Alright.  world's fasted catchup.  well then.  time for soup.

19lovepoem

For today’s prompt, write a love poem.

I can only hope you know

as I will never tell you.

It is not fatal

but it is serious.

It is not serious

but is sweet.

That you are there

though never here

matters.

It matters more than most things.

You are a direction, perhaps not mine,

but for you I align and sing and go on.

18weirdone

For today’s prompt, write a “forget what I said earlier” poem. This poem could be a response to a poem you wrote earlier in the challenge (or just earlier in general). Or it could cover one of those moments–I have them all the time–when you say something that ends up proving wrong or that you wish you’d taken back.

(weird one).

Forget what I said earlier.

I'm a damn liar.

I can use a shotgun.

I keep a holster under my dress.

I have no particular fondness

for the clink of a tea cup

or for the sound of boots up the back steps.

I don't see things like you do.

And I don't care about that. 

Or about you much.

We're blood.

That's all.

I bequeath you my wrists

their quickness.

Don't believe the stories.  Go.

Give me back to my time.

17 - element of sleep

For today’s prompt, write an element poem. Maybe an element from the periodic table (hydrogen, oxygen, etc.). Maybe an element of surprise?!? Or a missing element, which could refer to a person, tool, or poem. Run wild with it.

The Element of Sleep

I came up with this title
whenever it was I awoke
and however I did I thought
that sleep is only knowable
in the return from sleep
in the reconstruction of the self
using wanweed and the cry of an egret

and from this and fabric
the touch of fabric

you put together your entire
story

and when you stand on your feet
cold, little,
and separate the blinds
and see no one there
not one soul stirring
you know you are back

because the sidewalk is wet
and it is real and for awhile
you, yourself, were not.
or you were
and now you are not.

but the tree is there
and that means a lot
and everything
- all of it -
is okay.

16 - Half Way

For today’s prompt, write a half-way poem. The poem might deal with a half-way point in time. Or perhaps, a place in the dead center of here and there–in a physical sense. Even a compromise on terms in a negotiation can work.

Halfway in catching up?

Carrying on....


Half Way

I wonder if I was right
- too drunk to be swimming, testing irony there - 
when, in a river in Vermont, in the middle of summer, in the middle of the night I knew
I was RIGHT in the middle of my life.  The exact moment.  That exact pass of water.

I sank under, testing
would my iron heart would sink me

- why did it not? - 
my chest filled with the lead of her name
my veins circulated, barely, black-thickened wine
my despair was a rock, weighty and wet
that was to be my name, alone until the end.

What did I want?  To be at the end
and not in the middle?

I felt for sure the star above - I could see it from under the surface -
 was the star
I should see RIGHT in the exact middle of my life

and to prove it
I didn't drown too.

15 - what I knew

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “What (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “What Luck,” “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas,” “Whatever You Say,” and so on.



What I Knew

I was an odd child who was in love.
This I knew and I knew
I loved the distressed mess of oak leaves
that a peacock brushed through during the night
that ochre field greyed shuffled under electric blue, night-greyed
that the rain was love, was in love
with the leaves under the leaves
that the worms
and the spiders under the snapped and fallen branches
were as perfect as the words
"I love you"
and that no words were needed
not ever
there when I was ten, silent,
acknowledging each piece of color
as I could, arranging them in my lap,
in the bowl of my cotton dress,
with care according to how much
for them I felt.

14 - explorationpoem

For today’s prompt, write an exploration poem. Maybe you’re exploring a new land, the depths of quarks, outer space, the mind, the soul, etc. Your call. In fact, it could be said that most poems are an exploration of one sort or another. So get at it.


Turn out all the lights.
There is no light.

Grope up a surface, there cold,
there colder.

In the dark, the mind knocks out the back wall.
A wind doesn't rush in, but a space is then there available.

You are on the floor, kneeling.  You feel the tile and know exactly
when it turns to ice.

You know there will be no door here ahead.
The door is behind you.

But what there is now is sky.  So much of it -
  the possibility of being lifted

from the surface of the world
into a dimension

that is as close as a hand brushing your cheek
that is the same in all aspects

as the real, but

there is something.

Don't ask.
Be lifted.
Turn into the new field.
Understand light as something

invisible.

13 selfhelp poem

For today’s prompt, write a self-help poem. It can be written in the style of a self-help article or book. Or you can take it in a more subtle self-help direction.

Gonna hafta knock these out.  Well, okay.



If I wrote this poem about me
it would be about trying to figure out
what to do, how hard it is, when you have
more or less
everything
to know what to try to figure out

when the soft pillow can prompt questions
of meaning, meaninglessness,
of contribution, failure to contribute,
when the rain can lonely measure
some possible better use
of the night.

Instead, I try to see her
having not stopped hoping but stopped looking
actually looking under planks and tossed fronds
, bent signs for her second child.

No one is coming
No one is returning.

The sea is flat and there are no clouds.
The water flaps at the shore.
I can't see her face.
She is busy.  She must help herself now.
Her every move is important.
And how she thinks, matters.

We have nothing in common.

oh phoo.
seriously falling behind.