Day 11. Go have a lovely cup of coffee! Doesn't that sound like a good accompaniment to poetry today?
Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, I challenge you to write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does. I think of the 'surprise' ending to this James Wright Poem as a model for the effect I’m hoping you’ll achieve. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details. Happy writing!"
Robert Lee Brewer's PAD prompt: "For today’s prompt, write a defensive poem. The first thing that springs to my mind is getting defensive about an accusation, which may or may not be true. The next thing I think about might be people or animals defending themselves. Or defense in sports. Or defense in the court room. Or well, there’s a lot to defend in this world."
First up today is Jed, who sneakily gets both prompts in. Great voice, Jed!
Cooperative
I don’t like the poetry prompt today.
“Describe something,” you say?
“Closely. Carefully. Concretely.
Then say something abstract, oblique.”
That’s not a subject, that’s a style!
Don’t tell me how to write. I will not
Do it. Let me be unique.
I don’t like the other prompt, either;
“Get defensive about something.”
I will not get defensive about . . .
Wait.
—Draft by Jedediah Kurth [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Ven also mashes up the prompts today. Love the switch-over midway.
Meh
Muddy-brown liquid slips gracefully
from this thickly walled bottle —
splashing a welcome bitter-sweet
aroma that incites my mind to see
the room around me glazed in viscuous
gold. I feel warmth seep through
the bottom of this heavy glass.
Is this psychic comfort or plain physics?
I know not.
I feel you judging me. But you have
your app games and your Netflix queue,
you have your humble-brag posts
and your motivational cat memes.
You have two thousand fake friends
and a lake of liberal causes filled
with good intentions but devoid of
sense. Dulls your ache doesn’t it?
My glass or your phone — same difference.
Whatever works right?
I’m not insane. I’m not insane. I’m just smarter than you.
—Draft by Ven Batista [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Interestingly, Sarah also deals with a similar topic in her poem today.
It's the headache talking . . .
This is not an addiction,
this is pure seduction
in cream swirled froth
and hazelnut tinted foam.
Burnt sugar grains melting
into a soupy caffeinated slag
radiate gentle heat through perforated
cardboard. Scorn my percolated
drug if you desire, but I am in no danger:
I can quit whenever I please. Such anger
unleashed, in your deepest fears,
would never come to pass, rest assured:
sweet nectar of gods appeases
even the worst of tempestuous spirits.
—Draft by Sarah Smith [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
I'm taking a different tack with the idea of defense, but taking a cue from my coffee aficionado friends here. Again, blending the "concrete then abstract" and "defensive poem" prompts.
Coffee’s Antioxidants Defend Against Free Radicals
In my sleek brown craft, I maneuver these subterranean
Rivers of incarnadine liquid, slipping over and around
the massive saucers of red flesh that float and lumber, full,
like huge round canteens, of life-giving oxygen bubbles.
To my left and right, the brick-red walls of the slick tunnel
swoosh by, glimmering a dim yellow light from nodules
of luminescent glass. Ahead, a mob of spiky, green-blue,
jagged-winged creatures block the clear passage through,
threatening to block the flow of goods here with radical,
senseless violence, sharp claws grazing the canal walls.
My fingers flicker an orchestral dance across the rainbow-
colored buttons and controls, launching photon torpedoes
that explode the radicals, despatching them back to their hell.
Beauty, Life, Good for All: I have served my mission well.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
And here's Alan batting clean-up.
Junker
As a younger man, he would have fixed that door
in two days, tops, once he had found one in a salvage yard,
and would have had one of us hold it into place if we
were old enough to hold it still. But, broken down,
he taped some insulation in the fallen window’s place
and let the truck remain uncranked, unmoved.
Then he decided to break down the other door
and stripped its workings out; he then took clothesline
twine and tied that broken door across the wide red seat
around the steering wheel. But why climb in the truck at all,
to look through glass that cracked from left to right,
to smell the must of disuse, turn a key
completing circuits to a long-dead battery?
What could he haul, who carried jobs so big
that truck once groaned across north Alabama, down
to Georgia sometimes, up to Tennessee,
but now had broken, rusty tools and trash,
too many mixed-up screws to sort,
and leaves turned humus in its bed?
It was a classic; front fenders straight, the hood
and bumper perfect, grill the same, and, facing it,
you’d hardly know how broken down it was inside.
You couldn’t separate him from his truck.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Thanks for the poetry, everyone. Gentle readers out there, I hoped you enjoyed our work today.
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4 comments:
My muddy brown liquid isn't meant to be coffee. Hmm. Some revision may be required as I see how you could take it that way because of the warmth thing. Although one doesn't typically pour coffee out of a bottle or drink it from a glass. so you know.
Ven, oh I see. Bottle made me think thermos right away. Ah well.
Just discovered your blog, Vince. And now I am a follower. Warm regards.--Mon
Thanks, Mon!
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