What Just Happened?

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Day Two of NaPoWriMo. Today’s prompt:

Write a poem that resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.

End with a question? Are you sure?

whats happening

What Just Happened?

Say, did you hear that noise just now?
No? Neither did I.
What do you suppose it was?
Or wasn’t.

Could have been most anything,
but you know what I think?
I think it was nothing; a very quiet nothing.
Came out of nowhere, and went…
nowhere.

You think I hear things that aren’t really there?
Where did you hear that?
Never mind, that’s neither here nor there.

Fact is, I’m not hearing things that aren’t really there.
Nothing wrong with that, is there?
Who am I to judge a sound by its absence?

Speaking of sound judgment…
are you thinking what I’m thinking?
No? Me neither.

What do you suppose it was?

How to

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Day One of NaPoWriMo. The prompt:

[W]rite poems that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something.

Herewith,

how to

How To

There’s so many things I’ve yet to learn,
like where and why and what and who.
So who said what, why is it where
most try to teach “how to?”

How to fall in love;
how to win it back.
How to lose the oaf
when his façade cracks.

How to earn big bucks
quick and easily,
how to file the forms
for your bankruptcy.

How to win respect from
those you disdain,
how to show concern
with sympathy feigned.

I won’t tell you how
to live your life.
It takes patience, care
and sometimes strife.

But I’ll gladly show how
to change your and my luck
with just four installments
of twenty bucks.

It’s here: NaPoWriMo

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NaPoWriMo celebrates National Poetry Writing Month, where one writes a poem a day for the entire month of April. As I did last year, I am participating by responding to the prompts given at the site NaPoWriMo. net.

The “early bird” prompt for today: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poetic self-portrait. And specifically, we’d like you to write a poem in which you portray yourself in the guise of a historical or mythical figure. “

So here we go!

woods

 Self-Portrait as a Sasquatch

It seeks me out,
hunts me down…
the commotion, the cacophony, the confusion.

I want none of it. It hurts my head.
I seek refuge in the cooling shadows of the forest.

I become curious, though, and
come out of the woods,
down from the mountain,
dare to be seen

only to discover nothing has changed;
the commotion, the cacophony, the confusion…
my head hurts.

Retreating back to the shadows, I content myself
with the serenity of keeping my own company.

The warmth of the sun brings sustenance to my soul,

but it’s not yet time.

Asking Bella

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Bella

From where did you come,
and where did you go
before you came here to me?
What happened to make you fear
crates and loud noises and the prospect of
being left alone?

Who put you in a cell
with bars and bare cement floors
and people parading by to stare?
How did you choose me
to be the one you would enchant
with your soulful chocolate eyes?

When will I have done enough to thank you
for the privilege of walking this path
with you?

I can imagine answers to my questions,
but I will never truly know.
Of course, some questions have no answers,
and that’s okay. What matters is that
you are the answer to me, and
I am the answer to you.

For Emily and Bella

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #37: Story

Sermons and Seeds

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41

The dVerse poetry prompt today is all about the pantoum poetry form. As explained by Gina on the dVerse Poetry blog, the pantoum is a series of interwoven quatrains and rhyming couplets. I won’t elaborate further than that (‘cuz I’d just confuse myself), but you can read Gina’s description of the form here.

Below is my attempt at such a poem.

pantoum1

When bored with a sermon of a Sunday morn,

To the graveyard next door I would go.

Among the gravestones I’d play and roam;

Decorum of death I did blithely not know.

 

To the graveyard next door I would go

To escape stale air and the pastor’s drone.

Decorum of death I did blithely not know;

Off I would dance over rotting bones.

 

To escape stale air and the pastor’s drone,

I’d blow dandelion puffballs to free the seeds.

Off they would dance over rotting bones,

Then land between tombstones and weeds.

 

I’d blow dandelion puffballs to free the seeds

Among the gravestones. I’d play and roam,

Then land between tombstones and weeds,

When bored with a sermon of a Sunday morn.

pantoum2