PAD 16 - The Last ____

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The 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 could include: “The Last Cookie,” “The Last Roll of Toilet Paper,” “The Lasting Impression,” “The Last Word,” and/or “The Last Starfighter.”

The Last Camellia

They fall like open hands

and float for a time

waterlily-like.

To the fish, below,

perhaps for a time

the camellias are lit up

pink setting suns.

They fall, so many,

so many open hands

and float

in their full color

so many setting suns

and then

they brown and sink and turn 

to muck

and cloud the water

and obscure the fish

and clog the system

with the end of Spring.

The last camellia falls

like an open hand

and floats in full color

under the bluest sky

ever.

It has been the most perfect day.

PAD 15 - Dream

For today’s prompt, write a dream poem. The poem can be a remembered dream. Or it could be a dream about the future (like getting out and about without worry again). Of course, some dreams are good, but there are nightmares too. So let’s get dreamy with our poems today. After all, Blondie said it best: “Dreaming is free.”


Forgotten Dream


I was wearing her wedding dress
but it wasn't the real one - 
this had a red overlay.
I looked good.
It was fine.

I was going to marry my ex-boyfriend's brother.
I don't know why.

If someone asks me
if I dream in color
if there is an atmosphere

then yes

I wanted to take a picture in the dream
of that green horizon
so vivid
the sky, blue but darkening,
someone walking away
no one important
but - a perfect composition - 
a lithe figure reflected in the creek
or in the mud or sludge

sparkles

I am out of work
I am wearing a wedding dress, red,
but hide it for now in a peasant's coat.

I am leaning into the wind 
which funnels through the verdant valley
and am suddenly lifted
too high up now
where I can see all the areas of the
(now forgotten)
dreamscape, like a board game

there, where they wouldn't pay for me to 
take the meeting in Australia

there, where again, I am about to marry 
my ex-boyfriend's brother

all the bicycle deflate at once and fall over
the hills roll away - kelly green

he still loves me
and is listening to the ceremony
from behind the door

I interrupt the start of the service
and go to him

and am younger.

I dream in color
of landscape
of wind
of love

of lift
of story
and of things that just happen.

PAD 14 - form

We’re two weeks into the challenge now, and our second “Two-for-Tuesday” prompt falls on the 14th, which gets me thinking about sonnets.

For today’s prompt:

1. Write a form poem (here are 100 poetic forms to choose from) and/or…
2. Write an anti-form poem. I get it; some people don’t like forms.

Erasure Poems. Like blackout poems, but without the markers.

intricately intertwined by our own making

resurgence, clutching fears

connections, real.

emerging people overwhelmingly

refocus

on the root of destruction

exacting a pound of flesh,

unwilling to change.

PAD 13 - Purpose

Write a purpose poem.

Purpose

Today, again,

I'll stare at the space between

my heart and the window.

Perhaps like an animal

whose cage door has been left open

whose keeper waits for a bolt

into god-given freedoms

I'll stare and wonder

who am I 

if I am no longer not enough

if I am no longer unqualified

or overqualified

if I am neither desirable or even

undesirable

a bubble in the foam

water in water

all the marks are washed away from 

the field

all the nets

taken away

What is my purpose here

if I can only do what I love

only

only

because I love it.

What to do with a ball

when there is no game.

PAD 11 - Control

For today’s prompt, write a control poem. That is, write about having control, losing control, or sharing control with others. Of course, I expect at least one person to mention the control key on keyboards. And well, y’all always surprise me, because I can’t control which direction everyone is going to go with this prompt.

Control

I suppose

deep therapy would try

to elicit from me

rage, RAGE - let it go

a primal scream 

(didn't I try that then too?)

self-forgiveness

rage

a primal scream

compassionate distance

self-forgiveness

rage

a primal scream

self-love

compassionate distance

self-forgiveness

rage

a primal scream

So what?

Were you not still grey like dead

in the bathtub

in the hallway

by the side of the house

on top of the wild shards of glass

then

dead like dead

afloat for a day,

sinking for a day,

afloat for a day,

sinking for a day

Is that news to me

that I had no control?

Is that news to me

that I am damaged

and have a right to be angry?

I don't want to scream.
I don't want to rage.

I want to sit in the garden now

and, finally, learn guitar.

Or just watch my fish

who control nothing

and can just be

underwater 

forever.

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The (blank) Who (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “The Runner Who Walked,” “The Scientist Who Decided to Make a Monster,” “The Poet Who Loved Me,” and/or “The Teacher Who Couldn’t Learn.” If you’d prefer to write about a thing instead of a person, feel free to replace the word “who” with the word “that.”


The Abstract Painter Who Closed Her Eyes

I suppose I could paint
without seeing

What does it matter in the end?

The way I dance around, insist on the spontaneous.

Just put the colored oil goo in my hand
Blindfold me and set me in the right direction.

What about this matters anymore
or ever did?

What image would do good work?

I think I'll go sit by a dirt pile
with a bucket of water

imagine / make a city there, in a muddy puddle,
deluged, the citizens calling from their rooftops.

I feel the clay dirt like a sculptor, eyes closed.
The mud has meaning.

Before waiting too long, I break the levee myself,
above the town, where it's safe.

I create an overspill. I feel it.
My gesture matters,
the water draining away from the drowning thousands.

I open my eyes when I hear their joyful cries
of survival
and hope.

I know no more now
than I did when I was nine.

PAD 9 Exphrasic

For today’s prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is one that’s inspired by a work of art, whether that’s a painting, photograph, sculpture, or some other creation. I’ve included five ekphrastic prompts below. Look them over and choose one (or more) to prompt your poem today.


Abstract

I suppose I need now
to find something in the void

To call that something a name
To give it an edge

for the void around to become the void around

what is there
in a color field

it is not here/there forever
it has/has had a name

look it in its face
if it has one.

say something about existence
other than

everything/we all are in a field
of constant change.

PAD 8 - Future

For today’s prompt, write a future poem. The future is a never ending well of worry for some. Others harbor a great deal of optimism. Still others see a mixture of awesome flying cars and terrifying robot overlords. Regardless of your outlook, I hope there’s a poem in your very near future.


The Future Ain't What It Used to Be


These days, there is always a moment,
when my leg moves between warm sheets
or my hand slides under a cooler part 
of the pillow

and my eyes open, before or after, I've thought:
Oh. We are in that time, ... this time.
and everything that happens next is newer 
than it's ever been.

I build the floor, floorboard by floorboard, 
to get to the bathroom. I roll out the carpet before me
to get to my kitchen. It is not a flying carpet.
It lays there as I step off its edge.

Every moment is stepped off of,
into another world that assembles itself,
just in time.


It is up to me to imagine the whole world 
around my coffee pot.

To see its beauty.
To insist on its sense.

It is up to me
to make gratitude my food,
kindness my money.

To live on that
into a new day,

belly 
and heart
and imagination

full.

PAD 7 - Lucky/Unlucky

We’re a week into the challenge now, and we get to celebrate with our first “Two-for-Tuesday” prompt! You can pick your favorite prompt, do both separately, or combine them into one poem. Your choice.

For today’s prompt:

1. Write a lucky poem and/or…
2. Write an unlucky poem.

LUCKY

Earth can breathe.

The Milky Way is crushed into the sky

above the dark and sleeping city.

Creatures venture out,

gambol and nap in the road.

UNLUCKY

The tent is wet

and folded into mud.

Limbs touch limbs

and some have grown cold.

Day 6 - Trap

For today’s prompt, write a trap poem. There are physical traps—like mouse traps and bear traps. But people also sometimes fall into language traps or social traps. Many competitive types in business and various games try to set traps for their competitors. Of course, for every person setting a trap, there’s likely another person trying to avoid falling into traps.


Trap


We are told today
there is a huge spike
in domestic violence

Men trapped with their wives
Trapped with their children
Trapped without sports
Trapped with only the bottles 
at the back of the home bar left

Trapped in all the space
they could once barely pay for.
Trapped within their father's face.

But she is there - always there -
doing everything wrong.
There are two releases left
and both leave her

curled in a ball
a scream echoing
off the small walls.

pathetic.

PAD 5 - Moment/Spring

For today’s prompt, write a moment poem. The moment could be this very moment in time. Or pick a moment from your past and dive into it. It could be a huge moment or event in your life (or the life of another). Or you could share a small, private moment–like a walk at night or solitary adventure.




Spring


Others will want to know
maybe

what this moment was like.

I'm an ill-drawn character of unclear age
(without compelling flaw or situation or motivation)
in a weak creative writing prompt:

    Imagine the world has stopped still.
    People aren't dead. They are just all inside.
    All of them. Everywhere.
    All separate, looking out windows, maybe. 
    What happens next?

No car rolls past my window. After an hour,
one runner in a mask stops and checks her watch.
The wood on the fence across the still street
stains down from the top and up from the bottom
with welcome rain.

And the green of the tree above is, in fact,
the green of a new world.

It's that green.
It's that new.

It is almost blinding.

PAD 4 - Wish

For today’s prompt, write a wish poem. The poem could be about making a wish or granting a wish. It could focus on the fallout from a wish granted or denied. Or think up a wishful scene to share in your poem.



Wish

We understand
with the dandelion

that the way to make a wish
is to be sincere
to focus
to gather your intention
and then blow the whole damn thing apart

so that all parts
 - light, gentle, designed for journey

can float and lift and drift
in a breeze

random and tender

just on their way now

some catching light

some  
will grow into another weed
radiating like a little sun
for a time
then aging into another

– gathered puff of hope.

PAD 3 - Follow

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Follow (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: “Follow the Leader,” “Follow Me on Twitter,” “Follow Your Heart,” and/or “Follow the Light.” So many things to follow or not.


You Know
Follow, will we?
your lead
– you always lead – 

out of the body
out of the story
out of the beating needs

that seem to come from the heart
or the blood
– the blood we shared

away from the bones
that have always worked together 
to propel us through space
with purpose

out of space itself perhaps,
and, I suspect, out of purpose as well.

What, then, was purpose?


Follow, will we?
Away into what 
will we follow you?

And how soon?

PAD 2 - space poem

For today's prompt, write a space poem.



A Room of One's Own


I am lucky
I have this box.

I am lucky I have this box
to be in.

I am lucky I have this box to be 
in alone.

I am lucky I love to be alone.
My world is calm and gracious and full.

So many, so many, have no space, no space,
no room to turn around, even in their own minds.

The lemons explode outside my window.

Outside my window, the geese fly in form
across the clean, broad sky 

like fingers, a light scratch across
the broad surface of his back.

His back. Come back.

I am lucky to be 
here alone

to have all 
I need  

almost all 
I need.

PAD 1 - New World

For today’s prompt, write a new world poem. There are new worlds and there are new worlds. You could write a poem about discovery of an actual planet. Or maybe your new world is actually a state of mind—or a series of books! In a way, I consider each new challenge a bit of a new world. Let’s explore this one together.


New World

It can be argued
whether or not I am the same person as that girl
who turned over a weighty chunk of broken concrete
and squealed as the fat, white worms
blasted by light
exposed all at once
quickly (and were visible)
wiggled themselves back down 
into darkness.

After a time, all one can say is, 
yes, that was me,
or - I am related to her
– my cells, sloughing off into dust motes
year after year, are related to her.
That seems true.

It also seems to be true
that we all have been
slipping around under a rock of sorts,
a weight that defined our living.

It now
so suddenly lifted!

Us now
blasted by light
exposed all at once.

At night
I curl into myself 
burrow towards darkness
as a landscape
of a new order and manner 
and suggestion
unfurls in underground dream light

I move towards it
(if I am she)
– a stone in my hand

and under it
a teeming world of the
also-living.