Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is: Write in a specific form – the nonet.
As the wind snaps, and the thunder claps,
Grass tickles the palms of my hands,
Leaves whisper, and insects whirr,
Lilac scents fan the land,
Life begins to stir.
I wait for it,
to soak through,
my bones,
too.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is: Write your own prose poem that is a story about the body.
You animate your body awkwardly, like you are using the wrong muscles for the wrong movements. I watch you untangle yourself from your desk, lumbering limbs you loosen out, angled arms you arrange around—unwrinkling yourself up. I want to readjust you like my trainer does my own body: “Pull back the shoulders, straighten the back, use the core,” she repeats like a mantra. You lean to the left when you walk. It’s quirky, or maybe an injury. I want to nudge you to the right, hold you in place. One day, we are finally formally introduced. “Nice to meet you,” you say with the biggest grin that’s ever been. I feel everything escape my body. All that is left is a desire to see you smile again, to be the one that makes you smile. I jerk my hand forward awkwardly, almost punching you in the gut. “Nice to meet you too.”
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem of origin.
My strength
is from
years of
weakness.
So, I am totally bummed I missed the start of NaPoWriMo! I had so much fun participating in it in full last year, but got waylaid this year. Better late than never though!
I had lots of ideas for the prompt today, but alas time is limited. I jotted down the quick line now, but I have some notes started for a different, longer poem that I hope to flush out later.
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact.
I’m in denial that today is the last day of the NaPoWriMo challenge, so maybe tomorrow I will acknowledge that fact. For now, below is my poem about viruses. It draws from the fact that “eight percent of the human genome consists of viruses.” It’s also influenced by Gerald Callahan’s essay, Chimera.
Some of our DNA
are relics of viruses
from past infections
so scientists say.
Envelope viruses like the flu,
carry lipids, protein,
and the stuff of genes,
from the hosts they travel through.
I like to think,
this means:
After years of sharing a home,
and conceivably the flu,
I’ve collected pieces of you,
stored in my chromosomes and genome.
You are not lost, you see,
You make up parts of me, literally,
saved in my “immunological memory.”
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We challenge you to draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard.
Busted out two responses for this prompt.
1.
I still feel the sting on my face where you tried to put me in my place. I lost my words against the hurt. I already knew, I’d leave you. What kind of man does all that he can to bring a woman down? I spent months crawling on your egg-shelled ground. What kind of woman loves this kind of man? I did all that I can to raise you up, with my love, but it’s not enough.
I’m stronger than you think. I’ve got a voice and I want to speak. By the time you get this letter, I will be somewhere better and the only eggs breaking are for the sunny-side up I’m making.
2.
When I get where I am going, I will say a little prayer, that you get there too.
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We challenge you to pick a card (any card) from this online guide to the tarot, and then to write a poem inspired either by the card or by the images or ideas that are associated with it.
Running out of time today, so for this prompt, I reworked a previous piece. I do like the idea of using tarot cards as inspiration for writing so I hope to write more poems later using other cards.
If you want me to,
I will love you.
If you let me,
I will be,
the one you love too.
I would say I do. I do. I do.
If you ever asked me to.
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses.
Springling
I don’t want to feel the sun against my face,
offering its warm embrace.
I don’t want to hear the kids outside playing patty cake,
slapping their hands rhythmically,
rabbits purring, or birds chirping happily.
I don’t want to smell the sweet smoke of the first barbecue,
meat patties sizzling, spring’s perfume.
I don’t want to taste the soft serve ice cream,
from the neighborhood Dairy Queen.
I don’t want to see the world turn green,
or clotheslines replacing drying machines.
All that these signs of spring do,
is show that life continues without you.
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a warning label . . . for yourself!
WARNING
Be careful what you say or do,
Or my next poem may be about you.
Leave me mad, sad, or broken-hearted,
I’ll finish what you started
with a few quick key strokes,
I’ll hang you by a metaphorical rope.
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We’d like to challenge you to write an elegy – a poem typically written in honor or memory of someone dead. But we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy that has a hopefulness to it.
I decided to write a mostly fictional elegy for the purpose of this prompt and to have hopefulness!
You always kissed me goodbye,
no matter how early, or late, or angry.
You didn’t only give the shirt off your back,
you opened your wallet, you home, your everything,
to everyone.
“It’s the right thing to do.”
You didn’t complicate things.
You kept your moral compass with you, always.
It guided you in every action you took,
and in every word you spoke.
You spoke numbers like words,
adding complex numbers in your head
as easily as saying, “I love you.”
I loved the way you laughed at your own jokes,
far longer than acceptable,
and yet I couldn’t help but laugh with you,
even if we looked crazy together.
And that crazy hair of yours,
how it stood straight up,
always at attention, just like you.
It didn’t matter how many years we got together,
it was never going to be enough.
I still see you though,
in her,
in the times she floods my cheeks with kisses,
in how she says hi to everyone, offering her smile,
and nothing but the truth,
in the math tests she aces without studying,
in the way her nose scrunches when she laughs,
and in her musket-brown, wild hair.
You live on still.
You bubble through her veins.
She inherited your goodness,
your life,
and sometimes that seems like enough.
Photo by
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem based in sound.
I am way swamped with work today, so dropping a few lines quickly!
Creeaaak, Crackle, Groan, Snap,
“What was that!?”
I look out the window and see,
Our tree,
split in two,
just like me,
and you.
unwrithings 