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 |    10k views, 2x BestPoetryCollection. A nothing from nowhere cast words to a world wide wind |
| Last PPC Week 52 PPC ▼ Sorrow For Somebody I don’t look crippled. You walk past. Blind, I don’t look lost. No cane, shades. You walk on past. I don’t wear my wounds On the outside. You don’t see Inside my soul. You, angel, have love For somebody. Not me. I could block your path, plead. My words mean nothing Visually. I’m a weathered soul, Bleeding within, blind from journey, Not knowing where to go. Frozen, can’t traverse another avenue, Without you to help me cross. Dear angel, I’m dying. You’re flying Leagues above me. Don’t know The true sorrow that I Can’t express in distress. I’ll manage. Walk on by. Last week of PPC: prompt word: sorrow Week 51 PPC ▼ Leftovers I am eating heels from multiple left over bread bags tonight. I hope my wife will be happy to know she doesn't have to watch mold grow on our kitchen counter. A whim, eating heels slobbered with peanut butter. I couldn’t just plan it, but sit down with to-do list – spiralling downward – and write ‘eat heels today’, cross off, for sense of completion. I’d take a break from my dear poetry. But, lets face it, too much whimsy, can’t plan, attack it with ignorant ferocity. Plenty antacids that had a plan await in the medicine cabinet – Ease before whatever garbage I spew. I cannot plan, hang around that trash can… hauled to bedside tonight, but I do not fright… Though I do not plan, I’ve done this before, And getting good at hitting the bucket. Fewer leftovers by tomorrow. Sleep tight mold. 6.26.23 free verse week 51 ppc Prompt word: leftovers "Invalid Post"  Week 50 PPC ▼ WHAT MATTER? What matter Composes this, composes you The same Replicated Nature clones perfect, yet No two alike Even in decay Sweet Buttercup Germinate, proliferate Plucked by blunt hands You compose unsettled In a tall, cool glass Say Goodbye To your root Nestled in dirt, Scheming with master Week 50 "Invalid Post" Picture prompt Week 49 PPC ▼ on my own… free, i had thought. my prison: your love – conditional, without choice. your plan, i could never know what your need of me, a gaslit fool. free, what i sought. inhumanity thrust a gold-wrapped booby prize. i bowed inelegantly, tumbled off your stage, shadowed in shame. fault is all mine. a pill swallowed whole without offer of water, choked down stubborn pride and smiled. my validation, mine alone. write? **** 6.23.23 "Invalid Post" Week 49 Poetry Form: Joseph's Star This poem has no rhyme and is written according to syllable counts. Syllables are 1, 3, 5, 7, 7, 5, 3, and 1. The poem may be written on any subject, must be center aligned, has no stanza limit, and should have complete statements in each line. Week 48 PPC ▼ waiting in the sepia sea nothingness, like a cuttlefish amid clouds watching the thick mass thinning russets and golds on my weary head buried beneath the green bladed surface, dying with me as the glow intensifies one more time before fading away over the fence, to hidden horizons I must search for the dusks' red warnings, autumnal tides turning toward the white solstice paling a decaying heart waiting for a perfect season to rewarm this soul, with beating heart aching. Week 48 "Invalid Post" Prompt word: waiting Week 47 PPC ▼ what’s the rush? wordsmith p r o c r a s t i n a t i n g scrambled 5.30.23 Brevette: a 3 word poem described here: "Invalid Post" Week 46 PPC ▼ Notice It takes more effort not to notice Above a rising meadow, Monarch's wings float. Bumbles bounce on the slow-reacting long, green necks necks sprouting. A spectrum of wild color serenaded on the edge of towering pine. Nature still calls me. Early birds flee gray eyes, flit from bough to branch to pale sky. Senses acutely inhale sweet bounty of aroma, true memory of recollected childhood, with her tight rein on a small hand selflessly lead through joy shared. Rustle of tossed dry leaves, their brothers jittered on jutted branches, swayed. You hear, smell, but can't taste, feel or see anymore, life you had, life she brought, sent when she passed through the grass, beyond boughs and spiraling leaves, above Monarchs. Higher, a calling no winging bird could ever hear. Heavy clouds roam, deep-bluing. Eyes blur to witness that sealed vault. A child's outstretched, empty hand can never reach -- touch her offering to aid a wandering soul as guide. 5.30.23 free verse prompt word: wings "Invalid Post" Week 44 PPC ▼ Sprung Green top pierced by a slow sun inspecting, perpetual tunnel of time breathes beneath frozen earth, releasing captors new eyes, flocks of wildflower regeneration. Warmth grows for nested, speck’d babes, abandoned from their gathering mother’s eye, hungrily chirp and cluster since hatch, after the last snow melt, cracking open Spring time on the sloping lawn. Arrival, renewed rejoicing, sprung from its long dormant, cold quarantine. 5.30.23 Prompt: shape poetry "Invalid Post" Week 45 PPC ▼ White Weight Tight-packed beneath snow burden, preserved from tread of oaf boots, silent renewal awaits, solid underground. Their mysteries hidden, lost since frost. Memory hunches under white weight. Blanketed, put to bed by Mother. Frozen dreams beneath a roaming moon unending, before spring eruption. Flat bodies resurrect. Small, green missile silos softly spear the hard spaces, take aim. Their cold captor, conceding. Bright faith, greet my smile; bathe in ever eternal light, as a faded promise of love. Though, I still don’t know, within renewal, how to count down these thinning seasons. Perhaps, view through window pane, intervals, flowing tides of time across and beyond my lawn to the other side. My dry eyes slow go blind, don't follow, because bliss ignorance, cover an unexpectant. 5.15.23 free verse prompt: plants "Invalid Post" Week 43 PPC ▼ not really sure how to feel about it something in the way you move..." Invalid Photo #1067248 Summers Eternal ending our charade ocean bay waves scent spray floral array washes train of summer dress you mask your presence challenge a fool soul as sand sucks down eager toes play such elegant waste contrasts your beauty strip to flesh and wash your sin a world we have been needs no arrangement our bare flesh vexes the sun brown, nimble we run no care for their clothes yellow, purple fade in black what language we lack sipping Mohitos beneath you in white moon glow flowers in waves flow slumber at our feet wear my love for you all days with each new array bounty of blooms laid adore eternal our days 5.1.23 summer never stays new colors coming lounge lingering memory lounge = couch ? Wave Haiku, building ocean/wave theme on 5-5-7 syllable stanzas with an echoing rhyme from third line to first line of next verse, linking as long as poem desires to go, until last three lines rhyme with end word of preceeding stanza’s third line. Nature/Romance intertwine with the poem's theme until natural end, when all words come ashore. ~ Created by Brian K. Compton, borrowing from the Anglosaxonized Haiku in a restructured 17 syllable wave/crest stanza form. Original Wave Haiku poem, “Summer Eternal,'' launched new form. picture prompt "Invalid Post" ADDITIONAL: Week 29 PPC ▼ Elephant "I don't forget like an elephant It's imprinted on my heart..." What's imprinted on my heart as I investigate emotions felt? Pain from youth now keeps us apart. Love guided by illusion does melt. As I investigate emotions felt your words paint brush glittered strokes. Love guided by illusion does melt. Lingering impulses preserve glim hopes. Your words paint brush glittered strokes, as I'm left here to fend on my own. Lingering impulses preserve glim hopes. Looks so easy for you. I'm alone. As I'm left here to fend on my own, drowning in time from the start. Looks easy for your. I'm alone. What's imprinted on my heart? 7.8.23 Pantoum prompt {dropnote:"Pantoum Rules"} Stanza 1: ABAB 1 First line (A) 2 Second line (B) 3 Third line rhymes with first (A) 4 Fourth line rhymes with second (B) Stanza 2: BCBC 5 Repeat the second line (B) 6 Sixth line (C) 7 Repeat the fourth line (B) 8 Eighth line rhymes with sixth (C) Stanza 3: CDCD 9 Repeat the sixth line (C) 10 Tenth line (D) 11 Repeat the eighth line (C) 12 Twelfth line rhymes with the tenth (D) Stanza 4: DADA 13 Repeat tenth line (D) 14 Fourteenth line rhymes with first (A) 15 Repeat twelfth line (D) 16 Repeat the first line (A) Week 39 PPC ▼ ...Haunting Age, Time Running Out The first thoughts: I should face the hall mirror, accept my lot -- wasted. (Whenever passion produces feelings like desired, young love) I desire to reveal, hidden in this failing structure, words flowing from bloody tongue. Indelible words scribed on Sanskrit instead of glowing, pixelated hostages illuminating ignorantly, but that inky river runs dry. Dim light glows on the edge of fading vanity, won't lie (anymore) to caverned eyes scanning and perceiving disinterest, the unwanted, disheveled, unrepairable, long face. Running it back: There's this feeling I should face the reflection, accept what was wasted. (Whenever I have passionate feelings akin to taking a young lover) I yearn reveal in structured, flowing words love for something...but purged to an ocean of dreamlike memory. Dim glow douses dull eyes above the vanity, won't hide a monster bloodied by sins against consortium. In a cavern scanned, perceiving the unrepairable, long jaw. Revisit one more time: Dated. Living with flames of my past, in gut stove, hotter burning. Most intense, molecules mollify. In thinning air, disconnect, evaporate, surround a house soon cinder, (when it should ignite from their kerosene and torches). I'm not a floating lantern. Words echo memories as little fireflies linger to absorb my essence, before the grave, shallow space. The last image appeared in a dust mirror to haunt daily after I last awoke. Guess, I'll rise, clutch the sharpened graphite. Brave the jut chin. 4.10.23 what if this is all I ever achieve because of time wasted, because time is running out? I didn't leave it all out on the field. Didn't make it past my door, because there are protesters outside I can't face, hate I don't understand. I need love to try...and a time machine. Round 39 Prompt - “time running out” "Invalid Post" Week 40 PPC ▼ Shadows In Thinning Space Need a higher SPF for this bullsh*t Low giants chased each other across the sky, brief shadow a bright intersection. At intervals, glow full a face inside its glass cage. Earlier, bouncing men in drab, strange trucks, embarked a journey into my cul-de-sac. Gritty, be-goggled intent, with angry, oiled metal gear, sparks a discordant organ, bleeding again. The yellow hats’ ripcords ignite impulses out of my control. An aggressive symphony a-hum, a-stir, thins spaces between me, neighbors and that insistent interstate, nearing. If I close the window, I’ll still hear leafy goodbyes — crescendos of severed limbs echo discontent, a muted, buzzing chorus of pertain visions, villains vainly insist in this neighborhood. The loudest, bass instrument grinds in its pit, heard inside these blinded confines — no chord progression to inevitable finish. Blind to man’s brutal persistence permeating a coffee-scented space, this incipient void hides in ever atom of universal, cosmic existence. Pale hours deluge a raucous vacuum, container, hopeless. I'll not leave in one piece, if ever I breathe again green life. I need shadows just as much as the light. Let’s not kill what is necessary for convenience. 4.10.23 29 lines, free verse Round 40 Prompt - shadow(s) "Invalid Post" I know everything and nothing about physics. It's because I'm becoming one with emptiness and a dehumanizing world I rebel against hard. Keep a cool demeanor, when they come into my neighborhood to tear it down. Week 41 PPC ▼ Wild Kitty, Poet Documentarian (Tigerjade in Three Parts) Love is strange. It's kind of a masked Tigris -- mew little kitty, purr feline. In meadow alone I've followed, sought a heart sublime. It roared. Not a fur pet; animals need no master. My gentle words, a given hand, soothe like jasper. Jade eyes spy how blue eyes. Words are bond, seek the fond of leathery monsters hiding amid fauna. Feasting felines crave the weak, need flesh-blood trauma. Once warm and velvet, I crouch to eye the carcass. Freely she slathers, samples my sweat saltiness. We could hunt. You just grunt. Blood-red face in this space, indifferent, stealth she saunters as scaremonger. Soul death, I'm delivered resilient, stronger. Ready sacrifice, passion true discovery, I master quiet afterlife, find recovery. It won't stop; mask won't drop. 4.25.23 Tigerjade Form Thoughts: stunted form, difficult to smooth flow with tight, punchy rhymed open to the long, drawn out lines betwixt. Great for a children's poem: cow said moo, in it's poo...? Experimenting with some forms make you a better writer, some get your head stuck in a mental tube. Brain paste now fully squeezed out.  This poem was forced into unsatisfactory outcome in eight lines, then 16. At 24, decided not to double back, but end it. Outcome blunt, obtuse, cryptic, etc.  Requirements: 8 lines/Syllables: 3-3-12-12-12-12-3-3 Rhyme Scheme: aabbccdd "Invalid Post" Week 42 PPC ▼ The Dying Season Skin devouring journey to afterlife, melds porous color from flesh leeched amid ample, dew-damped, green skewers. Wisps of current spin, thrust the fallen corpses that cartwheel, curl, tuck, twirl, tailspin; mock me as they ball, bounce, trampoline and vault hedges. Sere skeletons wither alone like the forgotten words hurled at a fence, remand in an obsolete, shadowed corner next to me. Unless unlucky as a decaying spine, some pass through pricked and padded experience. Brown, veiny husks crack, crumple, sag and slide down the old woman's white trellis. Radiating her absorbent, vinyl warmth, resilient, I blindly now cling to her arms in final, tranquil hours this dying season. 4.24.23 Prompt word: Tranquil It's good to die after declared dead and still know you cling to something that makes you alive...watch death, feel death, and feel what immortality could mean. "Invalid Post" Week 35 PPC ▼ The Pea Poem There was a wee leprechaun, let's call him Jerome, who thought me a fool for creating this pea poem. He's fictional, it's true. Yet, all my ale is gone. Was it he or me, tapping these keys until dawn? 3.13.23 Clerihew form about a leprechaun, four lines long "Invalid Post" Week 36 PPC ▼ before 12, the parade ill, the illest -- from cement mausoleum built by the mason man, who mortared me in with a world parade marching by -- balloons, ballerinas, clowns, candied street. grounded in my fortress, soak the shame. still. labels 'different' stick -- elucidation bathes me forever. not like them, dancing in our streets -- whistles, sirens, honking. lawn violated, vibrating. can you come out? they too tease, torment, bully and shame -- beat me with batons, cymbals. crescendos hush tears -- glass heart rat-a-tat-rattled. in my mental institution, a cold rebar house, hi-fi woofs and tweets -- not too loud -- or pumps headphones clapped on. the brass swingers sound -- grounded, seals out. lend little monkey a hand to walk home, again? streamered, glittered avenue leaves remnants, memories too true. in addled brain, glue. I could march now, but buried in sedimentary solitude. sequestered. don't act like you, can't be you -- can't be with you, because everything truly learned comes before 12. coda in my street, squat on curb, low, quiet -- serene to you. still blaring, a wheeled circus hides inside me. 3.13.23 51/52 lines, modernistic poetry pic prompt: Invalid Photo #1067065 "Invalid Post" how can i know empathy? feel others pain? cringe, even when actors visit it? and why do i shy away? because felt more than my share as a boy because i'm still living it now because i need others to hate and shun me because it is now conditioned to my DNA I can't selectively delete portions of myself Week 37 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" Lacking: Pen And Paper Having thought, pen lacking, idea growing, the first utensil eventually located rubs paper dry. Light etchings on converted tree fiber barely form traceable valleys on the page before a scribbled storm of anger rages and leaks a bit of ink, finally...but ran dry mid-word and the wiry clouds reformed whirls topmost, never producing another drop in a tempest tossed, emotions lapping over thoughts. Inspiration flounders in a corked bottle, bobbing safe. But it drowns. Pens refreshed stand at the ready in the midst of each night, when a dream might wake the most beautiful feeling running wild through a flowery field of words, and it strikes! The quill clutched looks to aim to aim to aim. Nothing to scrawl on remains and the search ensues for a bookmark? envelope? a napkin that will do? Matchbook covers once sufficed at a bar. In wild youth, a cut oozed from my index, used to stain a curled sleeve of white bark. Inspired thoughts, I thought. I cannot recall, but not misplaced, our initials on that tree, gone as well. Talk-to-text ruins creativity, produces an ego’s rushed spontaneity. I cannot trust my hand to a page or poorly programmed auto-correct. Too easy to mail it in, these days. So, sleep perchance to dream of her again, and my pen and paper. 3.20.23 prompt words: pen, paper Week 38 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" Wall of Dreams (listens to my singing) On the wall of dreams tick-tock, tick-tock, tick. Rhythm words can’t rhyme, dreaming, searching you out each opening – what a fool should do. Winnow time restricts, makes love go cuckoo. Something doesn’t jive. The question begging, is this 4/4 time? Syllables of five in your octameter, the mech-bird alive, dreaming, searching you, makes love go cuckoo. 3.31.23 Echoes down the hall a heart can’t follow Octameter a/b/c/d/e/d/f/d g/h/c/g/i/g/d/d two stanzas of eight lines, five syllables per, with the staggering rhyme. Week 31 PPC ▼ Elephant (In The Way Is Inside Me) Thick is my head — gray, too. So much space to envision you. My ears, mile-wide, satellites tall, receive transmissions should you call. I can’t forget, burning and small. The sun doesn’t set on this room. Spring is in bloom. No garden have I to spy. I harden. There’s an elephant in here I cannot remove without you, and eternal ash words — Good-Bye. 2.6.23 For Promptly Poetry Challenge picture prompt: Invalid Photo #1066877 "Invalid Post" Week 32 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" She Found Me Your cool love echoed across deluged waters. How could I have missed a ghosted message? Pleasant voices heard remind it’s not hers. Your cool love echoed across deluged waters. Morning damped, burnt horizon tottered. Fire flares marked the spot I sunk the wreckage. Your cool love echoed across deluged waters. How could I have missed a ghosted message? Old movie reels replayed seek love’s beacon. Grainy films harbor these transparent eyes. Wet lips glisten, black streams to cheek deepen. Old movie reels replayed seek love’s beacon. Intractable scenes spin; soft souls weaken. Veiled torch siren chills, spills warm, sinful lies. Old movie reels replayed seek love’s beacon. Grainy films harbor these transparent eyes. Breezes sent a foul message to my window. I didn't latch the frame to shutter the scene. Napalm invaded still life, as winds winnowed. Breezes sent a foul message to my window. Curtains flow when my scarlet ghost’s sins show. Unsecure, her wonder slipped a sieve screen. Breezes sent a foul message to my window. I didn't latch the frame to shutter the scene. Numb hands aided her buttons' slow release. Did I really undress my altered dream? Flesh red-pulsed, her pursuit would never cease. Numb hands aided her buttons' slow release. Hunger doesn’t meet regret before sought peace. Cream, my love’s scream in intractable scene, Numb hands aided her buttons' slow release. Did I really undress my altered dream? Something felt, my tongue now needs ears to hear: Could have been anyone, when she found me. Nightly encroached, I begged her to not near. Something felt, my tongue now needs ears to hear: Weak, vulnerable, she savored my tears. My ghost nightly crosses a bay, finds me here. Something felt, my tongue now needs ears to hear: She could have been anyone. She found me. 4.2.23 A Triolet With ABaAabAB rhyme, eight lines with some repeating. This adventurous soul did increments of 8, employed stanzas focusing on senses. Chose to derivate on final line from repetition to punctuate title theme. http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/triolet.html Week 33 PPC ▼ Closed in Winter Sealed, silent through the safe winter door, he spied squirrels daring on a bird feeder, upside down. Soundless, until the red-plumed bird with white breast machine-gunned the dormant crab, framed in tight bay glass. A mound of mailers mounted a tray, brightly begging prying eyes and hands withdraw offers glued within. The folded laptop, powdered by dust accumulating, remained cold with coiled-up plug looped tight. His eyes met many images not on walls, mere glimpses in retrospect. No feeling found. She had handed him his glasses days ago, folded beside a cold black sipping mug, flavorless. He had not tasted her words — did not foresee or envision their meaning until he was ready to wake in Spring, when the door would unseal again, handles on tall windows cranked wide, as worthy envelopes were severed, thick hands stimulated could lift a lid and relive a pixelated winter of discontent. Lenses employed settle on the nose, savoring renewal in a green arm chair. Warm words would radiate each return rising, once realized how one might love her better. 2.21.23 For Promptly Poetry Challenge prompt: Unopened (things described physical and emotional, with showing) "Invalid Post" Week 34 PPC ▼ Mirror I see myself, and yet, no, not the one I boast. And you won't see me. I must linger here a ghost. I look deep within, but it's strange. Have I turned into glass; am I going deranged? Some nights I pass this mirror in the hall. Fleeting, but see something reflected in these walls. I'm frightened and concerned that I'm seeing everything. I feel alone with you, fleeting life now defeating. This mirror detects more than my blurry blue eyes. Like a shelved menagerie it sees through my lies. What have I become at this age? Am I a monster to you living inside his own cage? Even my ears have no clue. Soft to bed I go again, afraid of you since ten. Are you portal to another world that reveals my special girl? I could climb out the window to my darkening soul, but trapped within myself, you see, I'll just make this ending up. Fair well. 2.28.23 For Promptly Poetry Challenge prompt: Mirror "Invalid Post" Week 26 PPC ▼ Demons Demons hold a small compartment in compulsive, human souls, only to dine on themselves. 7.8.23 22 syllables of ironic logic? Form:Naani 20-25 syllables "Invalid Post" http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/naani.html candlelight for week 27 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" candlelight gloaming in your black shadows engrave memory's wall murkiness in shallow curling wisps linger in silhouette traces your cool soul in a hot night illumed by candelight mere flicker of twilight steady flame-stick by inhale grows glimmer of hope in life of obscurity after death — dim symbol, warm sight here ever by your candlelight low your glow, I know a fire in cavern of shadowy dreams a beacon it seems dull protects against insignificance eclipse mindless meandering tonight resurrected by your candlelight 1.9.23 18 lines, inter-rhyming (interloping) free-verse is that a thing? it is now. (it both is and isn't free verse )maybe, punctuation later? line breaks until... The candlelight symbolizes... birth, death, resurrection, and sacredness. It also represents the light amid the darkness of life, bright future, vitality of the sun, or uncertainty of life and transience. Candles lit at the time of death give light to the darkness of death and symbolize the light in the afterlife. Week 28 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" Your candle-lit eyes illumed on dull me. Protracted nights in suffered darkness you cured. In the hay barn, we planned stay until dewed frost. But, the lowing herd plodded home to find us. Out, these gray clouds hover, curl and stretch. Love beneath the dim dull, ready to be disgraced. Our souls could pour an ocean in this place but this deluge floods hearts lost without trace. She could not swim depths of a rising, open sea — on her stealth craft, untethered, floated far from me. Awash from the high tide, I looked back aimlessly. Four decades since a bright dream, once hopeful reality 1.23.23 4.21.23 edit Write a poem about the past, present, future in that order. (3 quatrains, 12 lines) Example: Heroic Quatrain: “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.” Week 29 PPC ▼ Provided in final PPC entries: "Last PPC entries (MV)" Pantoum Stanza 1: ABAB 1 First line (A) 2 Second line (B) 3 Third line rhymes with first (A) 4 Fourth line rhymes with second (B) Stanza 2: BCBC 5 Repeat the second line (B) 6 Sixth line (C) 7 Repeat the fourth line (B) 8 Eighth line rhymes with sixth (C) Stanza 3: CDCD 9 Repeat the sixth line (C) 10 Tenth line (D) 11 Repeat the eighth line (C) 12 Twelfth line rhymes with the tenth (D) Stanza 4: DADA 13 Repeat tenth line (D) 14 Fourteenth line rhymes with first (A) 15 Repeat twelfth line (D) 16 Repeat the first line (A) 1.24.23 Week 30 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" Oaks Thousands of waves upon thousands more — disturbances ripple, distort giants waving green flags, anchored in grove on bluff shores — rolling billows break in your glass, reform harder, 90-miles-per-hour, rooted. Gnarl-arms flex, thousands of brown fingers hold thin, slimming — lose an aging few — unfeathered, flying in this torment. Collective hair, a clustered crop, bobs, bows to a hungry blue-gray surface — a choppy, sploshy scene. White crests add to division, curl and thump a messy lot. A lone oak tree, survivor of frequent storms, reminds how hard the heart-core, thickening — doused by angry spit of invisible fires not able to swallow your lot. Thousands upon thousands of acorns spawn in just a year, offer not one more soaring kin to tower in such a rueful bay. Spare your children from this place — cede not another to this earth, haven for a thousand years more. Tempests cannot sway or uproot your clan, as I hold steadfast, as each of you. 3.8.23 (when I should be sleeping - work at 5 am) Use these words in your poem: storm, oak tree Week 22 PPC ▼ Chance favored me without preparation. Trailed hazardous life stumbling over serendipity near the turbulent waters lapping my ignorant shores ready to consume a fool. What were my odds? the chance I'd survive ordinary existence to reach its inevitable end with fortuity? Manifest destiny or fate life seemed to be lived by accident. Found love. Periled lips still savor kismet. Was it providence, coincidence, happenstance? or did I just get away with cheating life because of dumb luck? 12.24.22 20 lines free verse "Invalid Post" Prompt: luck Week 23 PPC ▼ Importance of Width (True Kerf) I saw you on that plane eyeing the soft width of me; your precise words cut me quick to the bone. But careful of the brain, a craftsman’s words without plea cut through heavy soul to my heart, alone. Blade tongue rightly sized up thin skin, curved, holds our core. No waste with hardwood woman creates dust. Crude, coarse blades sought their sup, savaged others like their whores. Framed and nailed, we fit just right in lust. 4.20.23, Kerf poem "Invalid Post" the 0.098 inches of a kerf width can matter when measuring and cutting parts. To a lesser degree, woodworkers are also concerned with the wasted wood that results from blades with thick kerfs. Over time, a substantial amount of expensive hardwood is turned to useless sawdust by saw blades, and the thinner the blade, the less wasted wood there will be. I didn’t get to mention saw teeth (though, might if expanded) or what happens when a saw blade that is out of alignment, wobble that can increase the width of kerf by a notable amount. https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/definition-of-kerf-3536563 https://allpoetry.com/contest/2757028-8-Poets-Only-Write-a-Kerf Week 24 PPC ▼ Seek No Forgiveness storm at 3 am a distant dream morning light yields encompassing humid summer plight melts quiet visions inspire that tender, yellow field crossed recedes at the elm tender bodies shelter souls washed toes first dip in swirling streams' gentle arriving cattails brush your undressed form we lie on the bank round, firm we tan cool bodies bared hot bake in summer glow breezes savor flesh open to the world seek no forgiveness innocent, sweet play earn a break from judgment burn daylight time still before invention of a clock night calls we promise to return again before our summer ends for all seasons I now recall. "Invalid Post" Prompt: Forgiveness Week 25 PPC ▼ Dear Caffeine I’m married to you. Delivered every morning, wonder when that arrival breaks from dull routine, delivered by you, Dear Caffeine. I’m married to routine. Wonder delivered bedside when brim glow breaks drapes, bleeding a feeling I need you, Sweet Caffeine. This routine is feeding bright wonder of exceeding. You are my routine, delivered through every tributary to overstimulated brain, married to my Dear, Sweet Caffeine. In a moment, we’ll renew our vows. "Invalid Post" Pic Prompt: Invalid Photo #1066529 PPC Week 18 Picture Prompt ▼ "Invalid Post" Invalid Photo #1066147 three flowers survive we're alone again light tunnels a small abode a dust stack shelves a bitter cup i'm cooling three red flowers seal tight water seeps in the root cut imagination lacking illumination i'm hiding soon, real fragrance arrives again black shroud over my bed can't archive an aging machine i'm forgetting again 11.24.22 PPC Week 19 Prompt - Pain ▼ "Invalid Post" dormancy no grip, no feel clutch, point, stab the surreal down neural pathways squeeze, grip, rub gentle giants throbbing, pinging two against a machine lack desire tightening, flexing elasticity of youth in hot fire tap, err, backspace tap, tap, tap, highlight erase i didn't mean to do that i didn't want it to end this way i face the fire each day outside a pane, begging me to play 11.24.22 PPC week 20 Prompt - Acrostic ▼ "Invalid Post" Paradigm Truths Of A Copper-Filled Piggy Placing pennies in slotted piggy All our life as some assurance Riches would reveal And promised prosperity, until you wake. Didn't realize paltry offerings weren't Investments on which to survive. The Gold standard is love and togetherness. More than copper, worth to survive. 11.21.22 PPC week 21 Prompt - Birds ▼ "Invalid Post" playing it safe I see your loneliness waiting like me for eternal sunshine. We're two birds ruffled feathers similar but alike. But as fowl a stream rushes so fast between us. Sheltered but observant we seek the sun's love when it's safe to play. We're two kin wing-clipped prey awkward and silent. The fresh grass on our banks teases but we must stay. If we could find a way risk Mother Nature we'll have our day in the sun like two birds. Caw 23 lines, free verse 1.28.22 Choice for Week 12 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" (un)clear vision the preferred path shown to him swath cut in darkest chasm did not move him leant on the staircase up he could dare go seek the light but idles lonely takes in a golden view vibrant light gleams dust as gold a decided hold rich with meaning and no other option but blind trust, an abyss might swallow him whole without guiding light then, better not fear 9.27.22 Cinquain for week 11 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" autumn comes for me leaves fall — sad but pretty unafraid of the wind scurry from wilted heart — but I’m not done  9.27.22Cinquain poem - 22 syllables of momentous, revealing fun/death Cinquain is a short, usually unrhymed poem consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines. http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/cinquain.html Home for week 10 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" Where I roost in castle, dry but, nothing (much) to write about make yourself welcome as the hung hat place sweet place where charity begins brought you the bacon come here to me and, go big, hit close to it where it lives, where you run to is there any place away but here? where the heart is? ladybug ladybug don't fly away from us make these four walls yours don't take the long way don't try this anywhere else until the cows come it's that stretch you see lights are on, nobody inside and, no place like it what happens here stays here and, you can return again don't listen to a Wolfe taking my ball and going... 9.27.22 26 lines redacted, catalog poem/free verse (did I make this poetry form up?) Survival for Week 9 PPC ▼ "Invalid Post" When You Don't Shop For Groceries This Is Survival -- mustard packs toaster shakins' generic, rancid saltines, brittle and as flavorless as a sheet of plywood that white-wrapped mystery package, frozen solid in the back of the freezer soy sauce packs your parent's wax-sealed pears, canned in a jar and looking brown, Sharpie-dated 2015 small can of wasabi-seasoned almonds that burn a palate if you eat two the milk is starting to turn does Pepto Bismol count? high fiber cereal for your mom's visits banana flavored oatmeal black bananas there are fruit flies in here is that blue mold on the bread? why are the hamburger buns hard as hockey pucks? something reeks in the region of the produce drawer I don't trust the last four eggs nothing to eat unless you count the old oatmeal raisin granola bar, or that yogurt berry chewy snack, both leftover from our 2014 camping trip Could've broke a tooth on that linty breath mint I found an M&M on the floor! It counts; I eat it Now what? I guess we must Fast food, sub sandwiches or Tai cuisine? Italian it is. 9.17.22 33 lines, free verse (unless a name for poem that is a list of stuff? Answer from internet: catalog poem) We don't make meals unless it involves a toaster, microwave or boiling water. Hope for PPC Week 4 ▼ Interpreting Hope Within Context Of The Known Fragile to touch, thin tapestry hope — demollecularized — sent unseen by any lens, but imagination, it’s bonding agent, collecting every thought, gesticulation, utterance assembled, puzzled. No science can formulate feathers from this jagged heap of scrap, spared a blistering fire, snatched particles no ordinary eye can spy — but mine. Who said it was tangible, realized as a lingering dream, waylaying inevitable outcomes already proven — life is short, longer lived in the moment, not prolonged by chasing butterflies into mystic gardens of illumed, grainy film — colorized, if you’re especially good at a game of delusion, building airy castles. Just ordinary sand catching a glint near water flashing a gleam — in any weather — free to imagination: sun or night, winter or summer, as cormorant dare waves, dine expectant, without hope but belief life works out inevitably by fate that we adjust to, stand left of to collect castoffs — or in shadow to the right starve. Hope is a feast for the worried who don’t help themselves to ingest scraps of life — realized by those who came before us with fire, gathered berries, hunted meat and a trusted canopy of stars shining to guide through the darkest nights, thankful for a feast of life provided on this roaming rock, never questioned on its odd path, circling a fiery orb, that out of reach, nourishes. And, blessed is imagination to salve wounds of fading time waded. {dropnote:"Choice, the prompt Week 13 PPC"} "Invalid Post" I'm gonna tell you before you read: paying homage to the recently quoted T.S. Eliot quote from Wasteland (I'll show you fear in a handful of dust) and his rival William Carlos Williams (Mr. Keep It Simple Stupid - K.I.S.S.) and a nod to (lost in his own woods' reverie) Robert Frost who brings it all home. If you choose a wheelbarrow that is red over a wasteland's watery pearls is it not the same? What choice do we have but to work for what we need and what we want? Brief or opulent we all enter the same junction at the crossroads You could take a shortcut or I, a long and winding path without ever diverging we wind up at the same place I chose to know you and you and you, but not me until the end, when I see a farmer's implement toils a dreamer's implement toils I could walk a long unknown, dusty trail I could lay hidden in leaf beneath clouds hiding a sun Whatever choices made we return home, still hoping we chose right without ever knowing 10.8.22 27 lines free verse for week 13 Promptly Poetry Challenge prompt: Choices whatever choice we make in life, death awaits at the end. why fuss over choices, if it's all the same? whatever you do, enjoy it because no sliding doors open to second chances, just the paths chosen that lead to the same conclusion, ultiamtely. Limerick for Week 14 PPC ▼   "Invalid Post" My Heart Fall i don't wanna hear the wind play scattered leaves fall off and away pine scent rides in air white dust does not care i needed your love - here - to stay 11.13.22  Limerick - 5 lines, AABBA Clues: Week 15 PPC prompt ▼ "Invalid Post" Before Permafrost  inside the castle a labyrinth of delusion, guilt and lies clues over time i surmise they employ in a psychological game i didn't know i was duped into playing blood on my hands? their killer? i must have blacked out where is the body? where are the accusations? the co-conspirators insinuate, casually hint to imply that i...I?? the time it takes to clumsily tumble over my own corpse realize i'm not really a zombie but alive, and hunted a criminal, must solve with fading circumstantial evidence to rebuild my castle inside their labyrinth that engulfed a wrong(ed) man your clues employed incentivize a growing clan (that dare bare teeth) socially manipulate me into corners where i now smile, hello! and having no recourse they walk away. power is that Power i feel in my, My veins? I'm not dead. I swiped at a web today laid in my path I leered at an insect nearby who quickly flit away I laughed. LAUGHED! A GIANT in your puny labyrinth. Clues? Clews? I wind up the ball of yarn you dropped on my floor that for years wrapped around a chair, feet, stationary devices. Rolled it up and handed it back into the palm forced open. Your look. What is that look? Do you believe in your own lies? Are you delusional? Or, did someone get you to believe a fantasy, a story embellished about a man so handsomely evil your own vanity got in the way? they would have me done in with falsehood -- clues? Clews? The yarn is on your fingertips. hope it lasts as long as did on my lips. eleven years it rolled around as little felines batted it upon my mind castle floor. It's wound up now and out the door. goodbye to your labyrinth. hope this isn't how you get your fun. 11.4.22 For my (now former) employer who told some fibs behind my back. I wasn't the only one hurt by their lies. Now I don't care. In fact, I towel snap the asses of their fools, poke them kindly in their bellies like I would Boop! my own children. How lovable is that?  Some Inspiration for poem: Eidetic memory (in this case, rebuilding evidence from memory like circumstantial evidence to break falsehoods and weaknesses in the 'story', lies used to smear/discredit another. Gist, really.) Mind Castles (I believe I live in them when I go into creation mode) https://artofmemory.com/blog/how-to-build-a-memory-palace/ Origin of word Clues/Clews (the ball of yarn bit, tying it into their 'story') https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne%27s_thread_(logic) Week 16 - prompt Promises ▼ "Invalid Post" Eternal I need to quiet my mind for a moment a boy again remembering his dread she rubbed sorrow from my head smoothed worry lines made promises she’d never leave a cape in his mid-night long fingers soothing caresses held eternal promises somehow knew, not true doubted like a Thomas but proved wrong wings at her funeral light in dreams many days unending a beacon of returning vitality shown to me a young man blessed to be wrong that her promises were eternal, fire brought to me now I sit up to those piercing wails down a corridor emboldened by a promise eternal I instantly would own. 11.16.22 worried about losing mom, life not existing without, and she soothed a small boy from fear, taught him how to pass on promises (eternal love) that live inside, handed down generations. Week 17 prompt Tri-Fall ▼ "Invalid Post" Behemoth (tri-fall) At the epicenter, brave a storm alone, arms anchored at your post. She is a tormentor. Stave the swarm. Black masses slice open your coast. Ride your raging tempest in that pot — bold, bewilder that behemoth. Never rest swashbuckler. Flail away. Shred the waters like it’s cheesecloth Lightning could strike a heart. Do night fright. She’s slowly shrinking from the fight. Squeezed, dark beauty will shed her last tears. Quelled, love’s placid, lucid scene sets. 11.25.22/3.1.23 The Tri-fall, created by Jan Turner. It consists of three 6-line stanzas, for a total of 18 lines. The rhyme scheme is a,b,c,/a,b,c, and the syllable count for each stanza is as follows: 6/3/8, 6/3/8. Other tri-fall attempts unfinished: Try, Fall A poet must conform Makes me cringe With this repeated repeater Stale style does not perform Words on hinge It’s a defeating defeater Worked out in my head Words and rhyme As six, three, eight negotiate It’s my output I dread Left confined Outcome I can’t appreciate (Third stanza here?) Coda (do it again?): A P.S. Redoux It’s a double double Six, three, eight With A, B, C times two, in fact Instructions are trouble Must debate Four stanzas not three I protract? So, I must now confess Over it While hashing these verses out Confusion makes a mess Where I sit But you won’t see me ire or shout (Third stanza here? Does what?) 8.12.22 PPC - week 4 prompt: Hope https://terraprime-encyclopedantic.fandom.com/wiki/Demolecularization Hope (writ first, 10+ days earlier) My organ bleeds on purpose, digests all input, spins, in four chambers, separated. you enter and exit again and again. Hope is the thing in my houses, feathered and bloodied, escaping, no longer fed. In my upper chambers a chest swells. So much ingestion lifelong, for little hope, as yet resolved. A typical heart has two upper and two lower chambers. The upper chambers, the right and left atria, receive incoming blood. The lower chambers, the more muscular right and left ventricles, pump blood out of the heart. The heart valves are gates at the chamber openings. I muse that hope must pass through all stations of a heart, which at the core of soul, advises experience to a brain that has fight or flight capability. Experience brands a coward who’s central processing system has glitches from a life over-informed, forced into periodic shutdown. Tanka for PPC Week 5 ▼ From Sand Little things unsaid about scent, smile, eyes that near lift my heart from sand with a touch, warmth, and vibrance that help belief I’m alive. 8.18.22 Tanka 5/7/5/7/7 https://poets.org/glossary/tanka Pic Prompt for PPC Week 6 ▼ "Invalid Post" Invalid Photo #1065260 Tail Of Mountain Pine why so low? They carried you down mountains, buried root in the lowlands. In valleys your timber harvested — accessible. But, there was a great warming, no warning they’d come — bark biters feasting, multiply. Sating themselves, hormones surge from pulp blood. The signal goes out. Thousands of attractions buzz the sky, finish the kill. Your thin crowns still hold high in this morning mist. But, how long until dead inside — red from plight, fading in this low spot from a dark disease? How can I dream of you? Shall I carry your root back up that hill, where majesty once towered above all? 8.30.22 ’ A plague of tiny mountain pine beetles, no bigger than a grain of rice, has already destroyed 15 years of log supplies in British Columbia, enough trees to build 9 million single-family homes. ‘As winters warmed, more of the beetles were able to survive and extend their reach into areas that used to be too cold to live. The wily insects chew through the bark and convert the tree’s only defense mechanism—a toxic sticky, resin—into pheromones to alert thousands of their friends to join in on the mass attack, using it as a place to lay their eggs and eventually killing it. ‘The only way to stop the rapid spread is to find and destroy infected trees. The epidemic, which took off in the early 2000s, spurred a massive salvage operation in B.C. as sawmills raced to process and export timber before the dying trees lost market value. Since 2005, about 40 sawmills have gone out of business following the collapse of the U.S. housing market and as timber shortages emerged from the fallout of the bugs. Further closures are expected to occur in the coming years.’ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-08-17/mountain-pine-beetle-infestat... Guilty Pleasure for PPC Week 7 ▼ "Invalid Post" Shame: This Love Of Words I hide, you chide, as if I should feel guilty for this luminous pleasure? Dancing with an array of words. You load up on snacks, while I dine on one scoop of Jif peanut butter. You complain about your fat, say I don’t do my share. Too tired — another three hours at my gym. Your luminescence — indulgence in meaningless games on an app-heavy phone. I read you my poem, published again. But, no matter what the construct — guilty for pursuit of what fills. You’ve had it to the gills — my love for simple pleasures has no bounds. No worth to you, doesn’t pay the bills. Yet, on your back in this bed, drifting off as I’m mid-sentence, snoring by eight pm, when I do my best work. In my bed, alone again with this guilty pleasure — filling with sweet, expanding silence. I shouldn’t enjoy this so much? 8.30.22 Self-explanatory Gogyohka form for Week 8 PPC "Invalid Post" Brain Trench Dirtbike-brain spins-around-in-circles, Rear wheel ruddering fresh lawn. Grass spewing, gravel skittering, Yard trenched when I jump off. Overwhelmed by just 50ccs of power. 9.16.22 Ideas go round; my brain a mess when I'm done with thinking. ruddering - we used this in Upper Michigan in my formative years, meaning we were steering or handling something like a rudder in water. Could only find dirty urban slang for ruddering and not the vernacular accustomed to my neck of the woods. Week 3-PPC ▼ Then You’re Gone Empty street, all alone I just stare at my phone Horns blaring everywhere Stench rises in the air Then you’re gone empty as a song With no lyrics or a beat no rhythm in summer heat yellow takes them everywhere Then you’re gone I can’t ride along Taxied people everywhere don’t seem to have a care I waited for you on our beach my starfish hiding from reach Clouds were filling my eyes because you’re heading to the skies Now you’re gone I have an empty song building for you in the air hoping someday to compare Now I’m sitting on a lonely street Hot cement sucks down my feet I want to run anywhere Did you ever care? Hating summer air Now you’re gone A taxi stops in front of me… https://youtu.be/gvIkcN5YMH4 7.26.22 Week 2-PPC ▼ Summer Secluded (in 6 parts) Adirondack calls from shadowed, secluded lawn — rest ‘neath pine bows scent. ‘long tilted, grey fence, irises decadence missed — in ground cover meshed. Wind teases my gray locks, caresses hydrageanas heads’ slow lift, spying sun. After night gushed, gleam radiates our scene glowing, as my soft skin soothes. Clung socks peel, cast off. Sheltered by crotchety crabs, a thick tuft stiff-toed. Blossoms one by one descended as snow to green, white melt thaws below. 7.18.22 Inspired/informed by: "Hung To Dry/Yet Another Impulse" Week 1-PPC ▼ Until 2 A.M. (Silly Bunny) Washed clean, hair combed straight right, in my flannel you whispered stories and verses like dreams for an addled head. Mama’s funny bunny, a stupid kid. You could sing visual drama with moral to eagerly devour every night, and before two a.m., like thunder your name echoed from a dark fright. Hushed, sweat hair smooth stroked, my tender back fed repeated caress, you uttered, assuring it’s alright. Little brother slept through fitful stress. In my multi-colored paisley untucked over multi-striped, shrinking pants, they mocked a greasy kid, not near his Saturday bath — learned new nicknames for being different. It’s alright, understood they were ‘jealous’ of what I could not comprehend, developing a stutter, monotone voice, a scared kid learned not to be discovered where I hid. Alone in my room, strapped by short cord, music fed my addled head, singing too loud until two in the morning, when insomnia yielded to tender rhythms, heart fed. Your silly bunny, ‘different,’ ached friendless, as limbs grew and grew, when a duckling suddenly smooth sailed glass, a swan! Preening, feathered, strutted in new threads. I walked out into a world, dream-head. I drew gazes, caresses and more before one by one each dream walked out the door. What an odd, funny bunny I had been. Nights lying awake on a single mattresses, tears filled my eyes without you to call. With one hand, stroked my lower back, uttered your comforting phrases until 2 a.m. The stories and verses returned beautifully. Nights were filled with romance of new tales. I wrote each dream down until 2 a.m. before insomnia drifted away on clouds never seen again. Thank you mom for reading to me, coddling a boy too different to fit in. It took awhile for your atypical, silly bunny to find her, and for the rest of nights, a permanent friend. 7.11.22 44 lines of unstructured rhyming, called free verse  Prompt: "Invalid Post" For context… "Time-Wrinked " Let’s just go with it, be sentimental. She informed my romance with words. I really did recreate her soothing touch and comforting words, curing loneliness and those bad dreams. I fell in love with insomnia, writing through the nights. "Promptly Poetry Challenge (2023-2024)" |
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