Stroll of Poets

PAD 2022 – Day 1

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For this year’s poem-a-day challenge, I’m following the 30/30 prompts and writing with my local poetry group, Stroll of Poets.

Today’s prompt comes from Robert Hass’s prose poem, “A Story About the Body.” The idea is to write your own prose poem that, whatever title you choose to give it, is a story about the body. The poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image.

I write a lot of prose poetry, so I was excited about this prompt, and it came out rather quickly compared to some poems. I’ve tentatively titled it “It Doesn’t Even Sting” and my one line to share is:

Later, at home, when you’re peeling potatoes for supper, their skins sliding off in elegant curls, falling on your cutting board, you’ll think of the spot again.

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PAD 2020 – Day 27

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Today’s Stroll of Poets prompt asked for an “altered state” poem. Not surprisingly, my busier-than-usual mind went to a place of questioning and worry.

 

BrainWhys

 

Therapist says

You rely too heavily on the ordinary mind.

 

As though I possess a back-up, extraordinary mind,

tucked in my purse, or hidden somewhere inside me.

Leftover brain of a vanishing twin.

 

But I curb that bit of sarcasm.

I’m paying to listen, receive, as well as talk.

In the ordinary mind, she continues, we can become stuck,

ignoring the usefulness of

           altered states, like mindfulness.

 

A non-verbal mode. Just here.

 

Leaving the present

at that very moment,

against all advice, I wonder

 

why we’ve become hard-wired to think

in ways that so often erode our happiness?

Why just being is something we need to be taught,

prodded into practicing?

Why does “consciousness” sound like

“constant mess”?

Why does my ordinary mind

have so many damn questions?

 

brain

 

 

 

 

PAD 2020 – Day 25

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This weekend I’m participating in CV2‘s 2-Day poem contest, where poets have 48 hours to compose a poem using 10 given, and often challenging words. It’s the fifth time I’ve participated, and it never gets old. But it does mean I have a bit less time to devote to the regular poem-a-day challenge. So, today’s poem is a quickie inspired by the Stroll of Poets prompt to write about something “in the margins.”

 

The Wizardry of Some Poems

searching the margins

for the invisible ink

that makes them magic

 

black twist pen on notebook

Photo by Mohammad Danish on Pexels.com

PAD 2020 – Day 24

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I used my local Stroll of Poets prompt today to come up with a poem that contains anaphora (deliberate repetition in the first part of the sentence), and combined it with the Poetic Asides prompt calling for a poem that includes nature.

 

Almost Normal

 

Normal, daily walk to check the mail,

the reluctant groan of the hinge on my front door,

the neighbour’s dog alert-barking at my movement.

Normal, the steady trickle of melt water,

crows cawing and soaring in a clear sky,

the shhhhhhh of leftover leaves rustling in a tree.

Normal, the teenager slapping a puck against his garage,

an older man raking his newly exposed lawn,

two small girls happy-screeching in a backyard.

Not normal, arriving at the mailbox,

staying two metres back while another woman collects her envelopes

fearing what else she, or the postal worker who delivered this, carry.

 

Canada-Post-Community-Mailboxes-493x300

 

 

PAD 2020 – Day 18

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Late getting to the writing today! I decided to use the prompt provided my my local Stroll of Poets group calling for a “happy to hear” poem.

 

wish you could hear

 

the gentle hush of one book page closing against another

a sunflower sprout’s first push through dirt

your finger brushing across the skin of my wrist

the harmonic tremor before a volcano erupts

a snowflake falling on my woolen mitten

a monarch landing on a marigold

the other butterflies you make stir in my belly

 

selective focus photography of queen butterfly pollinating on orange petaled flower

Photo by Debadutta on Pexels.com

PAD 2019 – Day 30

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The final day! Woot! To anyone who’s been reading my poems, thank you. I write and post these drafts to keep myself on track, but it’s always nice to have the kind eyes of others on them too.

Today I decided to include all three of the prompt sites I’ve been using this month. A bit of a challenge since NaPoWriMo called for a micropoem. Packing more into less. That’s what poetry’s all about in many ways. So I tried to squeeze in the Poetic Asides call for a “stop” poem and the Stroll of Poets “standing in line” prompt.

 

tourist rest stop

 

cradled

by the rocky mountains

 

in the bathroom line

 

i hear “beautiful”

in six languages

 

 

PAD 2019 – Day 29

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The penultimate day of the poem a day challenge! I love the word penultimate. Today’s Stroll of Poets prompt was “room full of secrets” while the Poetic Asides prompt called for a __________ Again poem. Not sure the quickies I wrote really fulfill either prompt that well, but shhhhh….don’t tell.

 

whispering again

leaves plotting a quick descent

secrets of autumn

 

 

powerful people

disguised in expensive clothes

fill rooms with secrets

 

men with ideas

plan a covert whale mission

to harness power

 

* last one inspired by this kooky news story I read this morning

 

 

PAD 2019 – Day 27

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Blending today’s Poetic Asides call for a “direction” poem with the Stroll of Poets prompt, “where the heart beats.”

 

Behind the sternum

 

is where the heart beats

in the most literal sense,

but also wherever it is that you

are closest to me.

 

It all comes down to impulses,

electric and erotic.

The zap of every kiss.

 

How fitting that it’s

about the size of a fist,

because of the punch I feel,

the pow, right in the chest

when I look at you,

remembering you’ve

chosen me.

 

PAD 2019 – Day 24

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I had a lot going on today and nearly missed the daily post, but where I live there is still 30 minutes left in this day. Running out of time actually works well with the poem inspired by today’s prompt from my local Stroll of Poets group. The call to write a “last of a kind” poem took me to this Mental Floss article, and led me to write this:

Endlings

 

Specimens that are the last

living member of their kind.

Such a cute term for something so calamitous.

 

In captivity, they’ve been given names:

Benjamin the Thylacine, died in Australia, 1936

Martha the Passenger Pigeon, left the world in Cincinnati, 1914

Toughie the Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog, lost his life in Atlanta, 2016

Lonesome George the Pinta Island Tortoise , lived for decades on California’s Santa Cruz Island,

and was more than 100 years old when he died in 2012.

Turgi the Polynesian Tree Snail, the last of a species who inhabited the earth

from  1.5 million years BC to 1996.

 

Others who lived their final days roaming free, until they faded away.

We can never know when they really left, yet we write memorials to

Booming Ben the Heath Hen, last spotted in Massachusetts in 1932

and Celia the Pyrenean Ibex, whose body was found in 2000 in Spain.

 

What name will the last one of us have?

Emma? Hakim? Fabrizzio or Wei?

What will mark our passing,

how will it be known,

who can remember

or mourn

when there is no one left to write about us?

PAD 2019 – Day 16

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Working off the Poetic Asides prompt asking for a catch and/or release poem, and my local Stroll of Poets call to write a poem more about sound than meaning.

 

The Frequency of Calm

 

In. Out. In. Out.

As though it were that simple.

As though thinking doesn’t complicate even this.

 

Chase away the panic.

Catch the breath. Hold. Release.

 

Draw it in with a rush, flurry, gulp.

Let it out with a hush, whisper, sigh.

 

Draw, draw, aww, aww, awe

for this. Now.

Hold , hold, whole, whole, hole

of worry. Fade.

Let go, let go, here, here, hear

the whisper. Still.

 

Vibrato hum. Hum. Hum.

Om. Om. Om.