30

For today’s prompt, write an inevitable poem. The poem that always had to be, or a poem about something that was inevitable. Maybe two people getting together was inevitable, or maybe two people splitting up was inevitable. But there are so many things that seem inevitable with hindsight.

l

29

For today’s prompt, write a do it again poem. This could be a poem about taking a mulligan or re-doing a mistake. Or maybe re-doing a magical moment. Or a poem for all those folks who like to ride roller coasters and get right back in line.

l

28

Four weeks in and only three days left. Boy, time flies! For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) News,” 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: “Good News,” “Bad News,” “Daily News,” and “Old News.” *****...

26

For today’s prompt, write a same poem. I guess it could be the same old poem, but it could be a completely different poem that looks at a person or thing or system that is still the same. Or maybe a poem about how all people are the same. Or take the “same” concept...

llll

25

For today’s prompt, you have two options:

1. Write a love poem.
2. Write an anti-love poem.

ugh. this one again.  why?

nah.  later.

24

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “I’ll Be (blank),” replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “I’ll Be Back,” “I’ll Be Late for Dinner,” and “I’ll Be a Monkey’s Uncle.”


I'll Be Brief.

I want you.

23 - alone poem

For today’s prompt, write an alone poem. Some people covet “alone time.” Others prefer not to be left alone. Many like a certain balance. But this doesn’t have to just be about people. Maybe a forest wishes to be left alone, or there is a product left alone on a store shelf (how the children’s story “Corduroy” begins).

what all these poems have been about it seems.  ...

Alone Poem

Sometimes it as if there is no such thing
because there is always this person there

It is spectacular how much time
I have spent alone

I still am learning to believe that sounds I make
with this mouth

can be heard
can carry meaning

And I mean that.
I come to you

Out of such remoteness as you would never believe
The sounds I make

are like shells knocking over one another
in the white, tumbling surf - that clack of need or

nothing but
life happening

or like the space between a window and
its ledge - a distance that matters

or like where an animal's breath
becomes more forest

than animal and I
have spent so much time alone

only when you are alone
do you have any chance of knowing me

grossly far behind again -- dang it

won't catch up in time, but will by the end of my vacation.

il faut que ca suffit. ....with a circumflex...

22

For today’s prompt, write a release poem. Maybe somebody’s being released from prison or a contract. Maybe a person is signing a release form. There’s emotional and physical release. Animals capturing and releasing other animals. Trees releasing leaves in autumn. And so on. ***** Get your poetry published! Learn how to get your poetry...


The gate is open
and you don't run.

The gate is open.
Run!

Run!
but you don't.

Dumb animal.
You stay.

You could go.
You stay.

And would be beaten.
Would be left.

Would be forgotten.
That's what happens where you stay.

But. you are not beaten
You wait.

You wait.
And no one brings you harm.

The gate is open.
There is no one even to forget you.

If the gate closes,
it closes.

You are there
still - still.

Still
still.

21

For today’s prompt, pick a direction on the compass, make it the title of your poem, and write that poem. North, South, West, and East are easy directions. Then, there’s Southwest, Northeast, and so on. Then, there are the directions that are completely invented.


East, then, I guess.


East then.
It was to be north.
So far north you couldn't believe.
I couldn't believe.
Why, even?

And then it was
straight into the dark, molten center of the earth
and I held my mother's hand there
in the Trauma ICU as we, miraculously,
kept living through
the night
but the girl
- Heather -
behind the curtain did not,
even though all her family was there,
certainly all of them, their bodies
making lumps in the curtain, their conversation
at three and at four thirty keeping us awake or alive.

And then, we are all alive,
okay, for a time,
okay, so
too late to go North.
I go east.
She now, therefore, is west.
We both, at this moment, still live.
And everyday I can consider--
do I paint my way back  to the center of the
earth or of to the center of the sky or
do I go west, or east,
north or south
or do I just
breathe
and hear the wind
and have no way of knowing
what direction it comes from?

Sometimes it seems evident
that I will die next.

20

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “I’ll Never (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the new poem. Possible titles include: “I’ll Never Write an Excuse Poem,” “I’ll Never Go to Disney World,” “I’ll Never Tell a Lie,” or “I’ll...



It drifts so far away now.
Where is it?
I try to paint this - how I hide
in a pile of leaves and can smell them
can smell them like it is now
but as soon as I say now
a vortex pulls fast away and
there is a little image
tiny and upside down
and I can't smell the leaves
anymore
and then I can
and then I can go inside
and then I can be how I was
before I really even had an ego
and I could lay in a bed
covered in a quilt we'd made together
of fabric scraps we'd ripped apart together
and I will never
pull together that black and yellow material
or that paisley material
or that soft burgundy bit
into a circle that could be made into a blanket
that could cover a girl because
I am on the long end of the reverse telescope
and the past
isn't even a foreign country

the past
has sloughed away from my skin
a hundred times

who am I
that even remembers?

19

 For today’s prompt, write an excuse poem. 

An excuse poem.  Good place to start.  Four days late again...


Why is it not good enough?
What you meant?
How you meant to be
- to them?
To buy the ranch
as we talked about
holding hands, when her arm went straight up to mine
on the day we got away, far away from the city and
the inkblack hallway of their childhoods.

We kicked leaves and dreamed
How we might have a horse
How it would be calmer
lighter, safer
How we would learn together to start again.
How I would love them all
as my own
as I did
as I meant to

As I meant to

I pray
there is some other invisible possible universe
drifting near enough
for my skin to sense it
so I can believe

that I meant to save them
that I had the option

In this place
I am there for them
have been ever since,
close and funny and familiar,
as they grow and I forget sometimes
that they are not mine

when
they cut paper animals
out of colored paper
with too long legs
I am there and I know how to make
them stand strong

and that makes me happy
and I forget everything else.
and need nothing but for that
to be true

for them to be safe
because of me.

18 I can only conclude that I like being behind

but why....

It’s a Tuesday, which means we’ve got two prompts today: Write a sweet poem. Write a sour poem. ***** Running out of Time for a Chance at $1,000! Writer’s Digest has extended the deadline to their Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards competition to November 21. As you may have guessed from the bold statement above,...

Sweet

This is how I like it.
I would be most comfortable
really
just loving
just loving the little puffy chested songbirds
or the black horse
with his hooves
wet in the morning grass.


Sour

But there are so many kinds of betrayals.
So many ways to be dumped
left
by the side of the road
with just that damn horse - oblivious!
and that perky fucking bird.  shh!

17

For today’s prompt, write an afflicted poem. Someone or something that is afflicted is someone or something that is in a troubled, injured, or humbled state. Or distressed to the point of constant suffering and anguish. In other words, the perfect poem for a Monday, right? ***** Running out of Time for a Chance...


It is minor but familiar
as I ask myself, "Now what?
What's bugging you now?"

And if I have time
I make a list.

This morning it took me a drive of
twenty miles to get through the list,
not to think of ways to manage
or deny or tamp down but just to list.

Minor things, minor
but I won't tell you a single one of them

except that he ...
and she not me
and the other he ...
and she ..
and not me
oh, he, not mine, never
and another they they
they? oy ve
and another I don't even know her she
and many he's and the nature
of our nature and the failure throughout
of love
throughout

and me and another giant question mark
something about 
the rest of my life
with one answer
or others
but one
at least
I know

as I wander the surface
of the world
always
alone

always trying to learn to love


at least
myself




[geez... this sure is a crybaby set.  I guess if this is a chapbook it is about solitude and maybe, moreover, lonesomeness.  not even feeling lonely but, yeah, sure am alone a lot though).  yep.

16

2014 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 16

By: Robert Lee Brewer | November 16, 2014 | Comments 53

For today’s prompt, write an explanatory poem. Back when I took dozens of creative writing courses in college, the mantra was, “Show, don’t tell.” Well, today’s prompt is sort of different–in a way–in that it’s a tell poem, or explaining poem, though how and what you explain may vary a great deal. ***** Submit...

15 didn't speak to me.

leaving it out.

this one. 

.   gonna take a bath first.

How to Pro...

(maybe I'll just leave this just cuz ) 

17

For today’s prompt, write an afflicted poem. Someone or something that is afflicted is someone or something that is in a troubled, injured, or humbled state. Or distressed to the point of constant suffering and anguish. In other words, the perfect poem for a Monday, right? ***** Running out of Time for a Chance...

1

Day 14 - maybe back on track minus a couple

For today’s prompt, write a follow poem. In middle school, I remember running for student council and my campaign manager said something to the effect of, “Vote for Robby, because he’s a follower, not a leader.” First thing, yes, they called me Robby in middle school. Second thing, yes, I did not get elected. Third thing, yes, this story is completely personal and pointless. Don’t follow my example.

Sister

l see now that how I feel 
and have felt
and maybe will forever feel
is so deep
that I can never, beyond reflex, even know.

I look out my little balcony
on the first day of my solo journey
in the middle of my life 
- it has taken me this long
to look at a compass and point in one of
its other directions and call it mine.

Two children play as their parents sit with others
and their cold coffee and the little boy prances
after his sister

wherever she goes
he goes

prancing

and she leaps up onto a cement block
and though he can't

it is clear he would if he could
and then she dances off and is gone
and

he

has no direction
no sense of what to do
what to leap on 
why

he is four
three maybe 
he turns
and just in time she dances in 
and he
again
prances after

It is like this.
It is not a fault
or a weakness.

The girl curtsies before a tree.
The little boy bows before a tree.

Then that is done.
Without her, nothing happens next.

Day 13 ugh. so far behind.

For today’s prompt, write an optional poem. And no, that does not mean that writing a poem is optional today–I know a few of you were thinking it. No, no, no. No, I’m thinking of how some things in life are completely optional; in fact, most things are. So you have options.

And at last there is rain on my eaves on my house in my hometown
and I
wandering over oceans for different skies
stay inside today
to avoid the sun

but what I see

is

there are options
we forget

that living on a round world means just that.

the hour you spend
waiting for a teller
in the bank branch
that is most near your work

could be the same hour
you might have brushed against a strangers body
in the waters
of the Indian ocean

the very same

someone feels wet skin on wet skin
someone isn't next
but has moved up

in line

Day 12

For today’s prompt, write a poem for and/or about something that cannot be seen. I mentioned cold, but there are so many more possibilities, including love, gravity, the future, thoughts, and sound waves. Our lives are filled with things we know exist but which we can’t see.

What I know exists
somewhere but can't often see

- sometimes, glimpses like a flash of a sunset searing the edge
of the ocean - just the edge, distant, brilliant gold line
astonishing

love for me

Day 11. (11.11)

Oh boy.  Six poems to catch up on ...
I keep promising not to do this with these things but ... it's been hard while traveling.
Gonna try to knock 'em out then.

Today is a Tuesday–so “2 for Tuesday” prompt time. Here they are:

1. Write a timely poem.
2. Write a timeless poem

Day 10

I don’t know why, but November always seems to move faster than every other month. Here we are on the 10th day of this challenge, and it feels like we just started.

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Trouble,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem. Possible titles include: “Big Trouble,” “Double Trouble,” and “That Guy Is Trouble.” I hope you don’t have too much trouble getting started.

After Trouble


I know how it is.
Nothing is wrong

Nothing is wrong.

The sky fades to purple and to night
and still nothing is wrong

and still the blood waits

for the sound of a shuffling step
or a bump against the hallway
or the feeling of the full bodies weight
on the back of the hand there and the friend falls
slump, bled out

or the dying not yet dead
lurching on in their limited living

But nothing is wrong.

You are decades past that.

They are all dead now
and cannot trouble you now.
Until now
After trouble

this

this waiting quiet
that that cannot stop its waiting
that cannot even yet
cry itself to sleep
for fear of the sound
that might make
in the dark.

Day 9 - ... better start catching up

For today’s prompt, look to the news and write about something recently reported. It doesn’t have to be something today, but something in the past week or month would be ideal. There’s always good and bad things happening in the world, and poetry is a powerful way to document events.

Chapbook 8

Write a blind  poem.  (Basically) (on plane trying to catch up... That's the gist of it)

Not on a plane.  Elsewhere.  Not feeling very well today.  Can't do much else so I'll try to catch up but, really, there is a better way to play this.


Blind  

I feel sure
there is some dimension
to which I am blind, dumb or insensate

Because there is this yearning
That is not quite from the skin
or from the ears
or the tastebuds, waiting

It is near to me
within perhaps
slant
leaning,
leaning more throughout the day

following the movement of something
that isn't light

but is like it

Perhaps it is eternal time
whose sensation eludes this body
its mortal occupant
as getting color from the touch
of the flesh of the peach eludes
the blind girl
carrying such beauty in the lap
of her apron
as she could never 
ever
imagine.

Chapbook day 7

Write a compulsion poem.  (Basically) (on plane trying to catch up... That's the gist of it).

Sequence

I remember very clearly thinking '17' and then opening and closing the refrigerator door seventeen times.

I remember very clearly thinking '212' and counting out two hundred and twelve turns on my bicycle and that's where I would get off my bike and look around, accepting destiny.

I remember that I got to 135, where that was, which was as nowhere as 212 would be - somewhere in the paved, suburban landscape of my childhood and I saw my life ahead of me, a string of enumerated, meaningless behaviors and decided right then to stop counting.

I would number nothing (though I knew there was a number to everything).
I would turn down this street and maybe another - and though the numbers of houses and the numbers of turns I'd taken at a moment were the same, I would not notice.
I would not attach significance.
I would not get married. 
I would not conform.

I would not count my way towards death or be a pattern's slave.

Chapbook Thang -Day 6

Write a happy poem.  (Basically) (on plane trying to catch up... That's the gist of it)


Okay.  way past being on the plane.  still a bit jet laggy but doing fine.


Happy Poem

Today I can write a happy poem because
I went to bed hungry
I went to bed sleepless
I went to bed a foreigner

Today I wake up rested in a different place
a happy place
I am taken to the farmer's market
by two kind and powerful artists

They buy black turnips and thin fish
and know what to do with them
I go undiscovered as a sleepless, hungry, foreigner

I buy kiwis that look like a man's balls
and apples that have spots and imperfections.
I buy clementines and cabbage
and see how I will eat
and know why

to live
to live like the French

All my friends in the U.S. are asleep now, probably.
I will fly through their dreams
until, in the dark and in the light,
we are all smiling, like the Mona Lisa,
... just a little.

 For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Keep This (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 include: “Keep This a Secret,” “Keep This Letter,” “Keep This Moment,” or “Keep This Poem.”

Keep This Breath

In between the roads and scents and all that will be
and this, this moment of waiting,
this time already gone
already forgotten

like so many days
so many years even

Keep just this

for as long as you can
this breath

the only thing
with you 
always

Chapbook Thingy - Day 4

Today is our first Tuesday of the challenge, and I like to do a Two-for-Tuesday prompt on Tuesdays. You can write to the first prompt, the second prompt, both prompts, or whatever tickles your fancy. Here are the prompts:

1. Write a super hero poem.
2. Write a super heroine poem.

I'm seeing these things:

my sister unloading twenty grocery bags 

my mother, armful of books, walking with a student 

my grandmother clipping roses

my Oma boiling potatoes

my friend, singing first

my other friend, painting by the stream

one niece, reciting,

another niece, channeling new souls

another niece, touching a sapling leaf

The men in my life do wonderful things, of course.

But today I see my heroes -  these women who

have taken hits that would bring down a mythic beast,

multiple arrows and, for each, the one, silver arrow to the heart

and they transform the world before your eyes

and clouds like wings span the sky

at that exact same moment when you feel

you are loved, that caring for you has brought happiness and

everything will be alright.

Chapbook Thingy - Day 3

For today’s prompt, write a blanket poem. In my part of the country, we’ve had a recent cold spell and folks have been cuddling up under their blankets. In other places, they’ve even had to deal with a blanket of snow. Some people–regardless of the weather–have their security blankets, which may or may not be actual blankets. And some folks make blanket statements. There may be other ways to cover a blanket poem and if you know it, then go for it.

Naming Blankets

I am back in this particular bed
child's bed
spare bedroom bed
bed that I would go to
in another house
when my heart had been left out
in the east coast chill.

And there I would sink
into the safety
of the size of it.
The miraculous mattress
and its layers of firmness
then softness
then sweetness.
And I would know then that I had to be,
had been, have been, will have to have been,
will have to be
a comfort to myself.

And here
in this time
how many blankets?

One that makes me feel like a small girl asking for dreams.
One that makes me feel like the ghost of a dog, - curled, still napping.
One that makes me feel like an unhappy wife - almost.
One that lays heavy on all the rest to help them
do their job.

This room is different
as is its quiet.

It takes a long while to get warm.
But it is happening, bit by bit.

I toss on one more throw
in an early, deep hour.
This one is light, almost floats.
It names me - Traveller.

Chapbook Thingy - Day 2

For today’s prompt, write a together again poem. It’s one thing to split up; it’s something else to come back together again. Sometimes getting back together is a good thing; sometimes it’s a bad thing; and sometimes it’s just awkward.

Romance

After watching a romantic comedy, well, three,

I sleep and am, by a well-intentioned community, engaged

to be married the following day

in the same winning, ramshackle town that has been the backdrop 

for so many darling romances of late.  And I, will be married,

and when I meet him, I'm kind of relieved.  He is nice

enough, appealing, (kind-of)

gently hopeful for us.

But he is old and poor and lives his life between two rooms.

a softened bohemian who once burned with intent.

He is nice.

I really have waited too long.

I stumble about the dream.

I step on the cutting edge of a a teapot and walk a soggy plank.  I climb a wet, mud wall

out of the dream

and into my single life

where there is still time to pretend there is time

and I have no plans and more than two rooms.

and no one to disappoint.

Chapbook Thingy - Day 1

For today’s prompt, write a game over poem. Our family spent a couple months putting together a haunted house in our garage for Halloween, and now that the holiday passed, I’ve got a bit of that game over feeling. People who play video games know about game over. And people who play other games, whether baseball, Monopoly, or poker. There’s a moment in every game at which it is game over–except maybe Minecraft, which may be why it’s so popular for so many.

I rather wish I liked the first prompt.  

Oh well.

Sooner or later you let go of letting go

You let go of what was, of what wasn't.

You let go of what will be.

Even what is.

That is going too far, they say

And yet I am this empty.

The edges of sound

of temperature, clothing, want

those are there, like the edges of a bubble.

And I let go of the edges.

okay then

gonna try to move on with all things, I suppose.

boy.
what a REROUTE.

okay.  gonna start the monthly thing again.
(what kind of month will this be, I wonder.....)
Lord only knows.

The Campaign

Not that this site is spectacularly well-traveled, but I'm going to add this link here, if only because this is so much of my life these days.  I've never really done a fundraising campaign and I have all sorts of mixed feelings about it, but it is essential.  And, what I'm finding, beyond the tenseness of the all-or-nothing nature of the thing, is that it is immensely sweet.  I am so moved by everyone who is supporting me in this.  It really buoys my spirits and genuinely touches my heart.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1747814886/arctic-circle-autumn-art-and-science-expedition-20

Been about a thousand years. Poor blog. ... that's how it is.

Alright.

This sure isn't the first in the Arctic Dream series, but it has been nagging me all day to jot whatever is left of it down.  .... Even this popped up in a google search for who knows what:

and it could be an image from my dream if the sky was burnished orange, if one, or more, of those shapes looked like the Statue of Liberty or a Sleeping Buddha.


Okay.  In brief.  Why always in brief?  I have secured my ticket north just now.  I don't think I will 'miss the boat' but ... well, perhaps one wants always an excuse up front.   "In Brief" as all the spectacular, in this case TEXTURAL details likely won't make the cut.


•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Not fully sure where the dream starts.  Maybe in the middle as I pop my head out of the cabin, many people behind me and we are in full sail, and though I am frightened, I do LOVE it.  We tilt and take the wind and I feel I might be okay.

Before long at all we stop at a pier.  Andrea is there and hops off for a pee.  Because I've had two beers, I hop off too but the line is insanely long. (This the detail of endless women and scents and clothes I will leave out).  I really have to pee I guess and promise to be quick and go into the stall where there is a full shower running and I can't seem to get it all done quickly.  I guess I finally do.  Andrea, who was waiting, says she doesn't need to.  Really?  We come out and the ship is G O N E!

It is true we had been warned not to get off for long at any stop but I can't believe they wouldn't count the passengers.  I remember from the manual where they will dock next.  There is some fuss and planning about getting a taxi boat to catch up with the expedition, but it seems increasingly unlikely.

We are in a Kodiak in a crowded Russian-maybe bay and Andrea tells me something about how Chelsea is funded by India and all those things you buy there fund the infidels.  Something like that, but I am impressed by her understanding of what's going on in the world.  (weird)

We find some hotel (omitting detailed but willfully relegated now to forgotten details).  We come down after awhile for a dinner.  She, with her always fabulous figure has on a bikini and some fabulous golden outfit that just ties in the back with no back.  It seems she is dressed for a massage.  A massage?!?  Not only are we late for dinner.  Not only have I missed the boat.. but she is going to get a massage? I walk the populated strand and look out at the molten water and the pull of the colors and the vast remoteness and remember the feeling of sailing and realize I have been left behind and realize I am missing the VERY most beautiful evening of my life.

I look out to the sea and iceburgs float but really do look like the image above, darkened against the horizon. There, like the weird anthropomorphic creatures of Arches National Park, are figurines of humanity.  I recognize the Statue of Liberty.   Not all are clear.  Some are just natural forms  But weird and compelling. I recognize that the most beautiful evening of my life is growing more beautiful even, would be more amazing if I was on that ship but soon will end.  And I have, in fact, missed the boat.  That there is the tiniest hope that we could catch up almost makes it worse.  I have missed it.  And that's it.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I won't analyze a lot of this here but that I get off the boat to join my sister, who is dead, is scary.
I think I am working through a lot of deep trepidation already.

And I already like it.

10 - future present past

For today’s prompt, write a future poem. The future might mean robots and computer chips. The future might mean apocalyptic catastrophes. The future might mean peace and understanding. The future might mean 1,000 years into the future; it might mean tomorrow (or next month). I forecast several poems in the near future to be shared below.




Future Past

I read that we never live in the present
even if we are paying attention to it.
By the time we notice it -
as we notice it -
we and it are in the past.


A bird crows outside my window.
Has crowed.  A traffic sound fills
- has filled -  the place of that sound.

The letters I type make their sound
and stop. I guess in the past.

So the near future must be the present.
The near future must be the reading
of this poem, which will only be
present just before I read it.

In any case, I will forget
almost all of these days.

I will have lived them
so I will think I can know them.
But I won't.

The crow was flying.
Flew.

It left no mark
on the sky.

Day 8 - falling behind

Today is a Tuesday, so two prompts:

• Write a violent poem. Could be person on person violence, person on animal, animal on animal, nature on person/animal/nature, and so on (insects, erosion, cosmos, etc.).
• Write a peaceful poem. I suppose this might be the opposite of a violent poem. But perhaps not.

Don't

What is it about squirrels?

They run across the street and when traffic is coming.   Stop.

Then run almost all the way back to the curb and stop

Turn and run right under the wheels of the truck.

I am in the car behind. 

I see this happening.

I pray it won't do what I know it will do.

It is back safe, almost to the curb

It turns, runs exactly right under the wheels of the truck.

I swerve, but look in the mirror.

I see it flopping in pain,

its front half, flattened,

its beautiful tail

waving

as if it is the hand of someone drowning.

I thought: I'll forget about this little fella

before long but my day is winding down

and I still see that tail, flag of hopeless hope,

lit flickering bronze in the light of morning.

His body has probably been run over thirty times since.

I think: this is what it has been like - loving those I need the most.

I see phantoms of them, one by one, 

waving in my rear-view mirror.

Day 9

For today’s prompt, write a shelter poem. Shelter might be a structure like a house, apartment, or hotel. Shelter could be a tent or cardboard box. Shelter could be an umbrella, overpass, cave, or car. Shelter could be a state of mind, part of a money laundering scheme, or any number of interpretations.





Shelter


I live in this one house.

I have five rooms I can move through,
Six if you count the bathroom
where I stand sometimes
looking at my face.

It is a nice house.  
It has windows I can see out of
and doors I can open.

It has a nice bed I lie on and
three okay places to sit..

I can turn in it,
like one can in most places,
and face north, south, east and west.

I can see out of the windows
and open the doors.

I can walk from room to room.
There are six rooms, or five.
I can sit.  There are three okay places to sit.

I can leave it and return to it.

Which I do.  I leave it.
I return to it and sometimes stand
looking out the window.

I am grateful.  It is all I need.
I will live my life in this pretty box.