Poem for April 25

For today’s Writer’s Digest prompt, Robert Lee Brewer invites us to take the phrase “Everyone (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of a poem, and then, write the poem. Possible titles he suggests: “Everyone Thinks I’m Crazy,” “Everyone Knows the World Is Round,” “Everyone Needs to Leave Me Alone,” or whatever it is that everyone is doing (or not doing).

Here’s my response. It was the first idea that popped into my head, so I just decided to go with it and see where it went.

everyone lived in an ugly cow town

everyone lived in an ugly cow town

(with dull unthinking so many knows down)

birth youth age death

they shouted their  isms they flung their hate

 

women and men (and children too)

circled the wagons to keep not-us out

they oiled their other they drove out their strange

city suburb village grange

 

some people guessed (but only a few

and down they forgot as upward they grew

age death birth youth)

that no one remembered untruth by untruth

 

late by never and why by why not

she always remembered yet never forgot

rake by august and heaven by hell

was anyone’s way to talk but untell

 

somebodies married their no ones-but-him

they nothinged their chatting they danced their undid

(sleep wake work and then) they

said their farewells and unstood by the door

 

stars rain sun moon

(and only the chaff can seem to explain

how no one remembers and many regret

with dull unthinking so many knows down)

 

one day nobody died i guess

(and nobody wept to unmourn the unloss)

all were too busy to stop for a look

nothing by nothing by hook or by crook

 

shallow by shallow and none too deep

and less by less they undream when asleep

someone and no one betwixt by between

and nothing at all can appear if it’s seen.

 

women and men (both worth and unworth)

youth age death birth

unreaped as unsown, they unplayed their game

sun moon stars rain

 

 

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We all know someone like this

“For today’s [poetry] prompt,” writes Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest, “write an auto poem. Auto could mean automobile, automatic, automaton, or any number of possibilities.”

My offering today is a senryu. A senryu, as Brewer defines it, is like a haiku with fewer restrictions and different subject matter. It’s a 3-line poem with a traditional 5/7/5 syllable (or sound) pattern, and the poem typically deals with the human condition. “In fact,” Brewer observes, “many people who claim to write haiku are already writing senryu.”

Guilty as charged.

Autocracy

In his rule of one

No one else has any say.

“My way or highway.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem for April 23

Today’s poetry prompt from Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest is a Two-for-Tuesday prompt. “In fact,” he writes, “this is one I include with every challenge.” Here are the options he offers:

• Write a love poem.
• Write an anti-love poem.

And mine is a single poem that does both.

’Twas The Beast Killed Beauty

Last night she dreamed she was in love with King Kong.

A big hulking brute of a beast he was,

Who petted and scorned her by turns.

He built her a shelter of sorts in the air,

Perched high on his haunches where no one could reach her.

He made it of sticks and mud and promises,

The ephemeral flora of the forest.

And from the outside

And from the ground

And from a distance

It looked solid enough.

 

Inside was all she needed:

A bed, a mop, a stove,

And one tiny window to let some outside light filter in,

But none of hers out.

And although he often squeezed her too tight,

And, truth be told, it did scare her some

When he pounded his chest or threw things,

She was

 

Happy.

 

No, really.

 

‘Till one day he lowered his great hairy hindquarters

To reach for some low-lying fruit,

Where, finding her feet on solid earth,

She tremblingly crept toward the palm-shaded window

And leaning her elbows upon the sill,

Stood looking and looking out.

 

 

Poem for April 22

For today’s prompt, Robert Lee Brewer suggests writing a complex poem. “Complex is a complex word,” he explains, “that can refer to mental state, apartments, difficulty of a situation, and so many other complex situations.”

My response:

Tête–à-tête

She thinks she is manic-depressive, she says, using

The language of a generation ago to describe

What I saw every day:

The bursts of creativity, the beautiful melodies,

Whole programs taking shape in a single flash of insight.

These she juxtaposed among the late nights she dragged me out of bed

She said to shore her up

But really just to pull me down and down into her nightmare realm.

 

Did she have a choice?

I say she did.

 

There were those lucid moments when she knew,

When she could see the wreckage in her wake,

But it was too easy to make it someone else’s choice:

Her husband, her friends, her family all gave her the easy out

(And themselves, too, no doubt),

All said she could not help herself,

And therefore I must.

 

Which left me with a choice:

To follow suit, or to chart a different course.

I preferred Plan B,

Which despite its many pitfalls and uncertainties,

Has mostly worked out rather well.

 

Especially for her granddaughters.

 

She pauses, fork poised with the next bite,

Waiting for … what? I’m not sure. Disbelief? Evidence to the contrary?

Reassurance that she is fine

And everyone else is nuts? Yes. Probably that one. That was always my job.

But instead I laugh, my years of anger and misery long since passed.

 

“No,” I say, meaning yes.

“Do tell.”

 

 

Poem for April 20

For today’s poem, my usual source at Writer’s Digest challenges us to write a beyond poem. “The poem could be beyond human comprehension,” Robert Lee Brewer writes. “It could be from the great beyond. It could be from beyond–another city, country, planet, solar system, dimension, etc. Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond with it.”

For my offering, I am reconstructing from memory a poem I wrote in third grade as a school assignment. My teacher was so impressed (I believe she used the word “precocious” several times), she had the principal read it over the loudspeaker. My mother was so unimpressed she immediately threw it away. I’ve tried to be faithful to the original as I wrote it; however, with the passage of time, some of the lines have faded from memory. I’ve had to reconstruct those as best I could. Others, however, are recorded here exactly as I wrote them.

A few people may wonder how a third-grade child could possibly possess such a vocabulary. Here’s the quick answer: I come from a long line of educators, I read constantly as a child while my classmates were busily developing their athletic and social skills, and I was always the classic bookworm: painfully shy, slightly nerdy, and infinitely more savvy about how to diagram a sentence than how to hang upside down by the knees on the monkey bars.

That’s how.

First, then, the assignment, which probably every school child in America has done at some point: First we read the famous poem “Nancy Hanks” by Rosemary Benet. Then we read the response by Julius Silberger. Our assignment was to write our own response to Nancy Hanks. Mine, titled “Beyond Your Wildest Dreams,” appears immediately below.

Nancy Hanks

Rosemary Benet

If Nancy Hanks
Came back as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of what she loved most,
She’d ask first
“Where’s my son?
What’s happened to Abe?
What’s he done?”

 

“Poor little Abe,
Left all alone
Except for Tom,
Who’s a rolling stone;
He was only nine
The year I died.
I remember still
How hard he cried.”

 

“Scraping along
In a little shack,
With hardly a shirt
To cover his back,
And a prairie wind
To blow him down,
Or pinching times
If he went to town.”

 

“You wouldn’t know
About my son?
Did he grow tall?
Did he have fun?
Did he learn to read?
Did he get to town?
Do you know his name?
Did he get on?”

 

*  *  *

A Reply to Nancy Hanks

Julius Silberger

 

Yes, Nancy Hanks,
The news we will tell
Of your Abe
Whom you loved so well.
You asked first,
“Where’s my son?”
He lives in the heart
Of everyone.

 

 *  *  *

And here was mine:

 

Beyond Your Wildest Dreams*

 Ann Louise Graham, age 8

 

If indeed Nancy Hanks were among us today,

What news would I give her? What words would I say?

That her son grew up tall, and he learned how to read,

And his work saw a nation’s oppressed people freed.

“What’s happened to Abe?” Nancy asks. “What’s he done?”

He’s a lasting example to most everyone.

With his words on our lips, in our minds and our hearts,

His ideal never falters, nor ever departs.

You questioned us, Nancy, for news of your son.

Yes, Abe Lincoln got on, Nancy Hanks. He got on.

 

*a reconstruction

 

Poem-A-Day for April 15

Today’s poetry challenge from Writer’s Digest is to write a poem about some sort of infestation. Looking over some of the selections from earlier this morning, I find the usual infestations of insects and love/obsessions, plus some rather inventive ideas about infestations. Mine isn’t so much inventive, perhaps, as it is timely. This is about an infestation that is all too common in our schools.

Sign of the times

 

It could be just a hoax.

 

Some kid wanting a day off from school,

Or some kid who’s angry and doesn’t know how else to say it,

Or maybe just some kid writing stuff on bathroom walls

For no reason.

Who knows?

But it was in my inbox from corporate HQ,

And all the local schools are on alert,

(Although many have dismissed it as a copycat prank)

And most important,

My daughter had heard it, and was concerned.

 

And I don’t want my town to be next in the headlines.

And certainly not my daughter.

There have been so many towns

In so many headlines,

And so many daughters,

And so much national grief.

 

So today she has a headache

Which I informed her yesterday she would wake up with this morning.

That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, I said.

Be consistent, and tell everyone you have a headache, I said,

Even your best friends.

And I thought, how ironic,

That the best proof I have today of my parental excellence,

Is how thoroughly I’ve coached her on how she should lie

In order to be safe.

 

 

 

 

“Broken” poem for Friday, April 12

For today’s selection, I’m back to my source at Writer’s Digest. Robert Lee Brewer suggests writing a poem about something that’s broken. I’m finding that I like the compactness and natural cadence of haiku, so I’ll use that form again.

Melancholy

Tears that once flowed free

Fall back on my aching heart

And lie there, burning.

 

 

 

 

Poem for a cold, rainy day

I wasn’t inspired by today’s Poem-A-Day challenge from my usual source, so I decided to use my own idea. Because you can never have too many flower haikus.

Jonquils

Against the brick wall,

Bowing their luminous heads;

Cold rain stains the earth.

 

 

 

Poem for April 10

For today’s prompt, Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest challenges readers to write a suffering poem. “A person or animal in the poem could be suffering,” Brewer writes. Or, he adds, “The poem itself could be suffering.”

Here’s my response:

Homework assignment

 

She came to class today, hat pulled low over her ears.

 

He pulled her hair out in clumps, she says.

She should never have gone out with him, she says,

When she had a paper due about global food injustice.

She should have known better.

 

This is not the first time it’s happened.

It’s been a pattern since her earliest days;

Men coming in and out of her life like so many jackals stalking their prey,

Waiting for some small unguarded moment that will allow them

To seize the opportunity.

 

She doesn’t say it, perhaps doesn’t see it,

Perhaps is hoping against hope that someone else, finally, will see it.

There is another kind of injustice playing out here;

Something else she could write a paper on,

That is much more pressing than the human-rights abuses

Committed by faceless corporations against nameless multitudes.

 

This is a tyranny that is hers alone to explore,

And I will be asking her to walk across a field of broken glass

That lies deep within her own soul,

To embark on a treacherous journey

That no one ever volunteers to undertake,

And whose destination is far from certain.

 

Write me a paper, I tell her,

In which you tell me what you already know,

But no one has been willing to hear you say.

Tell me, I say,

Because so many have said everything is all your fault,

And you know and I know that it’s not,

Tell me all the reasons why not.

I’m listening. I believe you.

 

And in her eyes, terror and hope.

Her journey begins.

 

 

Poem for April 9

Today’s Poem-A-Day challenge for National Poetry Month is a Two-for-Tuesday prompt. Again, credit for the challenge goes to Robert Lee Brewer of Writer’s Digest. He challenges us to write one of the following (or both):

• Write a hunter poem.
• Write a hunted poem.

My offering for today is about both the hunter and the hunted:

The Vampire

He invades her dreams at night, cold and quiet as the grave.

Turning toward him, she sees those dark features transformed

Into the face she knows only too well — but no —

She turns away again, she closes her eyes against the thought.

She mustn’t know. She must forget.

He must remain a figure cloaked in mystery,

A nameless phantom from some morbid legend found in books,

Or else she could never face the dawn.

For if she has no hope that he will vanish with morning’s light,

Where then is she safe?  Where can she hide?

 

More than once she has thought how strange it is

To be haunted by a vampire with such sad eyes.

He comes, and stands there, and watches her in the dark

(As she has so often sensed him watching her in the day):

And he tells her, not in words but through grotesque pantomime,

How he will regenerate himself by degenerating her innocence.

But how can she tell him, as she shivers in pity and dread,

Trapped in a helpless limbo where sleep and wakefulness merge,

That she would gladly drive the stake through his heart herself,

If she did not fear breaking her own as well?