The Prize Who Reminded

If you love me, consider

me as five days
of rain that lit a fire
inside you.

If you love me, call
me a shipwreck
who inspired you to thrive
in an unfamiliar world.

If you love me, whisper
about how I fed you remarks
& verses for each meal
to nourish your soul.

If you love me, nest-
le up with me, call me
your little hummingbird,
defend my delicate wingspan.

If you love me, cradle
your mallet shaft,
percuss my vertebrae
with the skill of a marimbist.

If you love me, remember—
consider, call, whisper,
nestle, and cradle me
while I’m still by your side.

Please Keep Us Afloat

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The (blank) Who (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “The Runner Who Walked,” “The Scientist Who Decided to Make a Monster,” “The Poet Who Loved Me,” and/or “The Teacher Who Couldn’t Learn.” If you’d prefer to write about a thing instead of a person, feel free to replace the word “who” with the word “that.”

* * * 

On the Streets

Somewhere,
Brenda pours
baby
oil
down a storm
drain to keep
cockroaches
away.

Somewhere,
Terrion straightens
his cardboard
walls,
pulls up
his newspaper
blanket
for the night.

Somewhere,
bus-riding
sightseers snap
selfies
with sidewalk
camp
tenants.

Somewhere,
a man dies,
a woman dies
on
the streets,
but no one
sees.

For Them, It's Not a Vacation

[Life is challenging these days, so this challenge is extra challenging. I'm not thrilled with my poems this time, but that is why I keep practicing.] 

Here is the prompt for Day Ten (copied from Writer's Digest):

For today’s prompt, write a lone poem. Perhaps the poem is about a solitary wanderer or person who just prefers to go it alone. Or a lone winner, lone wolf, or some other solo individual. Or alternatively, I’ll accept poems that are about loans or that are about being alone.

*****

What’s the Big Deal? (A Poem for Day Ten of PAD)

For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt (day ten):

1. Write a deal poem.
2. Write a no deal poem.

The Weeds Are No Big Deal

What’s the Big Deal?

It’s really not a big
deal tossing out
a few words like wild-
flower seeds, seeing
where they land
or if they even blossom,
too many pecked
up by neighborhood
hens, anxious
to chinwag, but I’m
not talking, I’m locked
away, a princess
next to a tower
of books, yelling
at me to save
myself, don’t wait
around
till the garden’s
bloom
has ended.


*****

[Please note that all prompts have been copied from the Writer's Digest Poetic Asides website.]

Un(t)raveled - a Poem for Day Ten of PAD

Here is the prompt for day ten of the April PAD Challenge:

For today’s prompt, write a travel poem. Your poem can be about the process of traveling, planning to travel, vicariously traveling through television programs, or however else you’d like to take this prompt.

I Wear Color Now

Un(t)raveled

I store you in a canvas shopping bag
on my bedroom floor. You, cut
and scattered—I tried to piece you
back together—stitch you,
fold you, situate you gently
inside my travel case,
but your odds
and ends
I could not
prefabricate.

You’re a pattern
with lost pieces,
a garment
that’s become
quite a bore.
So, I leave you there
on my bedroom floor
to remember
who I don’t want
to wear anymore.

***

How You Mourn Your Own Life (a Poem for Day Ten of PAD)

My poem for day ten is below. 

Here is the prompt from Poetic Asides:

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “How (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “How to Write a Poem,” “How Mechanical Pencils Work,” and “Howling at the Moon After Midnight in the Middle of a Thunderstorm.”

You Live in Sepia

How You Mourn Your Own Life

She’s dead
to you,
but still breathing.

You never thought
it would be so
when you were young
and she satisfied
your winter cravings.

You never thought
luxury could live inside
a lonely room, playing
colored markers
like piano keys.

You never thought
you’d cover five hundred
categories of things you loved
about her with a self-
addressed stamped envelope.

You never thought
your lilacs would all turn
to paper, folded and torn
under twenty-something years
of hibernation.

But it’s not her
you mourn—it’s the life
you lost
because she died
in your mind.

It’s the untasted kisses,
the warm curve against
your back now replaced
by a cold sheet, surveillance
on every corner,

searching for the one
to replace her
now that you can’t feel
the sand inside
your bloodless fingers, piece

by piece falling
like an egg timer,
like your life,
your breaths,
the one you forgot

because you were too busy
doing mouth-to-mouth
with something
you could never get back.
You lost yourself

in death.
You lost your life.
And the only things left to mourn
are the wasted parts, less a glass,
more a house. The one she keeps now

with someone else while you keep mourning,
keep lacking sleep. Keep on
unfolding paper lilacs
wishing to turn them back
into the real thing.

She’s dead
to you,
but still breathing.

*****

My Future without You (a Poem for Day Ten of PAD)

Every day I hold my breath just a little when I sit down to write my poem for the day, wondering if I will be able to let the words (and my emotions) flow. Only twenty more poems to go. Hopefully by the end I will have learned to breathe through the whole process.

The prompt for Day Ten of PAD is:

For today’s prompt, write a future poem. The future might mean robots and computer chips. The future might mean apocalyptic catastrophes. The future might mean peace and understanding. The future might mean 1,000 years into the future; it might mean tomorrow (or next month). I forecast several poems in the near future to be shared below.

The Empty Chair Became Too Much for Me

My Future without You

In the future, this set of cherry-colored dishes
I now line each mortal meal with—the one that holds
us all together, our legs so close our knees knob
against each other (those hardwood legs, too),
we sometimes even joke about playing footsie—
in that future, those dishes will have lost their shine,
chips marking their tired edges, along with a crack or two,
invisible unless you look just the right way in the light.
In that future, I rush to sit, quickening my intake,
and then get back up from empty chairs I (try to) overlook,
giving anything to yell at you, “Clean your plate.”
Giving anything to see your hands
clearing those cherry-colored dishes.

*****