April Poetry Challenge - Day 3

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Partly (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and then write the poem.

Partly Clear

The medium asks me to look into the translucent stone
and tell her what I see
It is at this point I can choose to be more fun and invent
or to describe what I see, really.

It is not clear.
There is an orange light,
very rich,
- at the bottom grey

There is a little shape
there - that could be me
lying down
or floating

I can't see much
It looks like an eye

I tell her, "There is an orange light. At the bottom
it is grey. There is a shape there. I think the whole
thing looks maybe like an eye."

I feel dull and tired.

She takes the magic, translucent egg from me
Puts it in the water
and is adorable, at nine,
chaneling a spirit
directly
the one she will always wonder about.
the one I feel I am looking at
just smaller, again, but ahead of me, as always,
convinced in the moment.

How she ran ahead of me this morning
by the sea in the wind, a prancing gate,
turning back to check if I was following.
[Of course, you are little, again]
How she has made a stage for the fortune telling.
Her tiny bones. Long hair shaken. Sudden laugh.
Her little hands are the same.
Her serious stirring of the fortunes.

She hushes the room and moves the translucent egg-stone in the water
arriving slowly at the answer.

The room is quiet.
The medium, a servant of her gifts says:

"Sometimes the forces don't speak so directly.

There is a lot here to think about.
But the meaning is unclear."

April Poetry Challenge - Day 2

For today's prompt, write a water poem. The poem could be specifically about water or just include water somewhere within the poem. You could even write about water-based phenomenon, such as rainbows or water spouts.

[hilarious that this would be the theme of the day.... because it's so hilariously (kind-of) the theme of the day. Lala Gualala 4/2/10].



Whale Watching

There is water
between
myself and the water

There is water
there
arc crashing the last distance towards the land
and nearer, below me,
fast river pushing the last distance out towards the sea

Between myself and the sky
there is water
and around my feet
king's crowns drops
and from the hill down towards me
water sliding in arcs
and running down the grade
towards the river
and the rain blurred sea

There is water
around the whales I can't hope to see
and water
between myself and the sea
and between the river that's between myself and the sea

Water
between my heart and my bones
between my cells and their movement
- presence rivering throughout

Stay, staring. Root.

Between the mother whale
and the baby
water and water from the spouts
big spout and small fog-colored
pressured and high-sprayed
rain-blurred holding
and falling to join the churning
whale gone sea

I don't need to see them for them to be.
I won't.

Stay.

The whale gone sea is danced and blurred with rain.
I drip and shine
a coastal wildflower
fragile and stubborn
wet
clinging here in the rain
on the last feet of earth before the river
the last distance before the sea.

April Poetry Challenge - 1

Today is day one, and for some reason the number one made me think of "One is the Loneliest Number," by Three Dog Night. That's what happens when I create prompts while listening to the oldies music channel, I guess.

As a result, the prompt for day one is to write a lonely poem. The narrator could be lonely. Someone or something in the poem could be lonely. Or the poem itself could try to evoke a feeling of loneliness for the reader. Or, as in challenges past, you could take the poem in a completely unique direction.



Not lonely.
Alone.

The day is suddenly dark
Redwood dark, the ending of the day: inevitable
nowhere not shadow-soaked deep and deepening
readying then for darkness
for all that nighttime means
sudden

sun
lit field
wild mustard wide awake
field green folded velvet folded hill
road winding
shadow soak
sun flash
oak arc
moss light
lilting light

it is as if I am all alone in the world
as if this road
lilting breath
this new world
is mine

i am alone

with it.

Iceland

I just heard about this.
"Iceland Burnt to the Ground."
I feel sick.
I was just there last week, being coached in cutting a number 2 in prep for a wee spin.

I can't believe how upset I am, not just because I was reconnecting with my love of ice-skating but because the place was maybe the last homely, no bullshit place I can think of on earth that belonged to that world I know I came from but just have no proof of anymore. The benches were squeaky and the skates were years worn and nobody was very talented or good-looking, but they all looked rosy and alive and they still made hot chocolate and the ice was perfect and the air - that smelled of not this decade - was always sudden and cold and familiar and promising life without any pretense whatsoever.

I am just amazed at how upset I am.
Damn.


Crud.