We Interupt this Poetry Challenge...

for the real thing

Poetry Challenge - Day Something

For today's prompt, write a snapshot poem. When I think of snapshot, I think of a photograph or painting still life. The poem would bring this particular moment to life. However, if you have another interpretation, I encourage you to follow your muse.

Wild Mustard. 1972

Obviously the eye is a camera
But at nine
looking out the car window of our VW bus
at a yellow hill near Oaxaca
I took my first conscious picture
became a camera
saved a still

I learned to do that
at that moment
frame it
mean it
need it
take it
keep it

you can't keep everything
you can't keep
the boy with the one toe
or the mosquitos and the fisherman's nets
or the cave and its rivulets
or the marshmellows sold individually at the shack
at the curve of the road
two pesos or the smell of piss around the zocallo benches
or the pink spotted balloon, beloved King
who lost air
and skidded on the ground, tragic
or the firework trees or the horses' wet backs
as we galloped over the horizon
in Morelia - three of four of us running for our lives
(another story altogether)
one with snapshots seared in
not taken

to take the conscious photograph
you decide what is important
what you will keep within you forever
not the slurred plea and the body bumped and knock
pounded on the door, door giving
not the wooden window opening
the car starting,
the gravel
her terror

don't take too many
but take a Mexican hill
overrun with wild mustard

brilliant
perfect
yellow
singing
forever

got it.
just like that.

Poetry Challenge - Day 15

For today's prompt, write a profile poem. When I think of a profile poem, I'm thinking of social media profiles. Personally, I have one for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other sites like the Writer's Digest Community website. So you could write a poem that is your own profile, or that of another person (like what would Edgar Allan Poe or Emily Dickinson put in their Facebook profiles). Of course, I'll accept other takes on the prompt, such as describing a physical profile, or a piece on criminal profiling, etc. As always, the main thing is to write a poem.

Wave

They were so very small
the people I loved
their silhouettes - black against the sunset
separating from the black of the sea cliff rocks
barely

The smallest movement
a stretching
a brushing of blown hair away from the face
and I could tell sister from mother from friend or friend

How well we know each other
even when great distance makes us almost
disappear

a little limp or a habit of turning
precious - registered somehow in the tiny shape
and I bend down to poke at the sand
or dig after a creature burrowing at the disappearance
of the edge of a wave
and they say, oh

that's Laura, look
that little dot

where?

there
see?
follow the little river.
see the kelp?
the wave is pulling back. see.
there.

That's her. Ha.
I wonder if she can see us.

Wave.

Poetry Challenge - Day 14. this is going by fast....

For today's prompt, write an "ain't none of my business" poem. This poem could be about something that is none of your business. Or a poem about something with which no one else should be concerned. It could be a poem about someone ignoring something that maybe they shouldn't. It could be a poem that's silly. Or a poem that's serious. It ain't none of my business what you decide to write about, though I admit I'll still be interested to see what develops.


Hush Little Baby

She's so young.
Really. Not just young. So very young.
Her sleeping bag has flowers on it.
She stands like she did in her lessons. Fresh and focused.
And is fresh and focused. Like a daughter.
A good girl. I don't care. I don't.
(not I do, but I'm just saying I don't. I don't).
I don't know why.

It's none of my business. And none I want, honey.
But I see your sad face
staring a whirlpool into your teacup
You, wearing the blues like you have/had
for decades before she was crawling
around corners - pretty baby.

You're on the patio. Not turning on the lights
the dimming of the day
the tea, cold and still in its cup
the cold blue light coming from the gas station

one more cigarette

beautiful mercy

change the time signature
and play it again
just play it again

Poetry Challenge - 12 (late)

Write a form poem. This could be a sonnet, pantoum, lune, or even something as sinister as a--dare I say it--sestina. If you need a list of poetic forms and there rules, click here.
Write an anti-form poem. Just as there are poets who love playing with forms, there are poets who think they are the worst thing ever. That's fine. Express (in either free verse or a prose poem) your feelings on writing in traditional forms.

Limerick

Basically, the limerick is a five-line poem consisting of a triplet split by a couplet. That is, lines 1, 2, and 5 are a bit longer and rhyme, while the shorter lines of 3 and 4 rhyme. After studying many effective limericks, there is not a precise syllable count per line, but the norm is about 8-10 syllables in the longer lines and around 6 syllables in the shorter lines.

Upwards of 90%

There once was a House Representative
who was always outspoken, not tentative
caught plumping his numbers
he said, a bit dumber,
"Well, facts are just not what I meant to give."


oh well. cut print.

Poetry Challenge - Day 10 (late)

For today's prompt, write a never again poem. Maybe you'll never again fall in love or never again tell a lie. Or maybe, just maybe, you'll never again not write a sestina.(Like that? It's a double negative.) Today, find my poem in the comments below.

Never again

Who knows what never again?

Never again to awaken to the no-sound of snow?
Never again finish a novel, translated from Russian?
Never again look down from a monument
on the tourists pouring out from the bus?
Or to fly over an ocean or to get a letter
with a flower pressed
crumbled within?

Never again

Could be
closer

Never again to move the shoes
Never again to turn out the light
Never again to hold a cup warm in my hands
and say what will be today?

Never again to pull out the key
or put in the key or open a door.
It could be.
Until then this repetition
of key door letters light
shoes candles cup sheets

my body warm
and warming there
curled
breathing
blessed

ready

Poetry Challenge 13

For today's prompt, write a poem that remembers an old relationship. This relationship does not have to be romantic. It could be a departed (or estranged) family member, old friend, former teacher, or even just someone you briefly encountered. And the relationship may have even been one-sided or seemingly insignificant to the other person. So let's all dig deep into our memory banks and see what we can draw out today.

John

You washed out of the sea like a god
you did
I rubbed my eyes and you were there
strong and dripping, salty, glistening

and we talked as easily as if you'd started a sentence
before your swim and finished it
coming up to me

And in the evening you came over
in your white pilot's pants
funny and gorgeous. My word
and the air between us
shifted with the fireflies

and we sat by the pool
where my life later would end
and no one came to build a fire and we went in
and years went on

and you moved to Africa
and we met once in Italy
where I watched you walk across the piazza
like no one has ever walked before or since
silent - like your feet weren't on the ground

your walk
truly like you were walking on water
no one has such grace - easy, beautiful you
we smelled things in the apothecary
touched oil to our pulse
passed the honey and the cream

this long before the pool turned dark
this long before the car wreck
shattered your skull like a dove's egg

you could no longer fly
you could no longer say yes or no or love or water
or pool or see or sea and years went by
your body like on fire you said
later, when you had learned, from vowels to speak again
years we never saw coming
and the pool swallowed up my first life
- except my head so it wouldn't forget

I could have loved you. I did.
I could have lived in Africa next to your burning body.
They say a rogue wave got you.
I wonder.
If the pain was too much, it was.

But in the myth, the water took you
as it brought you. Another beautiful creature.
Another precious friend who could not breath water.
But tried and in trying, said, not help
but goodbye.
Too soon.

It is too late to start a fire and have you stay all night.

But I will light a fire
and hope you stay all night
Stay all night, or, silent, walk above me,
between the stars, in no hurry,
not touching the ground.
A shooting star is a firefly you show me
when we are still young and beautiful
and anything can happen.

Poetry Challenge - Day 11

For today's prompt, take the phrase "Maybe (blank);" replace the blank with a word or phrase; make the new phrase the title of your poem; and then, write the poem. Some example titles might be: "Maybe I should've read the instructions first," "Maybe I was wrong," "Maybe the world is flat," or whatever else y'all can muster. I admit that my brain is a little exhausted.



Maybe This Dissolution

Maybe this dissolution won't be in vain
The long line of history rolls out
like a dropped ball of yarn
unspooling, getting impossibly tangled

the ships canvas unfurls hard into the wind
the manuscript dries and the big book is shut
the protestors rip the glued posters from the wall
the painting sells for 45 million dollars
the blast shatters the amulet and the tablet and the tomb

the dead white male dies even more
the gallery space is empty and that is the show
hard acid takes the drummer all the way down
the human puppet is given the microphone
and brushed with blush and tells us there is us
and them and the day is coming
and the prostitute is six and seen around the world
smiling a little
and the poppy is scraped clean
as music writes itself in the Romantic idiom
and a chateau is made full-size out of pennies and gum
and the hive is in disorder
and the starfish was ashore
in the thousands
in the moonlight

and still the signs
'will work for food'

next to us is a dimension
it is closer than ever
the flat plane of ancestors
their pain, pleasure, purpose
dimensioned flat and spoolable like yarn
that can be knit
somehow into the shape of the new

we will awaken to one day
we will awaken someday
to something else
entirely

we will see the invisible
or wear it like skin
and then
we will have to give it
a name

and can say
we knew it all along
we saw it coming
we new there was something

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