Poetry Challenge - Day 10

For today's prompt, write a horror poem. Make it scary. Make it cheesy. Make it funny. Whatever you do, link it somehow to horror. Who knows? Maybe someone will write the next great raven poem.

The Plot

It happened on a Saturday.
It's always a Saturday.
The Chopper comes.
We don't know why. Some say Sunday.
Maybe.

But I've told you.
Why do you like to hear it again and again?

There was that long horrible shadow.
We were hiding in the dark, but somehow
it got darker.

That fast - ah!
God - and i didn't bleed
not a bit
I curled and turned and
watched half of me wriggle away
writhing in pain and I was too.

I am two, now.
We are.

It was horrible, can I stop now?

It's hard.
This is not what I wanted out of life.
I always wanted to be
- you know -
just a simple worm.

You just don't see it coming.
That's all I can say.

Poetry Challenge - Day 9

For today's prompt, write a self-portrait poem. Other artists study themselves to create compositions (not all of them exactly flattering either), so it is only natural that poets, who are word artists, write self-portrait poems from time to time. In fact, some poets make self-portrait poetry "their main thing." For at least today, make it yours.

Sepia Girl

There was a drawing of me
For so long, for years, I could look
and move and match my reflection
precisely to that open, clear, ready face

I looked exactly the same
I looked at myself and
saw myself

I haven't seen the drawing in years
If I found it and brushed away the dust
in that floating dust between that sepia girl
and who looks at that face now,
who moves her face to try to match it

is the story
that tells of the difference
and of the reasons for it.

Poetry Challenge - Day 8

For today's prompt, pick a tool, make that the title of your poem, and write your poem. There are the more obvious tools, of course: hammer, screwdriver, wrench, etc. But there also less obvious tools and/or specialized tools available as well. Before attacking this poem, you may want to just think about the various possibilities first. Or just write.

Stud Finder

Better than knocking on wood

Poetry Challenge - Day 7

For today's prompt, take the phrase "Until (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem. Possibilities include: "Until we meet again," "Until tomorrow," "Until monkeys fly out my butt," or even "Until blank" (why not?). Until we meet again, have a great Wednesday!


Until (blank)

I could never tell (blank)
what I dreamt (though I'd like to) (kind-of)
I couldn't tell him I saw him in (blank)
I saw him seeing me
and not just there, but (blank) and in (blank)

There was (blank) between us. Impossible not to feel it.

I was shy and left quickly and climbed up the (blank) streets
I looked up and saw (blanks)
- how did they get there?
he made them, brilliant!
they move. it is impossible
and below a woman shakes out a white sheet
high up in the otherwise (blank) sky.

Here he comes
he is so close
so close
near my neck
his touch so natural
(blank) he says, softly,
close,
so quietly into my ear
I can feel his lips as he whispers
"I never have been attracted to you."

I say, "Oh!"
Blank, I say, "Oh!"
"That'so ...."

I walk away or stumble (blank).

Poetry Challenge - Day 6

Today is the first Tuesday of April, which means it is also the first "Two for Tuesday" prompt of the month. Poets can choose to write one of the prompts, or they can write both. Personally, I usually just choose one.

For this prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. According to John Drury's The Poetry Dictionary, ekphrastic poetry is "Poetry that imitates, describes, critiques, dramatizes, reflects upon, or otherwise responds to a work of nonliterary art, especially the visual." So, I've provided links to two pieces of art, and I want you to pick one (or both) to write an ekphrastic poem. (It would be helpful for you to mention which art you picked.)

1. Pocahontas, by Annie Leibovitz
2. Flight of the Witches, by Francisco de Goya

I'll try to write twice about the last one; once without reading up on it at all. One after. ... time permitting. I love it! Love Goya! Here it is:























Who is there

Darkest night
Terrible
This is when it happens

I clutch my head and cry into the dirt
Oh horrible sound - happening.
Horrible truth - happening. Not him -What have I done?
Not done?
Horrible night!
I am face down in the dirt and can smell it.
I have never felt more alive.

No more than a dumb beast, I witness
He there, She there, He there, Them.
Them rising.
That sound.
I don't understand
I will hold still until I am seen and needed.
I am not moving.
I am not going anywhere.
I am not going to move or be seen.
I have never, until now, held this still.

My shawl is just over me, for no reason, now.
I hold it gently.
I won't see. There is much to do.
There is no reason to look up. No reason to look back or
remember. I don't know what is happening.
Nothing is happening.
I have never known until now how much there is that I must do.




••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
and commentary: the struggle between the neatly ordered reality proposed by science and the fantasy-filled hallucinations of the imagination severely destabilized 18th century individuals. We can sense this struggle in Flight of the Witches. Being an educated man himself, Goya believed firmly in the illuminating power of rationality that the Enlightenment brought to a Europe darkened by superstition. At the same time, we sense his deep attraction to this sinister side of the imagination. The painter explores the dark caves of the mind that resist being enlightened and which constantly threaten our psychological balance.


not too thrilling. could write about it.
going skating instead.

Poetry Challenge - Day 5

For today's prompt, write a TMI poem (or too much information poem). As with all prompts, there are a number of ways to come at this one. You can make it about gossip or revealing too much personal information. You could write an information overload poem. Or...well, I'm interested to see what everyone produces.


Hell is murky

So fast going in.
She falls before he hears the report.

(Though, as he remembers, her black hair lifts up
slowly as if in a wind and the mountains are blue
through the window)

The lie must be earned slowly
with the jackknife
and how it sounds
and the bone and how it sounds.
cut away from the slippery bullet
Who would have thought the young girl
would have so much blood in her.

No one wants the facts of war.
No one wants to hear how he got the bullet back
or how it rolled
around
red in his hand.

Look how he rubs his hands.

watch your step there, Daisy!

April Poetry Challenge - Day 4

For today's prompt, write a history poem. This could mean a poem about your country's history, the history of an event or a tool, or even your own personal history.


The History of Negligence

All things are fruitful.
There is no escaping that.
Even the lack of care
generates stacks of wet cardboard
earth pushing up through foundations
plastic rings
cracking toys
scum filled rubber tires
a sense of loss of meaning

in the periphery
of the lack
of any caring gaze

abundance

a weed taller than the man
healthy offspring of neglect

ready, already, to spawn.