Neither shy nor shrinking,
vibrant orange blooms
jostling with neighbors for territory.
First to show in a bed not yet
reclaimed from winter’s neglect;
last to go, refusing extinguishment
by autumn’s bluster.
Wallflower, who ever thought to name an
awkward, peripheral introvert after you?
dVerse quadrille prompt: bloom: write a poem of exactly 44 words and include the word “bloom.”
There is nothing new under sun or stars, so
bleak a plight we dread admit as much.
Life’s meaning now on apathy depends;
and even that we scarce rely upon.
A rose is a rose is a
rose, especially if that rose is red,
primary on the color wheel,
predictable on barn or barrow.
You see it in our eyes, glazed
over and toneless and done with
useless tears. Instead, we let rain
track our cheeks in sham rills of water.
There’s nothing to do now but sit beside
old memories: books with cracked spines, the
way new snow once appeared impossibly white,
and the cackled surprise of egg-laying chickens.
It’s the last day of National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). I’m taking today’s prompt from dVerse, where we are challenged to write a Golden Shovel poem. The form:
*Choose a line from a poem that resonates with you.
*Build your poem so each line ends with a word from that line.
*Keep the words in order, forming the original line down the right margin.
*Let your poem move in its own direction. Surprise us!
*Include attribution (after [poet])
The poem I chose was The Red WheelBarrow by William Carlos Williams. Since there are only sixteen words in the poem, I used the entire poem to form my own.
The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams*
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
*Source: The Collected Poems: Volume I 1909-1939 (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1938)
The hedgerow of knee-high slender saplings
now towers and spreads with abandon.
No longer sure of myself but – faint and insistent –
do I hear knocking at the door?
I should have known, of course it wasn’t;
just a large crow, pecking bugs out of the gutter.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Twenty-Eight prompt from NaPoWriMo.net:
Victoria Chang’s poem, “The Lovers,” is short and somewhat shocking, bringing us quickly from a near-hallucinatory descriptive statement to a strange sort of question, before ending on the very direct statement of a “truth.” Six lines, three sentences, and to top it off, a title that I think works for the poem but is only obliquely related to its text. Today, try writing a poem that follows the same beats: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion.
How to make a stained glass panel.
It’s like falling off a log:
practice makes perfect!
Make a pattern for your pieces. Otherwise,
If you fail to plan, plan to fail.
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
Select your glass,
half empty or half full.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Remember, the glass is
always greener on the other side.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
Cut the glass.
measure once, cut twice.
If it ain’t broke, fix it.
Solder the pieces together.
Strike while the iron is hot.
A pane is only as strong as its weakest link.
Clean the glass panel.
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
The squeaky glass gets the streaks.
Hang your panel in a safe place.
People who live in glassed houses
should not throw stones.
Admire your work.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
All’s well that ends well.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Twenty-Seven prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: Start by reading Robert Fillman’s poem, “There should always be two.” Now, write your own poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind.
It's time, my little raised bed garden.
This is the year I’ll plant the seeds,
and you will have them grow
a copious crop of carrots, peas and such
as I have yet to determine.
No more a fallow field of failed fecundity,
unfilled, unfulfilled… fill in the blanks.
In fairness, also faultless, as it was I who –
in seasons past – failed to plant the seeds.
A battlefield devoid of bullets.
I did not engage the enemy weeds.
No tanks rolled in to claim the ground,
no trenches dug to shelter in.
I fled, falling, failing, foiled, felled…
so many four-letter f-words can apply.
A shallow grave without a body, living or dead.
Unsullied by shovels, spared of spades
that may have turned up sweet surprises,
or skeletons with bleached, broken bones and
smiling skulls.
But not this year!
This year I will
quell the weeds,
plant the seeds,
and watch my
raised bed garden grow.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Twenty-Five prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.
I didn’t ruminate on definitions, I suppose, but I had fun playing with words!
Mother, forgive me
for taking you for granted
my only home, earth
Some days you’re there, but maybe not.
Part way there and part way... where?
How does one choose which parts
to bring along on any given day?
Some days you see things
that may or may not be what you see.
Some days the only thing that matters
is that the horse you are riding
has all four feet and seems to know
where he is headed.
dVerse Poetics prompt: Exploring the Art of Gerard Sekoto.
For today’s Poetics prompt, Melissa challenges us to “choose one of the paintings featured in [today’s dVerse] post and base your poem on it. Write whatever comes to mind as you explore the colors and images of the painting. Please let us know in your post which painting you’ve chosen and credit the artist.”
I chose the painting featured above, “Policeman on a White Horse in the Fields” by Gerard Sekoto (1959). Thank you, Melissa, for the prompt.
Did you ever think
we would find such happiness
sitting side by side
watching dandelion seeds
float away on children’s breath?
A tanka for National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo).
You slither across sun-parched deserts,
wend through mossy forests,
slip between crevasses of glass and concrete
We skip together to the corner store for a soda and candy bar;
we writhe as one, cornered in a dank, underground parking garage.
You come at us, push through us, leave us behind, then
swing back around like a Mobius strip to do it all again.
You take our hand on a warm, country afternoon
and we stroll in comfortable silence down sweet, forgotten lanes.
You cradle us in your fluid arms, whisper memories and dreams,
conjure hope and regret, satisfaction and despair.
We have too much of you, or not enough.
We bless you and curse you, and all the while,
your ineffable presence is steadfast,
defining our very lives.
If you have taught me anything, it’s this:
you should not be taken for granted;
if I fight you, I will lose;
if I embrace you, I will find peace.
Time waits for no one.
Time marches on.
Time is on my side…
So many misconceptions we have about you.
It's no wonder we continue to waste you.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Sixteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you.
It hits my mailbox 9 PM,
the Na-Po-Wri-Mo prompt is in.
I read it once, then twice again,
this challenge of poetic whim.
Waterfalls or blossomed trees,
poets of old would turn to these,
find inspiration on a breeze,
then from known words a poem tease.
Not me! The laptop cursor blinks.
I read the prompt; begin to think.
pull up Thesaurus in a wink,
and if my rhyming really stinks…
A single keystroke and it’s gone.
Without a care I carry on.
When I decide this poem is done,
Hit “Save,” then write another one.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Fourteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem that bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 