Tag Archives: prompted poetry

Prompted poetry: bluffing

Though I apologize for my prolonged absence, I’m not going to try to explain beyond these two words: marching band.

My poetry buddy Doug Self tweeted for a word prompt last week, so I obliged. Here’s a link to his response (http://dougselfblog.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/bluffing/) and below is what I came up with.

Job Search

It’s a cat-and-mouse game, he said. One plays
dead, the other feigns disinterest. But which
is hunter and which is hunted? No, that’s not
quite right—

it’s a game of chicken, where each tries to guess
how far the other will go, who’s bluffing, who will flinch
first. Then again, he mused, the one who blinks
is the loser, so maybe

it’s more like dating, where each puts the best
foot forward. He nodded. The catch is, you don’t know who
is looking for a long-term relationship and who just wants
to hook up.

Oh, she said, you always have to assume
the latter.

Prompted poetry: wanting

I took a little break from copyediting today to glance back through my journal for something to post. This is from early April, using a prompt I signed up to receive via e-mail during National Poetry Month.

Outside

yet again she had been
weighed in the scales of friendship and found
wanting, though she did not
know why, she felt certain
there had been cues, unreadable to her
misfit understanding, arcane signals
she did not receive
correctly, so once more she stood
apart, watched the turning
rope and tried to decipher
how the others knew when
to jump in

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.

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.

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

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

Prompted poetry: wolf bite

Today is Poetry Wednesday at The Write Prompts, and the assigned form is haiku. I decided I could manage haiku this morning — just seventeen syllables (if you disregard the finer points of the form, which I did.)

the winter wind howls
down the valley as it leaves
toothmarks on my neck

Prompted poetry: dreaming dead

I found this while flipping back through my journal. It seemed particularly apt for All Saints Day/The Day of the Dead, when people of various cultures celebrate the blessed memory of those who have gone before.

Dream life of the dead

what dreams dog the dead
in their eternal sleep?
for even those cut off
by dismembering violence
rest in the end

the dead are not uneasy
but in the imagination of the living
whose envy cannot bear
the thought of such abiding
peace

if the dead stir, they merely telegraph
their dreams in cryptic twitches
and inscrutable murmurs, as sleeping
dogs before the hearth
of a winter’s night