Day 9 - Hide Out

For today’s prompt, write a hide out poem. When I was a kid, we’d build “hide outs,” I guess from our parents or other kids. An assortment of criminals (fictionalized and real) have their hide outs. But maybe there are other hide outs, like a “man cave,” “she shed,” or the local pub. Heck, maybe it’s the library. Give it a thought, and I’m sure you’ll find the right hide out poem for you.

*

Indoor Fort 

Even now, I can get hit on the head

as the upside down dining room chairs

covered in a heavy quilt

tip in and bring the whole

hidden place

folding in on itself

us giggling underneath

Not engineers we try again

and have for a moment

sufficiently hidden in the middle of the living room

telling stories now

until the setter can't stand it

and finds us and steps on the heavy quilt

and the upside down dining room chairs

tip in and hit us on the head

and we are in a pile of furniture

and dog love

and laughter

and will always be there

hidden, completely now,

from space and from time.

Day 8 - Doodle

For today’s prompt, write a doodle poem. In my mind, I’m thinking of how I like to doodle when I’m talking on the phone or sitting in a meeting. I used to doodle in my classes when I was younger. So for a poem, I’m thinking this could start off as something small that stays small or builds to epic proportions. Doodle around a bit today. If needed, start by describing something close at hand or within your current field of vision.

Doodle

It starts with his name
one letter on top of the next
quickly illegible
the capitals popping out
from the dark splotch
like legs
that become a hat
or a set of wings
or just more legs
if I'm feeling obsessive

It's just a habit
telling the paper
what echoes in the heart
sometimes it might be numbers
numbers large enough to equal
worry

sometimes a confession
looping or etched
a cry into vast terrain of the paper's surface
of how lonesome
how lonesome
how frustrated with the frustrated self

quickly illegible
sprouting leaves or tendrils
or wheels
going somewhere
as some world launches around it
fitting to the doodle's dimension, its being

in this way I can forget
to attend to what
I should attend to

and I worry instead
about where this millipede or galaxy
this dark spot of need
is going, what it might find
for lunch
what it might want to feel
more at home.

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Urban (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: “Urban Cowboy,” “Urban Warfare,” “Urban Daydreams,” “Urban Living,” and so on.


Urban Decay

We all know it will happen
the weeds pushing through the door jam
to the CEO's corner office

the furniture, flaking it's poly-blend skin
in the mildewed dark of some future time

and echoed and echoed
perhaps not everywhere at once

but these are not marble columns, are they
not wrought of stone or etched with the likeness of heroes

the buildings might sway
with the earth shaking below

might gleam of sun
well beyond their years of use

but these will be shells at best
if you press your ear to them

perhaps you will hear
the minting of money

the echoes of orgasms
from behind closed doors

you can only imagine
how it used to be

how good it used to be
for a time

Day 6 - Detachment

For today’s prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired by art. You can pick your own favorite piece of art if you wish. Or you can use one of the examples below:

Detachment

When does it happen

change

opening

release?

I am in this world 

with its maybe-horizon

its echoed place

its day or moonlit night

its hold of time

loose place for sense of self

identity

name

story

I'm not looking even to change

and it's not of a sudden

and it's not - or is it - 

unavoidable

I am lighter, looser

a space opens up into 

what scale

what promise

what un-asked for hope

it is other, elsewhere, fine

and I am going there now
I'm already gone

Day 5 - In/Experience

For today’s prompt, we’ve actually got two prompts (that is, a Two-for-Tuesday prompt). Here we go:

1. Write an experienced poem. Or…
2. Write an inexperienced poem.

Experience tells me that that way is south

that that smile is trouble

that that quiet voice has the answer - always

But I haven't been in all directions

I don't know how to keep a smile turned my way

I can't imagine it.

The quiet voice says, that's okay - try.

Day 4 - Distance

For today’s prompt, write a distance poem. As a runner, I automatically think of running when I think distance. But hey, there’s long distance relationships. Or why not get beyond geographic distance and consider distance in terms of time or emotional distance. Or some other interpretation.

Distance

When I step outside
out from under the branches
of my ailing elm tree

the top of my hair
my last light little blonde hair is that last thing
(drifting cloud notwithstanding) - the very last thing
until perhaps a glance off the edge of the surface of a methane sea of Titan
or a veil of a nebula, pink

Is that how far away our dead are?  Further?
Is there a distance to them?
But can there be a distance not measured 
in time or space

because this is the distance that matters to me
the vast void that I pass through
from my desk to my coffee pot
- immeasurable  -(in terms not of time or space)
in which the persons I love
are not.

(maybe are not)

How far away are they?

Day Three - Three

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Three (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: “Three Blind Hippos,” “Three Muskrats,” “Three’s Company,” “Three Movies Is Too Many for The Hobbit, Peter Jackson (just saying),” and so on.




Context

One
It's still this world
with its leaves unfurling
its fields, patched and waving
the paved arteries moving quick with millions
the things getting done
water levelling, dust settling
Night and Day at once, both married
to gravity and time

Two
It's is Night somewhere
It is Day here
I am still in my pajamas
with my coffee.  The Spring light is radiant.
A girl snaps awake now outside
as the truck hits a pothole
Her only home is her body,
its fragile limbs and memories jarred
with each rattle and bump.
But she is moving forward.

Three
The sphere is contained
as it is surrounded.  Space becomes the second thing,
the Earth again one.
And the third then is far away.
If far or away apply.
The second always implies the third.
The third becomes the one.