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.