ridicules as the “tent”,
the one your old girl Sheila
wore as a nightgown
and you were so lucky
to get back.
Is nothing sacred?
Each stain is a diary entry
and who would cut up their words
for rags,
trash their journal
just because –
the boy riding high on your shoulders,
the superman cape of a boy
clasping your neck so tight,
his limp figure so heavy
in your arms as you carry him
sleeping into the house
from the car,
the thread worn remnants
of your sacrosanct self
whispering,
we all have things we don’t
want to give up
but should,
the cool unbundling
of your memories
stinging
your naked
chest.
Select a timeworn item to inspire your mystery into a poem.
Robin red breast
neck hanging limp
when we lifted your body
with a stick –
ants scattering like a 5 year old’s
thoughts -
you, hop stopping worm hunter
we constantly stalked,
so strange what had left
leaving it and us
so frail
and so easily
caught.
I immediately arranged a ceremony –
burial, stick cross, impromptu
eulogy - a bleak descending
word sadness
so different from play –
I remember your wry, hands crossed,
smiling acceptance
but you were always the daredevil
in the face of death –
parachute, bungee, the ski jump
accident – the one thing tripping you up.
Strange, they all said, how once in a wheelchair
you became the preacher teaching your flock
the meaning of life.
How strange, they said, the other one
always going on and on
about death.
Death Be Not Proud– What was your first exposure to death? Was it a pet, neighbor, a close relative? Was there a long illness involved or was it sudden? Write it as honestly as possible. Say what you’ve always wanted to say.
This is what meaning looks like
a tree
in winter
known only by its
smooth
or rough bark,
its patterned
branching
towards
the light –
no fruits, no flowers, no leaves
a mirror
reflecting
the mirror
of your jeweled self
pressing hard on the glass,
tapping, knocking to be let in -
this marriage to the world
a fractured, splintered image
of your own
wanting
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “This Is What (Blank) Looks Like,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.
Sevenling
It’s been so many years,
so many long miles,
this patina of indifference separating us.
Father, I think, how frail,
how much like grandfather you’ve become.
When did you get so old?
No, not father, I realize, but my brother staring back at me.
Write a sevenling poem. The sevenling was created by Roddy Lumsden.
Lament
The simplest things, sometimes they’re the hardest things
like explaining Samson’s lost hair and why a daughter no longer sings
in the harsh light of endless hospital wings.
Sometimes they’re the hardest things, the simplest things.
It should be easy, my doing the right thing,
like being a pillar of strength, taking the hurt, taking the sting, yet it's the shuffling girl beside me touching me in the silence to ease me,
my doing the right thing, it should be easy.
Write a Swap Quatrain. The Swap Quatrain was created by Lorraine M. Kanter.
symbolism
It always means something more
than what you think it means
these words
and those,
symbols, for example,
poetry,
like
if the flower
simply was not there
and then was there
in the magician’s hand,
there would be no real magic –
it’s the trick, you see,
that we want to reproduce,
some soul offering solace
to our adoring prostrating
masses
who are all really only bending down
to look up our sleeves,
all of us asking and repeating,
but that’s not really it,
that’s not really what I meant
et al(l)…
my nonet
form following function – forty-five
intimate syllables having
their inexorable way
with you, leading to only
coming climax
was always
about
now
Write a Nonet Poem
The nonet poetic form is simple. It’s a 9-line poem that has 9 syllables in the first line, 8 syllables in the second line, 7 syllables in the third line, and continues to count down to one syllable in the final (ninth) line.
1
long ago
in a galaxy far away
has meaning to
someone
somewhere
2
hard rain
loose pane
rattling
thunder
your one small light
creating
shadows
3
Twas a dark and stormy night
and you're afraid
context means
nothing
4
the rusty
dull
surface
once shone
a warrior's smile
bared and gleaming
Write a poem that uses 12 words, no more, no less.
Riding,
climbing the
rocking steps
of the chain clanking, rickety Ferris
wheel
skyward,
music and greasy wooden
wonder stalls
fading,
you crest the dotted sky
countryside
tumbling away backwards
a stomach dropping, hands reaching
falling with your girl,
a carnival cacophony of
seasick houses
circling
tv screen
aquarium windows
to the world -
inside - laughing crying confused
your awkward
one small step
earthward
and
which is land, which is sea
and what is this unexpected,
lunging breath -
the same air you just
emerged
from?
Pen a poem inspired by the prompt carnival
“When the words slip free ..."
This slip-n-slide
relationship
wet with unspoken
and implied
meanings and tears –
you say
we should j
ust keep making strides,
giants tripping on stones
all around us,
I say
we twist
and turn
like otters
bursting
the shells of doubts
in our bellies
and if we fall,
lay down
beside me
and my words will slip
free
rain through fingers
sliding down
your face
showering
you clean -
you see,
I really only
meant
to hold on
until I found
my way
back
to you.
Take that “I wish I had written that” line from one of the poems and make it your own as a totally new poem.
you've been gone so long
and what if I can't remember
and what if I forget
your name
and how we first met
floating on that rocking dock together
dark
storm clouds rumbling in
your certain smile
as our surging bodies
touched
and how they felt
as if they'd known
each other
a thousand
lifetimes
Write a memory poem.
Change
Down the same cement stairs
wending the same streaming sidewalk
leading to the same window-
less office,
he sees
the humped bear of a man
sitting mid-
stream
always wafting
vision.
Change?
they ask themselves every morning
as change is thrown scornfully
in front of them,
their hands and knees worn
in a chasing
supplication -
the empty bargain bottles
of their hearts
clinking softly
in expectation
inside of
them.
Impressionistic writing. For today, let’s get into their footsteps and write poetry in an impressionistic style
Change (2)
Change thrown scornfully
in front of him,
the flithy wrap
layered bear of a man bends
on hands and knees in a chasing
supplication –
an empty
bargain bottle
clinking softly
in expectation
beside him.
For today’s prompt, write a poem that includes the following five words: change, wrap, bottle, bargain, bear.
follow
the labyrinth
of your matchbox car
breathing,
the easy curving belly
ballooning turning
and know
the deck clattering
whining,
shrieking,
of your mind
is best viewed
from the
stands
Write a poem with the theme labyrinth
Riddle
It’s not music
though music is contained within
often as an introduction,
and it’s not “knowledge”
although you “learn”
and occasionally share what you’ve been told
with others,
and it doesn’t sate like food or drink
though it can be as cloying as chocolate
when ingested too much, too quickly,
and it’s not even the little display
which you control indirectly
and which can easily make you display
anger, desperation, joy, tears,
not necessarily in that order.
This riddling sphinx of the new age
giving voice to your words,
intuiting your meaning like
a high priestess at ceremony –
a good guess would be AM 970
before corporate sponsorship and
the internet,
now, snaking ear buds
filling those empty holes in your head
with endless podcasts
telling you what you already knew –
who woulda ever thought it would feel
so good to feel so miserable
driving your car, doing dishes,
inadvertently ignoring your wife,
your children…
What is your obsession? What do you truly enjoy above all else? Write the passion that goes into your extra-curricular endeavors. What piques your interest? What would you love to try? What is your guilty pleasure? Tell us about it in all its poetic finery.
there’s a line
good poetry shouldn’t cross
like me and you
an archetypal
tree line
abruptly
demarcated,
I should have known by your
rarified air,
your being above it all
whenever we were together,
by my pining
and stunted,
half shorn pleas
in your cascading
icy breeze -
was it something in our elemental
substrata
or a trick of a fickle clime,
and if we had just kept up
our breathy, CO2 talking
warming
would I have at last
melted
your permafrost heart,
my rough bark
invading
and deflowering
your
precious
alpine
garden….
For this week’s prompt, write a straight line poem
fire
elemental
like a fear
in your belly
a once burned
kind of
love
brightness
in
darkness
a shining
eyes
wild creature
desire
reaching
for something
more
until
soft, licking
kiss
and we stare
amazed
this tough old flesh
and bone
could ever be made
so tender,
awed
we don’t yet know
what sustains it,
what keeps it
under
control
Write a Fire poem.
random thoughts at 4am
meeting your community
through sacred rites of passage,
your passing
boyhood and girlhood
marking you for life
and the rebirth of the next
generation
with tattoos, indelible
scarification
and the psychedelic
inhalation of
ancestors
as you leap across the backs
of cattle
where falling means failing
means no marriage,
no status,
and this mocking idolatry
of us,
this mythology of the
individual and the wealth
that we have created –
how chaotic and short lived
as we stumble
that one boy always
falling off
the back of the cattle,
the one abject
object lesson
&n
bsp; known throughout the village
as its failure,
and we are that last breathe
of a dying language
whose thoughts, perceptions
and words
will all soon be gone
and we alone,
the last speaker
with no one to worship
us with incense and sacrifice,
to visit our graves at 4am
so we can haunt them
to the 4th, 7th and 100th
generations
and how shall we choose a future
when our only choice is to live
forever
as if we are the only ones
with meetings and coffee
and strategies -
a stonehenge of
strangers
write a poem about meeting someone
Summer school
water the color of a rusty
creek bed
up to your knees,
its deep muck sucking you in
toward your
pine needle floor
and slow lighting,
punky tinder
of a school year’s
imagination-
listen closely,
that tree is a writing desk,
the long sour line of ants
on its surface
more than all your scrawls
on a chalkboard –
the pricking blackberry treasure,
long pods rattling in cages,
percussive rocks on logs,
poison oak, whole body
learning system
investigations-
first year primal readers
rejoice – everywhere is the Principle’s
office-
savvy, bandy boys and girls
in search of bare shouldered
redemption –
how much time in the sun
can you bear?
write a camp-related poem
One flew over the cuckold’s nest
It was all love, peace and
understanding -
the knowing of what
was in another’s
mind, maybe heart -
if even they knew
what that was -
the sluice of passion we all
channel – streaming through
our lives
the gravity of each decision carrying
our course past
boulders, sweeping up debris-
he looked on greedily
while I f****d his wife
the evolutionary, scientific reason
I understood later,
the increased volume
of pleasure
seeing your mate
with another
making all the difference
between having
and holding on
to something
strong
For this week’s prompt, change the title of a book (that you may or may not like), make that the title of your poem, and then write your poem.
Dessert
Fishing for browned