25

guess we got a holiday for 24.  Thanksgiving.

I wonder if I should go on with this.  Near the end but feeling bored with it.

For today’s prompt, please write a consumption poem. There are any number of things we consume as people, and even more if you think outside the human experience. Some are good, some not so much. But there’s so much consumption going on every single day that it’s a great topic for poeming.


Nope.  Just going to have a creepy cup of tea.  Thinking outside human experience I guess.

And another one:

23 - Also... just ghastly, but you know what. who really cares?

For today’s prompt, write a travel poem. Yes, I knew I’d be on the road today, so it was a no-brainer for me to decide on what today’s prompt should cover. You can come at traveling from any angle you wish, just be safe out on the roads.








Today is Thanksgiving.  I am in a country
that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.


I could be bumping along a small and smaller
and smaller now road
in the back of a Datsun pickup truck 
slamming into potholes that make me
eat my liver


Live chickens with me there.
Banana trees flying past.
The radio on - always -
full blast.


But no.
Where I am is very civilized.
The freeways are paved and dusted in salt.
The lettuce is fresh, the sodas, cold.
The natives are bundled and smiling.


But there is no pie today.


And so I find them
savages.

absolutely dreadful!!

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Whenever (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem. Example titles could be: “Whenever I write a poem,” “Whenever something good happens,” “Whenever never,” etc.

Whenever it is snowing and I am drinking coffee
I am happy

Whenever I am at a stop sign and I can feel
the bass pulse of the driver's bass next to me
I am not happy.

Whenever I am kissing
I am happy

Whenever not kissing
not not happy but

Reading/hair wet/happy
Untangling wires/unhappy

Looking at sheep/ happy
Looking at cows/ happy, a bit less
At bankers/unhappy
At lawyers/worse

Crisp sheets heavy blankets
body/cool/warm/good
First escaped, unauthorized thought

the whole moon
comes right up near my eye
obliterates my planet, my world, my bed, my sense


bodiless
body there
without edges at all


happy

22

Today is a Tuesday (but not the last one of November), which means there are two prompt. They are:

1. Pick a fruit, make it the title of your poem, and write the poem. Example titles include: “Banana,” “Kiwi,” “Lemon,” etc.
2. Pick a vegetable, make it the title of your poem, and write the poem. Example titles include “Pickle,” “Potato,” “Asparagus,” etc.

Really?  ah geez.  okay.  well I've been doing a poor job on this anyway - falling behind and jamming to catch up.

Not feelin this one, but here goes...

Not Rich

I still remember the two limes

and a bunch of cilantro I bought on 

on a corner food boutique on 

the Upper East Side

Madison Avenue

between the Whitney and the Met

back when I was in that neighborhood

most of the time, being served,

for free, venison and Beef Wellington 

and Jean Jacques' soufflés on a regular basis.

Twelve dollars and seventeen cents!

Eight cilantro leaves - arching up and out like a tiny bouquet 

held together by a ninth, in a bow,

assembled, no doubt, by a rail thin miss,

lovely and pleasant,

and two limes that looked like, like limes.

Who lives like this?

Twelve dollars and seventeen cents!

I'll never get over it.

20

For today’s prompt, write a best ever poem. Now, don’t stress out. I don’t expect everyone to write the best poem ever written–however, you’re allowed to aim for that if you wish. No, I’m asking you to write a poem about the best ever something. For instance, the best ever kiss, best ever dance, best ever party, best ever comeback, best ever moment, etc. Think about your personal “bests” and then write one (or three).

Lake Louise   11 • 20 • 11

Bit by bit

I lose sensation

but keep walking

around a bend

around a bend

away from all sound

all movement

My eyes still move

And my legs

And my eyes

Why must everything be

so beautiful?

On a frozen waterfall

in the distance

magnificent and dripping ice blue

I spy a little figure

half way up, armed

with just an ax

and his crampons

and no one looking

he would think

but me there

not making a sound 

in awe of all that has will

and all that needs none

l

19

For today’s prompt, write a “suspicious minds” poem. When I assembled these prompts more than a month ago, I considered this one of my more unusual (and more creative) prompts. Click here to see Elvis Presley perform this song. Anyway, I’m thinking there are a few ways to go with this prompt. One, write a poem in which the narrator is either suspicious of someone or is the actual one under suspicion. Two, write a poem that plays with repetition–as this song does. Three, write a poem that is a performance poem spectacular (as this song is here). Of course, you can always bend and blend the prompt as you see fit.


Free


Where I am now
There is a treadmill
on a level above a pool.
Glass makes the pool visible and in it
a woman who smiles and smiles
and her boy balances on a floating pad and falls off
and they laugh and smile.


She gazes to the end of the pool where
a man plays with his boy.


I think they are not married.
They are traveling together - the two couples 
and their children.  
And she is smiling and looking.
And a man comes behind her.
And she turns away from him.
Plays with the child.
Looks to the end of the pool.


The man is serious, follows her gaze
wants to touch her but 
he doesn't even try.  She dives away.


She emerges, smiling
at everything, but him.
She delights in the boy.
She looks to the end of the pool
for the other.  Her husband
gets out of the pool, unnoticed.


I run
and run


and run
from that.

18

For today’s prompt, write an “it’s too late” poem. Nobody likes a quitter, but sometimes you have to “know when to hold them, know when to fold them…” There are times when it’s just too late, and today is the day to write that poem–before it’s too late, of course.




Evil Spirit

The winds of Hell have sucked back into their caverns.
That cellar door is locked.
There is a bolder rolled over it
and a sea risen around it.

He snatched what he snatched
for this time
and it is too late now

to live in a world that had been
without him
or even to live in a world with him
anymore.

At the end, the neighbors would say,
"There she is!
Get inside!"
But it wasn't She.  It was He.
Wandering the surface of the world
for a time
feeling the edges of form
and the walls of the apartment hallway
and the turning points of the story
(in which there were children)
the life in the shared trembling body
- made impossibly thin -
again, on its little knees
and the defeat of the loving
drink-strangled heart.

Too late to sing.
Too late even to cry.
Too late to write anything after
the barely legible:
"Dear Faithful Friends."

He takes the pen
out of the weakened, determined hand
and calls that - the last word.

The winds suck back.
Water fills the lungs.
The boulder slides into place,
The sea rises.

The spirit retreats
to digest

all sweet promise
and

possibility.