For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The Other (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Some possible titles may include: “The Other Side of the Story,” “The Other Brother,” “The Other Hand,” or whatever else you concoct. And remember: I really don’t care if you bend or break the prompt in your favor. My prompts are just a starting place.
The Other Path
Sometimes the entire course of one's life
depends on
whether you catch that taxi
trip on a sycamore ball
stay sick one day more
wait five minutes
leave too soon
speak your mind, for once,
in public, speaking truth
to power.
If you invite someone to come along
so you are not alone you will linger
with them over Irish Coffee and not see
someone slipped on a sycamore ball,
someone you would have then met
and loved until the universe
ends.
But none of this is interesting.
The life unlived
in a different state
and state of being.
The meals untasted
or the books unread
or the way you would have
scraped the gunk off the plates
had you become a printmaker,
somewhere where it snowed,
where you would have had children
a faith of some kind -
at least a different discipline.
Every moment is the same.
It's a wonder we don't go mad.
I have not yet left the house today.
And that other life that won't now manifest
Dissipates as risen dew
and my mentor in how to live, how to be,
has finished his pancakes,
paid the bill and, just barely,
made the green light.
Sometimes the entire course of one's life
depends on
whether you catch that taxi
trip on a sycamore ball
stay sick one day more
wait five minutes
leave too soon
speak your mind, for once,
in public, speaking truth
to power.
If you invite someone to come along
so you are not alone you will linger
with them over Irish Coffee and not see
someone slipped on a sycamore ball,
someone you would have then met
and loved until the universe
ends.
But none of this is interesting.
The life unlived
in a different state
and state of being.
The meals untasted
or the books unread
or the way you would have
scraped the gunk off the plates
had you become a printmaker,
somewhere where it snowed,
where you would have had children
a faith of some kind -
at least a different discipline.
Every moment is the same.
It's a wonder we don't go mad.
I have not yet left the house today.
And that other life that won't now manifest
Dissipates as risen dew
and my mentor in how to live, how to be,
has finished his pancakes,
paid the bill and, just barely,
made the green light.
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