PAD 27 - words

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day; so carry around a poem in your pocket today. Or roll like me and carry a poem in your pocket every day.

For today’s prompt, use at least 3 of the following 6 words in your poem (using a word or two in your title is fine); for extra credit, try using all 6:

• pest
• crack
• ramble
• hiccup
• wince
• festoon

Most Endless Talker

He is and always has been a pest.
He opens the door, just a crack.
And begins to talk, to ramble
on and on and on and on.  Even a hiccup
doesn't slow him down.  He says, "Anyway, then she said..." I wince
give up, and as he wishes, like every year, drape him in the first place festoon. 

PAD 29 - Catching up again - Distance of the Fall

For today’s prompt, write a metric poem. Most of the world uses the metric system to measure things out; not so much in the States. But there are meters and liters, and the occasional millimeters. Also, poetry uses metrics (the study of meter in poetry). And metrics, in a general sense, can measure various things by a common denominator–even inches and/or teaspoons.


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well the catch up poems are crap but at least i'm trying to fill in the blanks. so much to do always.

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Distance of the Fall


It was like any other time
though I was being photographed.

I was lifting and turning overhead
by the wall at first, around a crowd of people
occupied with games and each other.

One moment I was particularly elegant, using a stick
to propel me up with a graceful layout, slow motion flip.

I hoped that was caught on camera.
It likely was as a friend had tripod
with nine cameras, distributed around it a circle, catching everything.

But no one seemed to be looking as I jumped, like I do,
quite high, quite, quite high, straight up.

And then I landed on a wall, maybe 20 meters high.
That was a mistake.  I felt the spell broken.

It was a stone wall, maybe 20 meters high, a half a meter wide.
No one below seemed to know I was up there.

I wondered if I should jump down
but would my jumping magic work
if I started, as I was, dead weight from above?
I had never been in such a place before.

I imagined my legs, my spine, my head, broken.
I could see right where that would happen,
where the ground below became pavement.

It was high up, maybe 20 meters high.

And then someone else climbed up on top of the wall
and the wall itself descended.  Without a sound, with no one noticing.
This was the solution.

10 meters, 3 meters -  from there I could
drop and not die, even if I did not drift magically down
in a graceful layout, slow motion flip.

I dropped like anyone would.  Heavily, but fine.

My friend with the 360 degree camera cluster was gone.

I don't think anyone
caught the moment.

PAD 24 - Faith

For today’s prompt, write a faith poem. For some people, faith means religion. For others, faith means trusting in science and mathematics. Still others, think George Michael’s “Faith” just as some immediately conjure up Faith Hill. Regardless of where you put your faith (or don’t), today’s poem gives you an opportunity to express yourself.

Faith

You cannot cut a flame with scissors.

You cannot knit socks from the fleece of clouds.

You cannot guess at the nap dreams of a tiger.

You cannot see at the bottom of the ocean.

(You have not grown a lamp to see by)

You can't even breathe there - though you can imagine you can.

Your dreams take you across wide freeways

and into high water.  Again and again.

You wake in the night

and a 'you' returns and walks with you through the dark house.

This 'you' has always done that, is there for you,

whatever it is -

to tell you your story without turning on the lights.

Companionship.

Infusions.

Discussing with you, without words,

what dark is, what darker is, what movement,

what space is, what porcelain, how water is, what now is,
what image shivers at the back of the mind.

Reminders of a story of self, life, world, others, dreams.

With others we oblige ourselves

towards anecdotes, then guidelines, then advice, then positions,

then rules, then commandments, then certitude, then wars.

Faith belongs within a self.  It is humble.

It IS humility.  It is the experience of humility.

The experience of gratitude.
The gratitude of experience.

That there are factual reasons for waking, thirsty

does not negate the blessing

of opening one's mouth

of having a mouth to open

and, in the dark, receiving.

Facts and blessings are one and the same.

You and what you are given are one and the same.

You are here and it is miraculous.

No one needs to die for this.

PAD 23 - Last Time

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Last (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: “Last Starfighter,” “Last Unicorn,” “Last Day of Summer,” “Last Cookie in the Cookie Jar,” and so on.





Last Time

It is gone from memory
the last time you touched me

To think of it
is to walk into a wall of fog

that doesn't clear
that deepens, whitens

we did love well
sometimes

but as each cell in the body
has exchanged itself with a new one

over and over
nothing remains, no echo

of your hands
once moving where and how

PAD 22 - Fable

For today’s prompt, write a fable poem. A fable is a story that conveys a moral, usually told with animal characters.



Sleepy Dog

Sleepy dog got up late and walked to the sofa to relax.
Sleepy dog heard something outside and walked to the door and lay by it.
Sleepy dog ached to be hugged, to be carried around under arm to a place
you could run, if you wanted to.
Or lay down in the sun.

Sleeping Dog lay in a spot of sun and dreamt of that.









(okay.  kind of knocking these out trying to catch up.  getting close.)

PAD 21 - object

For today’s prompt, pick an object (any object), make it the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: “Toothbrush,” “Rake,” “Pilot G2 Premium Gel Roller Pen,” or any number of other objective titles. Have fun with it.

Mirror


The mirror reflects the bucket its in,
reflects the movement of the light
as it bounces and softens and lessens

No face has been seen there for awhile
Maybe the back of the head
that - confirmed - still needs a cut

But the mirror speaks truth
too fluently
Why should it not, instead,
reflect light, perfectly, in exquisite detail,
which is not vain, nor lonesome
nor aging hard.

PAD 20 - Task

For today’s prompt, write a task poem. The task can be some glorious duty, or it can be a seemingly small and insignificant job. Or the poem can take someone to task. It’s your task to figure it out and write i





I could fly to New Zealand in the time it has taken me to wash my pots.
I didn't fly to New Zealand though.
I also haven't washed my pots.

PAD 19 - Memory

For today’s prompt, write a memory poem. Pick a memory, any memory. It can be a significant event, but sometimes there are beautiful insignificant moments (that ironically are very significant–quite the paradox). Mine your memories to come up with something good today.

Experiment #16

I once was a budding scientist.
Setting the table was my daily chore,
one which I generally enjoyed,
but it took time from my experiments.

I got the placemats
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
And the plates
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
I folded the paper napkins
then distributed them
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
And then I noticed with renewed interest the centerpiece
- a high, reaching bouquet of fluffy pampas grass
arching over the length of the table
(very much my father's aesthetic)

How long, I wondered, would it take
for it to catch fire?

I found a box of matches and in a second,
(or I would say 1.75 seconds), the entire table
was engulfed in flame.

It is a good thing I have devoted my life to the arts.

PAD 18 - Life/Death Poem

Here are the two prompts for today:

• Write a life poem. The poem could be about the miracle of life, the complexity of life, the game of Life, or anything else that means life for you. Or…
• Write a death poem. For most organisms, life leads to death. So this should be as full of possibility as the life poem.

Guanajuato

The pod, bigger than my little hand,

had stopped moving.

It was like paper maché - attached firmly to fence in the outdoor washing area

where we stayed, in Mexico - that summer

What was inside?  It almost scared me

with its hidden activity, its dark body in there.

Over the days, something turned,  it fluttered and rattled

I worried over it and the next day the pod was empty - tossed paper cave

Life had left it there.

It, not dead, just a shell, a home

a once-place, for inversion, conversion

for making giant wings and a future

from all of the self.

,

PAD 17 - Dance

For today’s prompt, write a dance poem. The poem can be about the process of dancing or just somehow incorporate or reference dancing in the poem. There are so many styles of dance out there and even more occasions for dancing: school dances, daddy-daughter dances, wedding dances, people who dance when they are happy, people who dance when they are sad, people who dance in large groups, and those who dance alone. And, of course, there are so who just won’t dance for anything.



Tango Teacher


He was short
muscular and old.

He was from Rome and spoke no English.
He used me to show

how, in tango, the woman
is always a bit off balance

his chest plate and mine
tilting each other towards

heart, heart 
tilting towards

come questo

steadied, a bit,
in the firm, gentle embrace

I could feel, felt, 
he is the only real man I ever met.

PAD 16 - Limbic System

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) System,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: “Weather System,” “Solar System,” “Writing System,” “Ecological System,” or any number of other takes on systems.


Limbic System


It is here that I know this thing beyond words

That dimension
dimensions
are more like an onion, onions
and less like a box
or a box opening, flattening with time
Four dimensions, as we know them: height, width, depth, change

Here - the scent of the tiny, plucked jasmine
is a skin of a world
in which there are creatures
procreating and shadows. from a light somewhere,
extending
next to a skin of something
like water
like memory
and one, or many,
transparent dimensions,
a millimeters distance from each other
that ripple, each, with laughter
with the physical tremor
that comes
with a kiss.

PAD 15 -One Time

For today’s prompt, write a “one time” poem. This poem could be about a once in a lifetime experience. Or it could be about something a person wants to try just one time (good or bad). Or take it where you will–as always.


...

spring break interrupted the flow.  there's always sumphin.



************


One Time


We stood on our rooftop
at 51st and 11

We probably had a picnic for our birthdays
that was lovely

And keeping us company, bobbing on the tar sheets near us,
was the giant heart shaped balloon

deflated from Valentine's Day
a couple of days earlier

As we were leaving 
we let the heart go with some wishes attached

thinking it might sink down, defeated,
into the traffic of 11th avenue

But it lifted. drifted up
and just before the first line of high clouds

Filled out suddenly into a giant, full 
red, radiant, heart dancing, alive over New York City.

We were delighted.
Love lived!