not doing the prompts.  can't seem to get into that anymore.
trying to invent a new kind of writing instead.
fun last night in the mad laboratory.

Day 7

For today’s prompt, write a poem describing a scene in which two or more people interact without speaking.

Day 6

Write a Left Poem.

Write a Right Poem.

You left.
You were right.

(badaboom).

Day 4

“Just Beneath (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write the poem.  Possible titles include “Just Beneath My Feet,” “Just Beneath This City,” or “Just Beneath the Surface.”


Just beneath these words
is the space of the future

The geese outside fly through
space, creating time

In all this time of not loving
I have loved one minute

right into the next
so that just beneath

my love is light
that flies through the universe

without a sound and still says
love

it is all
you will ever begin to know

There is no such thing
as surface.

Day 3

It could be a scary movie or ghost story poem. It could be a poem about a secret in your past. It could be a poem about your worst fear. It just needs to bring up a scary/fearful/uncomfortable emotion as you write.


(Not in the mood, but okay... trying to catch up in a hurry!!)




She, shaking, screams, "There they are again!"
and the high air traces with rockets and her friend is there, kneeling before the panicked, terrified girl.

I kneel before you.  Even after you're gone now and I tell you, "It will be okay. It will be okay."
I hold your ghost hand atremble and can tell, by the air, how it whistles, that the hit will be direct 

forevermore
all will fall as dust around this true and useless, still-kneeling, care.

Day 2

Write a full moon poem. The full moon might be a character or symbol in the poem. Or the poem might address what happens during a full moon: magic, mischief, madness, etc.


Tides

Pull on this inhale
and expose the dancing, tumbling shells
fragments
little parts of the self, insecure
or not wanting to be seen
scrambling to dig into the cover 
of the seen-now psyche
vanishing in little bubbles, shy  

and this
this exhale
Pull 
and from me
my brevity
details
this name and the edges
of this body
day after day pull, 
my small history pulled

Out now
deeper

Drawn and smoothed
under your light
dispersed wide
given of and into everything

the window
the ocean
this self
the same

November Chapbook Thingy - Day 1.

Shall I try this one?  Haven't been doing so well on the last ones and I'm already behind.  Just thought of it.  But i would like to finish my damn 'Invention of the Eye' book.  So...
 Gonna try to catch up!

--Write a matches poem. The matches could be sticks that make fire. Or it could be matches from a game. Or the verb of “to match.” Or as in the phrase “He’s not a good match for you.” Or whatever other match you can make.--


Matches  ....  good start, Lala!


...

Match(ed)

The most important moment of my life
it seemed or seems
sometimes
when all my story falls away and I am left
with my life alone

In my life
in my body
I looked at who
was seated next to me
at the wedding party table.

Spirit
Looking directly into me
His eyes
their eyeliner
singular soul
Of a sudden not so much love exactly
as a comet
crashing into our dinner table.
We don't flinch.
A moment -
as if there had never
before been
a true
present.

There you are.

Here.
Here you are.

The next thing to do
is to smile
and say hello
as if we weren't
as connected
as the moon and her
light
as deep space and
deep distance
as look
and recognition.

Whatever that is.

It is rare.

Once.

Him

as if he
is the only
was ever the only
simple actual
Now.

The 10k this weekend went very, very well.
Who knew?
Didn't even mess up my hair!

Day 11

For today’s prompt, pick a season (any season) and make it the title of your poem; then, write your poem. For instance, your poem might be titled “Winter” or “Spring” or “Rabbit Season” (if you have a sense of humor and like Looney Tunes cartoons).

Pomegranate Season

The first - one cracks open with great hope
as it has arrived - the season -
To find the seeds located where they should be
white and numerous
pointless
thin in all things

They don't know themselves

Soon they have done their time
their little seeds are little rubies
and their taste
near

I used to stand on the studio balcony
above the traffic.  Later I sat
Later I sat inside
letting time stitch me more
into the burgundy background 
of my story
-part of the tapestry rolled up against the wall
turned on itself and weighty
with beauty and history
all intricacy
fulllness
all fullness

Then sometimes it happens
the not-too-big big one you bring home and 
cut and it bleeds
all over your counter
into the grout and down
the face of the cabinets

So that every thousandth part
is true
is full

The wrinkled outer skin has little bearing
The juice is the thing
Sweet and seedy
and filling the mouth
The season of the fullest self
The spilling forth
The giving
The staining of
the pouring forth
Just what happens
when the fruit is opened
treasure box
at the right time.

Day 10

Okay; we’re somehow already a third of the way through April. How did that happen?

Today’s “Two-for-Tuesday” prompts are:

1. Write a Forest poem.
2. Write a Tree poem.

Why such a need
when words want and bore
to wander through a foggy avenue
of towering living things,
living things
through sun and fog and dark and light
and wind and rain and fires and centuries
otherwise undelimited
- if lucky-
by stories and effects of men

A more pure aging
with the turning earth
than our fretful measurements
and needs of the unmet
and dryish roots and folded arms
and mouths full of anecdotes
that aim to please
and don't too much.

The high owl alighting.

Humbling avenue
with no need of my ego
nor response to it
but height and green
through sun and fog and dark and light.
Release into a dialogue of scale
Dimension of height and time
and green

Simply enduring
Leafy conversation.
The owl detaches from the canopy
and ends a phrase that stirs me and starts
just then,
another.

Day 9

For today’s prompt, write a shady poem. I’ll leave the interpretation of this prompt up to you. It could be a poem that includes shadows and/or shading. It could be about a shady part of town or a shady person. Or well, something else.

Rue Aylmer

There was no shade in my dream, 
nor shadows, nor too much sun.

I lived again in Montreal.
I was in someone else's home by the St. Lawrence.
It was bright and lovely,
with high white walls,
and I redecorated it in my mind
and turned about, pleased, 
in a giant room for painting

I imagined filling it with life
as there was still time

and that is a great city 
why not live there?
and I walked out in it 
with a friend
and out of a street
behind me
a wave rose up made of street and shops for awhile
before liquifying and gaining height

and I saw my friend
her head poked out of the high curve of water
trying to breathe, okay, some forty feet above me
and I knew I'd have to dive into the wall of water
pushing towards me.

(they don't usually come from behind,
diagonally)

First I checked the low water near me for sharks.
It was perfectly clear. Just waterplants and a watersnake.
Indifferent to me.

There were no sharks in this dream.
There was no shade in this dream, nor too much sun.
And I was carried along
and the sidewalk leveled under my feet and dried
and I stood,
closer to some destination.

There is never shade in a dream, I think.
Nor sun.

But there are these cities.  Illuminated somehow and porous,
in time.
And someone living, for now, in the house I will return to
When I resume my younger life and choose for it
another direction.

I will stay in Montreal. 
And on Sundays go to the market.
I won't swim home.
I will just be home.
Painting in a light that casts no shadow.
And choosing yellow,
a lot of it.
And choosing tints.
Not shades.

Day 8

For today’s prompt, write a rejected poem. Despite some acceptances, many of my poems have been rejected for submission over the years–but that’s not quite what I mean by rejected poem. I’m more interested in poems that work the idea of rejection into the poem somehow. This could take the form of a poet lamenting rejection, though also a rejected friend or student or whatever.


This one
I could have gotten on my knees

did I?

I could have held onto his long calves,
- my face, a prayer between his knees,
and looked up to where he towered above and begged

I stood on a chair
did I ?  Still not as tall

I did.

I didn't climb down
and get down on my knees.
I stood on a chair.
A fool entirely.

And he, flushed with love
for another
And this, the only possible moment,
the only one, ever in the history of the world.
And I touching the wall between us
all night

Nothing under my sheets
not even me

Just want
That had swallowed the winter moon whole
with goodnight which meant no
which meant never which put love
out on a frozen field without shoes
without food or hope
the moon, gone swallowed
no hope
but to freeze
it would take hours
the need burning
and blazing 
in the blue cold
snowscape on this planet
turning
and the wall, beyond which he slept peacefully, in love,
seemed to be almost breathing
almost
touching me back.

Day 6 -= did this, non?

For today’s prompt, write a hiding poem. You could be hiding. Someone else could be hiding. Something could be hidden. Or maybe there could even be a hidden meaning. I’m flexible with any interpretations poets want to put on the prompt. Have at it.

did this.  i think.
.. next. 

l

Day 5

For today’s prompt, write a poem about something before your time. Maybe it’s a certain time in history. Or a type of music. Or a story that was shared by friends or

Mustard Sandwiches - a wobbly pantoum (gotta start somewhere... rebooting WriterSelf, these things: stretches).  and so...



Mustard Sandwiches 

If she never told me
Would it never have happened?
My father, so many belted bones,
walking, alone, from Germany to Paris.

Would it never have happened?
The light on his fine hair as he stepped onward
Walking, alone, from Germany to Paris
bending for water in an open creek with tiny white flowers bordering

The light fine on his hair as he stepped onward
and weary, slumped against a storeshop window,
blading mustard onto stale bread, later
bending for water in an open creek with tiny white flowers bordering

And weary, slumped against a storeshop window,
Inside the fat frau was buying cake, taking change.
Blading mustard onto stale bread,
he walked, so many belted bones, to Paris.

In the sunlight, direction.  To be there.  To see.
If she had never told me, would he have been
My father, so many belted bones.

Duchamp and Man Ray.

Interesting Man Ray quote: I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

our new home.  for a spell.


oopsie.  no photo.  will get to that.

. maybe .

okay.  there it is.
from the mews in Belgravia? (are you kidding me?!?)
stunning fortune.
one of the best trips ever.
more later.

. maybe .

didn't I come back here to start writing again?
....  the dream of _______with _______ and then stopping with a promise of starting again after I heard about the new writing he was doing.  and after a promise of a 'tennis' meetup.  nice.  Later, another part, driving on Revolution Road, on the left side for awhile as if I was still in England, then not, then around the bend.  stopped on the spot it was so gorgeous.  a whole tree-filled, light sparkled pennisula stretching out before us, like Pt. Reyes does from the Sky Trail.  Framing it in the camera to see a selection of the shape of California laid down there, the bend at its waist, the collasal beauty of it.   much much more.

later.

. maybe .

Day 4

For today’s prompt, take the phrase, “100% (blank);” replace the blank with a new word or phrase; make the new phrase the title of your poem; and then, write your poem. 


100% Water


In the dream
the usual high waves
threaten, boringly. 
and a guide emerges
enthusiastically indicating a tunnel
of water 
through the water


an easy way through.
I can see all the way through
- a very clean channel
out to the depths


I can swim well enough but
I think ahead and don't
want to be touched 
by fish or fins or limbs or scales
or teeth


not underwater


The guide says, "Inevitable.  So don't go"
and so I don't go.


I stay behind and clean a sitting room
using way, way, way too much water
pushing high stacks of water off the chairs
with a useless broom


And when people come for lunch
I am still there
waist-high 
serving water
drying the tables with a wet towel
asking people, one by one,
"Thirsty?"

day 3 - way behind. not sorry about that

For today’s prompt, there are actually two options, because it’s Tuesday, which means a “Two for Tuesday” prompt. They are:

• Write an apology poem, or…
• Write an unapologetic poem.

Your choice. You can be sorry–or not. Or write about someone who is sorry–or not.






Afternoon Nap


I wake to eternity straddled above me

two hard pulses
like through my chest

and I seize
back into my middle-aged body

my heart mid leap
my vision straddling some web
of stars or folded dunes or webs,
or schools of iridescent smelt
or more of a story

hold me

my life mid
extending away into four
(at least)
dimensions around me

It is two in the afternoon
and I have no children to attend to

I have just what my empty hands can build.

I run them over the nap-warm sheet
and they travel where they will
feeling as
awake
they want to do

I could apologize for that.
Beyond the dissipation of that
especially breath
earned
waited for

over
starts the enormity
that will devour me.

That's nothing to apologize for.
I am not much more than light.

Flickering:

Out.
Ecstatic.

Out.

Just typed in

all the april prompts.  I guess I'll try it all - just one month late.

Almost popped in here for a bit to jot down my series of nightmares.
['him' in the half-bathtub by the door.  the tattooed baby. etc. etc.]
I should have.  They were very detailed and frightening.


Gonna go garden for a bit.
Nice having Mondays off but there is so much to do always and catch up on.  So hard not to feel like a rat on a wheel.

I don't seem to be doing the poetry thing.

I dunno.  Maybe I'll double up after the weekend.  I do want to get the manuscripts done/out.

Remaining a bit overwhelmed at work.  Decompressing post show.  All I want to do is organize stuff - espec. the studio.   It's such a great space.  I hope to not have to let it go.  Need to redo the mad laboratory at home as well.

Conceptualizing the next phase.
A percolating restlessness indicates changes, maybe many, maybe some very fundamental ones.
 - Different thinking, in any case, is required and begins to kick in.

Here I am!

I hope the challenge has been giving you plenty to write so far. I can’t believe I’m already 6 poems deep into April (and today’s poem is probably my favorite up to this point).

For today’s prompt, write a hiding poem. You could be hiding. Someone else could be hiding. Something could be hidden. Or maybe there could even be a hidden meaning. I’m flexible with any interpretations poets want to put on the prompt. Have at it.

Playing hide and seek
with the little one we would count
one to twenty
slowly, knowing that was way too much time
feeling her, right near

And then we would look,
"Where could she be?"
And from next to the pillar
next to us
right away she would call out,
"Here I am!"

It's what I want to do.
Say that, stay near, be found.

But I am so well hidden
so cleverly blended in
and quiet, quiet
I don't even know
if anyone is still looking for me.

i'm so far behind

on this dang thing.
do I even bother to try and catch up?

we'll see.
thought I could do it after (a surprisingly very nice easter dinner) but I'm feeling a little stoopid.  and happy.

maybe a bath and an attempt.
maybe just a bath.

nice day though.
thank you universe.

do I make it up that I hear "you're welcome"?

probably. yet
i feel welcome.

mmmm.
thanks again.
. peace .

April Poem a Day Challenge - Day 2

We got off to a fast start yesterday, which is great! Now, let’s jump into Day 2. (Also, if you left any comments that needed moderated yesterday, they should now be approved.)

For today’s prompt, write a visitor poem. The poem can be from the point of view of a visitor–or the people receiving the visitor. The visitor could be expected or unexpected. The visitor could be welcome or unwelcome. The visitor doesn’t even have to be human.

The Visitor


I don't remember him knocking.
I don't remember inviting him in.


I don't know how long he has been here
or if we know him from somewhere.


He is dusty and tired.  I don't know how old.
His head is bowed down toward the plate


that we fill
and take away.


He doesn't speak or move
otherwise.


He is just there with us now.
Sometimes when I wake


Early, he is up
Turned toward the window


looking at the fog, the road.
I wonder sometimes if he will leave us


Someday and we will never have seen his face.
He will vanish as fog, into fog.

April Poem a Day Challenge - Day 1

And so it begins! Today is the first day of the 5th annual April PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge on Poetic Asides. I can’t believe we’re turning five!

For today’s prompt, write a communication poem. The communication could be dialogue between two (or more people); a postcard correspondence; a letter; a voicemail; a text message; a series of tweets; or whatever. Heck, I guess a poem is a form of communication–so there’s really no way to screw up today’s prompt (outside of writing nothing at all).

[already doing catch up but that's okay; there's a LOT going on!]

okay uh. 

The Fool

You talk to me by throwing a bicycle down in my path

Or showing me that what I think is a shooting star

is a plane falling out of the sky.

And so I know my fear.

Past and Future.

You tell me something

by placing a harlequin jester

there in my living room.

He takes me by his velvet-gloved hand

And pulls me, gently.

I don't know what you mean

by that

but I think

it has to do

with now.