

Prompt #1: Take the phrase "Everybody says (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of the poem, and write the poem.

Prompt #2: Take the phrase "Nobody says (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of the poem, and write the poem.

..
Everybody says, "We should get together."

Well. Yes. We should get together.
A little miracle it is that each moon
passes over your head passes over my head
(not so far apart - your self, my self)
but still we say, we should get together
each pushing the leaves off our path
and shoveling into the snow of the neighbor next door
not making a path quite long enough,
not on purpose stepping up to the door and knocking
"Hello!" - we say so rarely, but still we are surprised to see,
when we finally meet somewhere by accident,
that the other is aged, just a bit.
Time has passed. When did that happen?
That shouldn't happen. We should catch that
before it happens.
We should get together.
Soon.

But because we don't. We get old.
Without each others' laughter in our ears.

So we don't, don't get old.
We should get together.


•••••• 

Nobody says, "How was it? Take your time. Tell me how it was."

No. Compress your life into little anecdotes, please.
That don't take too long.
That soon will bore me.
How safe you are in the telling.
Nothing ever has happened to you and it shows.
Oh this, this is funny, kinda.
Oh this, yeah.
Heard it.
How safe you are in the telling.
Nobody says, "Tell me everything, every possible detail you can remember.
Grade school. Walking home. To what? What kind of day? Tell me how you felt, that day, what day and when, knowing (how?) you had to leave your childhood behind, if not then, soon. Where is that person now?"

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem filled with noise. Or, at least, it should involve noise. There's all manner of noise you could write about: traffic, celebration, panic, nature, etc. You could even write about the space between noises.



In the steam room when the steam stops
its histrionic exhaling
there is no sound
the door has vanished
peace
hot
a water drop
my inbreath
no sound
sweet minutes of nothing
as no one
nowhere.

the door sucks open
someone enters
not even a shape
just a vague darkness
that can't see me

it is polite to make a small noise
when you too are not even a shape
but a vague lightness
breathing up there in the corner
without making a sound

breathe out your drama.
make it heard.
aaaaaaaaaah.
shapeless
present.
peace.

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 22
Posted by Robert

For today's prompt, write an emergency poem. Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes an emergency, so these poems could be about anything from zombie attacks to running out of ketchup.

Here's my attempt for the day:

I will die today.
That's an emergency, surely.
But what can I do?
My heart leaps in my chest.
No one knows how happy I am.