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.