7

For today’s prompt, write a simmer down poem. This could be a poem about cooking, about calming down, about taking it easy. You get to simmer down in your own way.


Would you relax?

There is still a future
There is

How do you know
There is

There is still a future
There is

You know this
because dying doesn't happen right away

You need to earn it
You need to fall apart

To fall apart
Takes time

There is time
Relax

There is time
For everything to be different

6

For today’s prompt, write a “we’re being watched” poem. Humankind has really created a bunch of, umm, interesting things over the past 150 years or so. Some of it has helped save lives; some of it has helped destroy them; and some of it has helped spy on them, whether through phone taps, infrared vision, drones, online hacking, or surveillance cameras. Write a poem that touches on such things.

Turn


That side of your face
that angle

you,
clearly you

deciding which
candy bar
which
candy
which
chocolate

you

clearly you
in this moment

where love can be something else
almost is

which

which love
(you turn towards the camera, then away)

which moment
that will get you to the next
and then next
that will get you through the night

In the camera
you are serious
so serious
as if you had never been loved
very serious and then you are out

of frame

5

For today’s prompt, write a festive poem. It doesn’t matter the occasion, and the festivities can just be the backdrop for the poem. Remember that even a sinister story like Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” happened during a carnival time. So no matter the mood, write with festivities in mind.

A Festive Poem

On this night there was so much I missed
- being pushed,
like the stuffing of a sandwich!
in a folded mattress on wheels
down a hill!

all those mattresses, folded, on wheels, flying down a hill, such fun!
Laughter!

Smoking in public

Being thin

Skinny dipping, thin

Being engaged, thin and engaged - in public

And, cutting in the bathroom
cutting something

or

barely being able to get the cork back onto the whiskey bottle
trying how many times or --did I miss that?, well

I missed the orgy

I missed the meteors

I missed the dawn

as I was asleep
had gone to sleep

took care of my need to sleep
and in this way

my youth slipped by
and some, not all,
of my hurt

was never available to me.

Day 4 - Once Upon a ...

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Once Upon a (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: “Once Upon a Time,” “Once Upon a Pedestal,” or “Once Upon a Diet.” As usual, have fun with it.


Once Upon

my table
was a book
I have since forgotten

and in that book
some writing,
a phrase without break or comma, 
that turned
like on a lathe

and carved 
into my mind
- a shape, an echo, a landscape
treasured into sympathetic sleep
and into waking
 - not alone

somehow

how

a phrase I recognized
as not my own
but from a soul

I'd never meet 


the writer
might be dead now
might be heavy and drinking milk
might be shopping or recovering
or ash
might be petting a loyal dog

and wondering
if her life of turning words
- of punctuating
her own way 
had meaning
echoed
mattered

Day 3 - United Divided

For today’s prompt, we’ve actually got a 2-for-Tuesday prompt. You can pick one prompt to follow, do both separately, or combine into one prompt. Your choice.

1. Write a United Poem.
2. Write a Divided Poem.

United/Divided

And in the time it takes
for the yellow of a rain-fallen leaf
to communicate to me
- yellow
- leaf
- today
- right now
- wet
- folded
- has rained
the movement of myself
through the sheen of the morning
to the window
- there is no change
all is just
aspect of butter yellow
emanating through space
and morning
and breath
indivisible.

And in the time it takes
for the self to say
- self
- separate
- here
- not leaf
- not rain
- standing
- storied
the yellow
of the rain-fallen leaf
becomes other
as if
one of us was here first
one of us belongs here
more
one of us - as matter -
matters more.

Day 2 - Surrender poem

For today’s prompt, write a surrender poem. A person can surrender to the authorities or a mob, but people can also surrender to a feeling or to music. Or leftover Halloween candy (at least, “my friend” has had that problem). I hope you surrender to your poetic impulse.

Backwards Ocho

Two tango lessons in

and the lesson is - surrender.

Feel, resist, surrender.

This is easier

when I shut my eyes

and become, in myself

one thing, not a swirl

of impulses - darting, not a storm

of sensations - uncollected, but a body,

a female body 

directed, backwards

offered moments

to flourish - quickly - 

here

then surrender.

November Poem A Day

Time to start another poem-a-day challenge. Let’s get this party started! 

For today’s prompt, write a day after poem. For instance, today is the day after Halloween in our house, but the poem could be the day after any event. Maybe it’s the day after a wonderful event, or it could be the day after a horrible event. I hope to see you the day after writing today’s poem.

The Mornings After

Sweeter the parties themselves

- the mornings after

walking in the garden

late, in a robe, with coffee

a table still flecked with food from a feast

some soggy crackers

and bottles with one swallow left or none

and candles that had melted on to the patio

had been blown out - suddenly in the middle of the set

when the flame caught a paper plate 

and sprung to life in a scare

 - the wax now looking like a gladiola

dropped from Titania's loose bouquet

as she went off

late late

to sleep in the hammock

between the eucalyptus

music, laughter still in her ears

the moon lighting her all night long as if 

the glow came from within

as if from the love of family and friends.

When she woke, she would see

that was so and the soft cracker

on her tongue

was the blessing

ongoing.