Welcome, faithful readers! Today's poem for Day 6 is #80 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #445, including last year's total).
Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “In your poem today, try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.”
Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a water poem.”
In his poem today, Alan is combining the two prompts again, once more in a love poem addressed to his beloved.
Round This Town
We were dating back then, Sweetheart,
and I was working for my dad
on summer days he needed me,
DJing when he didn’t, and we
spent a Saturday at Smith Lake,
a place I hadn’t been for years
because I nearly drowned there once.
You wore a two-strap one-piece suit,
and I was in my trunks, and we
stayed in some shallows feeling,
well, rambunctious, even you
were getting handsy just beneath
the surface. I was woozy, brain deprived
of oxygen, the blood gone south,
and I recalled a playful phrase
from a hit at work, a song
recorded by a legend’s boy
where he threw in the words I said
to you, just “Sugar Booger.” Well,
you let me know right quick that I
should not repeat those words again,
and I have not aloud since then,
but I remember what I felt
that time I said it out loud then,
how I think it out loud now.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Lovely and fun poem! About this, Alan wrote, "It was 'Honky Tonkin’,' Vince—Hank Williams, Jr., had a hit with it. Never was as good as his dad—"
Here's my poem today, where I'm also combining both prompts. I hope I achieved a "breezy, conversational tone," though maybe that's true of most of my poems.
Dreaming of Water
—curtal sonnet
I don’t recall almost drowning when I
was two. Dad said, “It was me who saved you!”
I’ve wondered if he was supposed to be
watching me at a pool and looked away?
Anyway, thanks, Dad! When I go into
cold water now — a swimming pool, rarely —
my chest tightens up and a sense of dread
comes over me. Last night, drifting off to
sleep, I felt I was floating in air, trees
below, then on my chest sank a great weight.
Water, so heavy.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Photo by Pexels on pixabay.com
Thanks for coming by, folks. I hope you enjoyed our poems today. Come on back tomorrow!
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!
Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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