The 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was “overboard.”
Recurrent
again and again I board the boat
in my dreams, and again and again
there’s the storm and the swamping
and the shouts and the chaos
like before the book of Genesis
opens, before God sets everything
in order, only in the dreams there
is no God, no order, no time
again and again I struggle through
blankets and billows only to find
myself in bed, sweat-soaked,
the taste of marine fuel in my mouth
Posted in Poetry
Tagged NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, prompted poetry
The 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was “how to.”
Present
She tells me no one cares about her, and I resist
the urge to declare my love. She says she is waiting
to die, and I offer no list of things to live for.
No denial. No objection.
No argument. No dissuasion.
Because her pain is the message,
not her words. Because her suffering
is what moves her, not her reasoning.
I respond with sorrow, with shared
regret and fellow grief, for her heartache
will not be soothed by logic, her distress
cannot be calmed with evidence.
No force of mind will lift her
so I lie beside her on the floor and she sees
her own face reflected in my brimming
eyes. Responding to the sad woman
looking back at her, she rises when I do,
captivated by the play of her features
in that unexpected mirror.
fragrant daffodils from my yard
Posted in Poetry
Tagged NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, prompted poetry
The 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was “brilliant nothing.”
So eager was the blushing lad,
his bride-to-be forgave his haste
when the glittering ring she had
turned out not diamond, only paste.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, prompted poetry
The 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was “empty storefronts.”
Main Street
Once this was the place you wanted
to be, where gloved ladies met for lunch
and shopping, shoes and pocketbooks
tastefully matched to clean-cut
dresses. Shopkeepers waited
on all customers as a matter of course,
keen eyes tracking and shaping
national trends and their local
manifestations. Generations of youth
were fitted for first suits and first bras
and shoes for first communions
and bar mitzvahs, then proms and balls,
weddings and job interviews. Now
a soup kitchen and a pool hall anchor
three blocks of windows lined with faded
butcher paper and “For Lease” signs
while leaves and old newspaper gather
in the recessed doorways.
yellow magnolia from my yard
The 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was “something borrowed from another poem.”
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,
with steamy heat that makes men limp
and inert, and noxious insects that worry
the living and the dead? Or a day in spring,
with air awash in cloying fragrance
and pollen, and queues of storms that savage
the landscape? Or winter, with perfidious
footing and winds that lacerate tender
flesh and tear limbs and power lines
from their moorings? Rather would I see
in thee autumn, which marks its passing
with kaleidoscope splendor, light slanted
long like a parting caress, and the intricate
bedazzlement of frost formations.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare
This poem has nothing to do with the 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt (junk mail). It just came to me while I was doing dishes, and I have a lot of other work to do today so I’m going to run with it.
Things that keep me up at night
driven by an irrational fear
that it might suddenly disappear
from my watch list, last night
I binge-watched the third season
of Victoria on PBS Masterpiece
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30/30 Poetry Challenge, Masterpiece, NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, PBS, Victoria
Tuesday’s 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was to write a poem that dances around a secret.
Positions, Please
Shall we waltz? Shall we tango?
Do you prefer the minuet?
Choose merengue or fandango —
how familiar shall we get?
Samba, mambo, rhumba —
do you like a little heat?
Schottishe, cakewalk, polka —
just how nimble are your feet?
We could Charleston, we could foxtrot,
bossa nova until dawn.
Is it me, or does it seem hot?
— Need I go on?
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30/30 Poetry Challenge, NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month
Tuesday’s 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt: a good day
How to Have a Good Day
dog sprawled on the floor,
snoring sonorously
in the sunshine; cat curled
on the chair, claws
extending and retracting
in time with her
personal two-cycle
engine; morning strong
black tea with milk
rolling over my tongue
in counterpoint
to crumbly shortbread
biscuit drizzled
with chocolate tahini
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30/30 Poetry Challenge, NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month
…and then Sunday rolls around and I take the day off from technology. I read instead: this Sunday it was a new collection of Chinese science fiction from the library. While the 30/30 Facebook prompt (hunger lounge) was rolling around in my head and not getting any purchase, I read some lovely lines that just begged to be in a poem. So I obliged.
Beginner’s Mind
Every day, as the temple bell tolls five, I sweep
from the library to the stone steps to the temple gates
where the ancient pagoda tree grows, its gnarled
branches like the talons of a rampant beast.
The layered green branches of the cypress grove
separates us, like a firewall, from the noise
and dust of the secular world. Smog glistens
above the city like the piled layers of a sari.
I imagine passengers squeezed together
like canned sardines on the number 2 subway
train leaving the lamasery station. A bell tolls
on the hour, and startled birds take to the air.
Master Subhuti once struck Monkey three times
on the head with a ferule and then walked away
with hands held behind him. How am I to interpret
two strikes on the left shoulder and one on the right?
My journey through the dark woods is accompanied
only by the gentle susurration of pines.
(found poem from “Coming of the Light,” by Chen Quifan, pp. 387-413 in Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, edited and translated by Ken Liu
crab apple blossoms
Almost caught up with posting…Saturday’s 30/30 Poetry Facebook prompt was “I admit”
At the Fiction Writers’ Meeting
Hello, my name is Bruce, and I write fiction.
(All: Hi, Bruce.)
I write really specific fiction, about mycologists.
(nods of encouragement)
Mycologists who go into outer space
to look for fungi on other planets.
(supportive silence)
And study it. And write papers. And present
those papers at intergalactic conferences.
(non-judgmental silence)
And who belong to a secret society dedicated
to establishing an interstellar mycorrhizosphere
and thereby conquering the universe.
(interrogatory silence)
Um, that’s all.
(All: Thanks, Bruce.)
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30/30 Poetry Challenge, NaPoMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month
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