Dualism (NYPC #10)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #10

"Check out the colors of the year from Pantone, the people who decide such things. Here are Serenity and Rose Quartz. Write a two column poem – one for each color. Your columns could play off each other or be separate, or maybe they could be a conversation. They could read vertically only, or vertically and horizontally."

On Hiking (NYPC #7)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #7

"Trails and Paths. Think about trails and paths, real and/or imagined that you have traveled or would like to travel. Imagine those trails that loom large – the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, the Camino, and imagine those that loom close and personal – a path to recovery, a path to a career goal, a path to a poem, a path toward…whatever we all take paths toward. Write a poem. If you’d like a parameter, make your poem look path-like – a few words on each line perhaps; a long, skinny poem perhaps; playing with spacing perhaps." 

Wish I could be as carefree

   as those who do not fear death

      on a ten percent grade downhill

Not me

I stand back where it is

safe

and the only

s                                             

l

o

p

e

is the frown of my

disappointment. I want to

                                y

                l              

f

but I am too afraid of falling

to try

I am

an addict

Don't know how to live

   unless I am skin-kneed

      on an uphill battle

         unless I am hiking 

            with glass slippers

         Only know how to live

      when I am healing

   I am an addict

of suffering

   Don't know to breathe

      without words

         Use them to carry me

            on the road to recovery

         I am constantly

      healing

   and haven't yet learned

that's a good thing

         

The Next Beat (NYPC #3)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #3

"Write a poem about the future -- yours, mine, or ours. What will it be like? 

(And if you'd like a completely optional parameter, each line can be no longer than 8 syllables long.)"

In the darkness there will either

be flesh or fingernail where nail

used to be

There will be joyful survival

or lost hope where love once

used to live

The only thing for certain

is there will be consequence

on the next page

Some say it is written

Others find the breath chaotic

All we can do is keep pace

with the metronome

expecting, always expecting

the next beat

IG: @daydreamifications

For the Wolves (NYPC #4)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #4

"Here is the painting "Moon Madness" (tempura, 1982) by Andrew Wyeth. Write a poem."

"Moon Madness" (tempura, 1982) by Andrew Wyeth.

No wolves for howling now

that is mythos anyway

We mark our territories with

wedding rings and property taxes instead

call upon our Gods under fluorescents

and leave our Mother outside

for the wolves

No wonder she is erratic

looms so close we could

scrape her like whipped cream

and paint the walls. Close enough

to kiss the Pacific.

She knocks on winter windows in vain

giving us light through reflection

But we can’t reflect for long enough

to see the light within us

She is a floating rock

but we are the mad ones

We are the ones who carry the weight

She seems to beg for

our howl

The Art of Kissing You (NYPC #5)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #5

"Write a poem about kissing or about a kiss. No word in the poem can be more than one syllable."

You held art in your palms

made brush strokes cry

but by no means had I watched you paint

with as much grace and pain

as when you would cup my face

press me ‘tween your lust and the wall

and kiss me like an old film

You used to look at me like no one has since

like you could love the worst parts

You held art in your palms

when you drank me calm and slow

like tea, like I could heal you

yet the warmth of your breath

slid down smooth and wild as gin

I could feel your craft

through the part of your lips

felt like a prized piece on that wall

But some art

you just

throw

out

IG: @daydreamifications

Resilient (NYPC #2)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #2

"Below is a list of items that were removed from our Northern California rivers during 2014's Great Sierra River Cleanup. Write a poem in which you include at least 7 of these items. It might be about a river clean-up or it might be about something else. (And no straight lists of  items allowed.)

a bowling ball 

a samurai sword 

a horse hitching post 

a master cylinder for a 1933 truck 

a boogie board

a bed and mattress 

a chandelier 

a statue of Ganesh, a Hindu god

a lava lamp 

a boxing glove 

a waffle iron 

50 pounds of lead bars 

a Monopoly set 

a rubber ducky dressed as a hockey player 

Source: Sierra Nevada Conservancy"

There’s a bowling ball in my third eye—blockage

Ganesh said he’d swallow it for some humanity

for compassion instead of boxing gloves

So I traded my lava lamp for world peace

buried it in my backyard so it would grow

Now it’s a lost treasure, like the last will and testament

I left under my mattress when I was ten

What had I wanted to say at ten

at ten when I wanted to die

A child playing with samurai swords instead of Monopoly

or rubber duckies dressed as hockey players

grew up to be the kind of hippie who walks

in love and contradiction

Time and time again I forget—

have to prove my resiliency

IG: @daydreamifications

Sparrow (NYPC #1)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #1
"Write a haiku including a sparrow."

hear the winds of change

the morning song of sparrows

set our spirits free

#adventuresincoloring