future

PAD 2022 – Day 23

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It’s a prompt combo day, using the 30/30 phrase “opposite of history” and the NaPoWriMo.net prompt asking for a poem written in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms. Examples here with “Token Loss,” “Blue China Doorknob,” “Houdini,” and “Crustacean Island,” and my copycat poem below.

Routine

Tomorrow is not

the opposite of history,

but a composite

of moments and things

we’ve done before,

hitting snooze, stretching,

making coffee, putting on shoes,

to enter the world again

and trying not to forget

to look up at the sky

once in awhile, to breathe,

be free to see meaning

in clouds without losing

your head in them.

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PAD 2021 – Day 18

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Using the 30/30 prompt “susurration” to build on a recent moment with my daughter. 

There Will Be Gentle Things

I miss normal
she whispered to me
as I rubbed a circle over
her back, some kind of
dial to move her toward 
sleep, toward an even quieter
place than this darkened bedroom,
where the hard edges and jagged ridges 
of the last year have dissolved into
only soft S sounds, the small swish
of two pages closing against one another.
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PAD 2020 – Day 8

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Today’s attempt is another prompt two-for-one, combining the Poetic Asides call for a “future” poem, with the NaPoWriMo challenge to use a line, a phrase or word from a Twitter poetry bot as inspiration for a new poem. I used the pinned Tweet from @SylviaPlathBot, which just seemed to mesh perfectly with a future prompt and my own actively anxious state of mind.

 

It starts with a line from a Syliva Plath

 

I am not ready for anything to happen

yet I feel like I’ve been preparing my entire life.

Have you? We’re in this together, whether we like it

or not, but we didn’t walk the same path to get here.

We haven’t compared exit strategies. Worry

is a cruel teacher. Makes you a master of stasis,

mulling every kind of future, gluing yourself

to some version of a past. So little left for now.

If you can, imagine the frigid waters of a murky river

— one you will need to get across —

but that current, so tenacious.

Rabid dog crush of water that will not release you

from its teeth. I confess, since this started with her,

that I’m having a hard time remembering the shore.

Can you? Do you see it? Are the poplars still there?

The grassy cliffs? That spot where the mallards

gather in spring? Tell me it’s all still the same,

that nothing has or will happen. Tell me our limbs

will never tire from treading all this water.

 

wide_river_stock_by_tommygk-d6e0lt9

NaPoWriMo – Day 11

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Playing with the NaPoWriMo.net prompt asking for a “future” poem, and adding in the Poetic Asides call for a “warning” poem.

Theory of Relative Optimism

 

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Is it possible? That warning?

 

I’m no Einstein, but what if he was onto something

with that relativity business? No real difference

between the future and the past. Then, before.

Ahead, behind. To be, done. Imagine, remember.

 

Define hope: Noun — an expectation and desire

for a certain thing to happen. Verb — to want

something to be. To happen. Seems like

small magic. Wish, with your eyes

closed. Can you see it? In your mind?

That future dream, sketched with coloured

memories. It can happen. It’s happening.

It’s happened. Hope for it, again.

 

Define warning: Noun — a statement or event

indicating possible danger.  Verb — to give advance

notice. To caution. Seems like there’s reason to worry

What did you know and when did you know it?

Have you seen it happen, before or after?

That past mistake, italicized, set in bold,

highlighted in yellow. It was right there,

foresight. Hindsight. Look, I’m warning you.

 

But I really hope I’ll be wrong. I have been in the past.