This is the first time I’ve participated in Five Minute Friday, though I’ve used the prompts (after the fact) on several occasions. I’m not sure this fits with what’s intended, but it’s where I went.
Downhill
From the summit of her life she looks
before and behind — there’s nowhere
to go but down. At least the forward
slope has the faint attraction of novelty. She cannot
mask her disappointment that the rest of the journey
more or less amounts to a controlled fall.
I drafted this trifle near the beginning of NaPoWriMo; at this point I can’t recall where the prompt came from. I tried to do a few clever things here with line breaks but don’t know if I carried it off.
people often say things
they don’t mean
mean things
they don’t say
coil in their minds
smooth-tailed serpents
poised without
pity
(I’ve been away from writing and posting for several days because my mom had knee replacement surgery and my sisters and I provided round-the-clock tag-team coverage during her hospital stay. The surgery went well and she’s pretty much back to her ornery self, all the more so because PT makes her cranky.)
This poem was inspired by/lifted from Rob Brezsny, who is my favorite astrologist because he makes his recommendations with such creative flair. I often clip his columns to use as writing prompts, and this came from an old column I found while cleaning.
Aries, 15 November 2007
I love it when you forget
your troubles and become lost
thinking about the problems
of your friends.
I love it when you focus
entirely on the heat rising
from a cup of coffee or the sunlight
reflected in a puddle or the mysterious
expression that graces
the face of a stranger.
I love it when you prove
how much you love being
here, now, by turning your attention
onto every little thing
outside yourself.
When I first drafted this, I didn’t have terminal punctuation at the end of each stanza. I not sure whether I like it this way or not. What do you think?
Posted in Poetry
Tagged astrology, found poetry, Free Will Astrology, horoscopes, inspired poetry, Rob Brezsny
One of the many things I enjoyed about working at publishing houses was reading Publisher’s Weekly, which made the rounds through the office each week. I always wanted to make poems out of the lists of new titles, but that wasn’t what I was being paid for so I never did.
The lines for this poem came from titles on the large print shelves at my local branch library. I haven’t modified them, though I did run a few together, just for fun.
***
the bone garden twice loved
the house of women
one true place beyond compare
the secret between us
the tarnished eye kissed by shadows
savage vision falling together
once upon a river of fire
Sonoma rose above suspicion
diving in the dark celebration
miles to go wicked all day
maybe this time the blessed exact revenge
the traveling kind
***
I have experienced the sublime
pain of subluxation
that sense of partial displacement —
some of me here, the rest
excruciatingly elsewhere
I know that crooked
feeling of misalignment
when all appears to be right
but something just
isn’t
Here is another poem written last month in response to a 30/30 challenge prompt.
this round sun sits
golden in my hand
warm as a nesting bird
peachsoft with the summerripe
juices of dreams
This is the second draft of something I wrote in response to a 30/30 prompt at the beginning of April. It’s more of a lark than anything, playing with words and form. Please let me know if it works.
it was a bad
run, being in the wrong
place at the wrong
time, up a tree or a creek
sans paddle, bush
whacked and ambushed at the end
of a long string we rode
into a box canyon and ran
Out of Luck
Posted in Poetry
Tagged bad luck, inverted poetry, prompted poetry, writing, writing practice, writing prompts
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