Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.” . . . Try writing a poem that makes reference to one or more myths, legends, or other well-known stories, that features wordplay (including rhyme), mixes formal and informal language, and contains multiple sections that play with a theme. Try also to incorporate at least one abstract concept – for example, desire or sorrow or pride or whimsy.”
Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a risky poem. Of course, risky is a relative term. What's risky for one person might not feel risky for another. One person might find riding rollercoasters a risky experience, while others may need to jump out of a plane to truly feel things are getting risky.”
Today, I offer a curtal sonnet, and cheatery (or fakery) with the Peter Quince prompt as well as the risky poem prompt. At least, not what Maureen and Robert expected, probably.
Peter Quince at Risk
Yes, Peter Quince before the clavier days:
we were kids together. We played baseball
and basketball. Now Pete’s a mechanic
at the Athens Garage. We teens would play
Risk, the game of world domination, all
out for days. Peter’s only strategic
plan was hole up in Australia, build
a horde, then send those troops out in a full
blitzkrieg. Sometimes glory, mostly goldbrick,
no finesse. Pete still lives life like a child.
Peter Quince — not that quick!
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Alan's prompt handles the risky prompt marvelously.
Ruts
Holly Pond
I dream gone home about ruts,
an old road we don’t use
where the rain wash has worn
from trails shallow gullies
that curve as they twin down
the hillside, crushed exposed
sandstone, yellow layered,
gray gravel big as boys’ fists,
“erosion” a word I
don’t know to say, like “drought,”
when a green unmown ridge,
an overgrown ribbon
of grass, holds a barefoot
soft path for a hard-ankled
boy near new property
lines hemming in, hemming in.
Falkville
Past Neeta’s place, and past Dean’s place,
and across from Benny’s place, perched
hillside, a trailer set on blocks,
driveway newcut switchback, red dirt
raw, given away to Kenny
if he’d just pay to take it off
his older brother’s property.
The truck mired up near axle deep
and almost cracked the septic tank.
Burleson Mountain
My dad said when he was small
the plane crash left parts of stuff
all over the mountainside,
machine stuff and human stuff.
He would never get in one
of those things. He never did.
Vinemont
Visiting home that weekend,
we found newcleared property
in the ’72 Ford,
university students
looking for a place to park
before your mother’s curfew,
and we almost bottomed out
at least half a mile away
from a main road, years before
cell phones, hearts hammering.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!
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1 comment:
I love your fantasia on Peter Quince, and I love the language in both your and Alan's poems today. Great reads. BTW, I wrote a double curtal sonnet today (and one yesterday, but I think I like today's much better.)
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