Reblogged from the Lexington Poetry Month blog.
Drafting
today a sinuous slipstream of poems
roared onto the straightaway
each drawing the one that followed
so close there was no wake
each pushing the one before
ever faster toward the finish
Category Archives: Poetry
LexPoMo 2014, day 4
Reblogged from the Lexington Poetry Month blog.
(untitled)
no suffering can enter
where my name rests
nightly on your lips
if you but hold me
in your prayers
I shall be safe
whatever befall
whatever befall
I shall be safe
in your prayers
if you but hold me
nightly on your lips
where my name rests
no suffering can enter
Comments and suggestions (especially for a title) are welcome!
Day one poem, LexPoMo 2014
Last week I signed up at Accent Publishing’s blog to be an official participant in the Lexington Poetry Month writing challenge. To wit, I pledged to write a poem a day during the month of June and post at least five of them to the writing challenge blog. Doing so will also allow my work to be considered for an anthology that will be published later this year.
This is the poem I wrote yesterday, the first day of the challenge. Today’s poem was about gout and is not likely to appear anywhere unless someone wants to publish it after I’m dead.
Grace
I promised to write
a poem every day
for a month —
thank heaven I did not
promise to write
good poems
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Accents Publishing, Lexington Poetry Month, writing challenges
Unprompted poetry: jury duty
Jury duty service this week has provided surprising opportunities for poetry, with new people and settings, lengthy silences, and stretches of solitude.
Reflections
move like smoke across the glass
neither inside nor outside
trapped between worlds
phantoms
Posted in Poetry
Tagged jury duty, poetry practice, spontaneous poetry, unprompted poetry, writing practice
Prompted poetry: 5 a.m./supermarket in California
Some of the prompts from 30/30 Poetry have seemed a bit strange to me this year, but I’ve decided that’s a good thing because it stretches me. Yesterday’s prompt (supermarket in California) just left me scratching my head…until I glanced back at Thursday’s prompt (5 a.m.) and something clicked.
The supermarket at 5 a.m. is a place of quiet
industry. No elderly couple blocks the aisle
to argue about gefilte fish. No piercing
toddler wail tracks a mother’s progress
through the building. No man consults
a cell phone before a confounding wall of soup.
Stock clerks tidy shelves. The bakery fills
the air with delicious warmth. Sprinklers
hiss softly over the produce. Slicers whir
behind the deli and meat counters. Voices
rise and fall, indistinct above the gentle
drone of the refrigerated cases.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30/30 Poetry Challenge, National Poetry Month, poetry practice, prompted poetry, writing practice
Prompt: anywhere out of the world
This was Thursday’s prompt from the 30/30 Writing Challenge. I thought it was kind of awkward, but the discomfort led me to play with it a bit more than I might have done with something more straightforward. Hey, it’s practice; it’s all good.
No Escape
the world is anywhere
but out, a roundness looping
back on itself like a snake
swallowing its own tail
or that nifty paper trick
from grade school wherein
a single twist is all you need
to model infinity
Prompted poetry: walkers at dawn
It’s still National Poetry Month! Above is yesterday’s prompt from WordXWord’s 30/30 Poetry Challenge (http://3030poetry.com/). Below is yesterday’s poem.
The Dawn Walkers
We follow the terminator’s endless
sweep, throw long shadow
legs over mountains, span plains, leap whole
valleys, stride through forests. We skim
oceans, dive from shore to shore, not quite touching
the surface, ours the flight of night and day, ever
tumbling as the round world rolls.
Prompted poetry: child’s garden
April is National Poetry Month, and I signed up again to receive daily e-mail prompts through WordXWord’s 30/30 Poetry Challenge (http://3030poetry.com/). This is what I did with yesterday’s prompt.
Unattended
I had thought to leave the child
to play in the garden, safely
fenced around and gated, but the child
had other ideas, found an old spoon
and tunneled down through the loose
soil of the carrot bed, all the way
to China.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30/30 Poetry Challenge, National Poetry Month, prompted poetry, WordXWord, writing practice
Prompted poetry: between the sheets
This prompt was from last week’s Poetry Wednesday at The Write Prompts:
Your topic is: between the sheets.
Your form is: three stanzas of varying lengths. The first stanza is what happens before, the second is what happens during, and the last stanza is what comes after.
As usual, I didn’t follow the form. The topic took me in a different direction than I expected, and I’m not sure I pulled it off. Please let me know what you think the poem is about — your feedback will be very helpful!
Blank page
between the sheets
there is nothing
but expectations
Posted in Poetry
Tagged poetry practice, prompted poetry, The Write Prompts, writing prompts
Prompted poetry: crickets
The good news is that I’ve been writing again after my lengthy (or so it feels) and unplanned hiatus. The bad news is that there has been little worth sharing; I don’t seem to bounce back very quickly in any area of my life these days. I tender the following as proof.
Moonset
a cradle moon hangs low
in the west, shallow horns draped
soft with mist — night’s own child
sleeps there, breath like the slow
churring of cold crickets
The Daily Compost 