21

For today's prompt, write a second thoughts poem. You could have second thoughts about something you've done or thought in the past. You could write about someone (or something) else having second thoughts. Or you could even take a poem you wrote earlier in the month and flip it in a new direction.


Or Not

I could take him back.
Him, meaning ________
with ________ meaning
any of them.

I could get married.
I could learn to sew and visit his kids in the rental
or prison or bring plastic chairs for the porch
and share pictures of the rescue cat.
I could prepare taxes and vote Republican
I could arrive to the airport four hours early.
I could cook steaks and macaroni salad.
I could talk and talk and talk
on the phone, by the curb, anywhere
to anyone, for hours.

I could be just be there.
I could look out windows
like a wife.
A lot.

I could wait for him to come home
Or wait for him to leave.

I could take him back.
Him, meaning ________
with ________ meaning
any of them.

I could still have somebody else's life.

22

For today's prompt, write an "only one in the world" poem. This only one in the world might be a person, an animal, a place, or an object. Think of someone or something unique and write.

There is only this poem
Only the one
Copy, paste
Miss it

This one has space after each letter
Nothing but space
a lot of it
Nothing but future
Who knows how much
This poem is like my living
my right now

Everything else is past.
Even now this.

Poetry Challenge - 20

For today's prompt, write a message in a bottle poem. Imagine that your poem is being rolled up and put in a bottle for someone to read. Or if you want to come at it in a different way, think of it as a poem left in a time capsule or hidden away in your sock drawer.


Message in a Bottle

What's rolled up and put in a bottle?
The last bottle bobbing towards us.
Finally - after all these years.
What does the final note say?
In whose soft narrator voice is it read to us?

I'm not a bad person, it says,
in her voice, then his, then hers,
over and over again.
I'm notta badpers on
I'm not taba dperson.
I'mnottab adper son.
I'm just sick.

A waste of a note.

That went without saying
without curling
and keeping it
in the empty, echoing negative space
of the over-tipped bottle.

Why say that
when I need a message
so badly?

I need a message.

I need one.

Tell me what I don't understand.
Why were you sick?
And why are you still talking to me through a bottle?

19

Today is a "Two for Tuesday" prompt. In fact, it's one of my favorite prompts of each challenge. Poets can:

1. Write a love poem.
2. Write an anti-love poem

hmm.  not feeling too thrilled with the prompts this time around, but will carry on...
... maybe later...

okay okay.

One Hour

This is not a love poem.
This is a massage poem.
I've never seen the man before in my life
I still haven't seen him
but I see his blue chinese shoes as I stare down
through the round hole
in the table
his feet splayed on either side of my vision.
He is very close.
I am very close to him.
Everywhere he touches me
my past rises up to the surface of my skin.
There, there.
Everything hurts
His hands are fire turned water
rolling my needs like stones
in a fast current down the length
of my back.

I am his forever
or for an hour whichever comes first.

Forever comes first.
He returns back to the source.
I didn't know where to find it.
He goes right there and presses
holds and holds and holds
until in my surrender
I finally surrender
and with a breath
dissipate
into peace and have
no name.

none

at all.

Poetry Challenge - Day 18

For today's prompt, take the phrase "Like (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title to your poem, and write your poem. Some example titles might be: "Like Superman," "Like Criminals," "Like a Poem," "Like Whatever," etc.


Like New

The crocus doesn't know
the world is going to hell

This slate grey sky doesn't know
its silver clouds look wan and tired.

The discovered species

is not new to itself
(bug with the giraffe neck)
(odd)

The worm does not know
it was Richard. (kind-of)

I cut it in half with a shovel.
I am sorry.

But part of it crawls off
in its very first moment.

shocked, alive
like new.

Poetry Challenge - Day 17

For today's prompt, write a big picture poem. [...] it's the perfect time to attempt something big--even if your big picture poem fits within a shadorma or fib, which actually might be a great fit for tackling a big picture since the poem expands with each new line.

Fibonacci poetry was founded by Gregory K. Pincus last year as a 6-line poem that follows the Fibonacci sequence for syllable count per line.
For the 6-line poem that means:

• 1 syllable for first line
• 1 syllable for second line
• 2 syllables for third
• 3 syllables for fourth
• 5 syllables for fifth
• 8 syllables for sixth

first
change
after
the way is
the way it just is
- once something is done it is done