Today’s prompt is to write a poem that begins with the title “Let’s ________.” I immediately thought of that old game show, Let’s Make a Deal. My favorite part was when the guy would hand out cash if someone had a random object in their purse. It made me think of how women, especially mothers, often carry more than they need in their purses for those just-in-case moments in life. I wanted to explore the idea that it is an attempt to cope with the sense of inadequacy.
Today’s prompt is to write a poem about a life event.
Engagement
the moon
gem rises
from his hand
like a lily rooted
in his bended knee
refusing to bloom
under any light
other than her
starry
eyes
yes
Today’s prompt is to write about a favorite regional cuisine. It made me think of the many times I would meet my childhood friend, Anne, for lunch at Bubba’s in Virginia Beach. She always ordered the house special: She Crab Soup. She was like that, a little braver than me. This one’s for her.
She Crab Soup
I was never brave enough to order the house special.
The idea of roe in my spoon made me nervous for the same
Reason I never swallowed watermelon seeds as a child
Because you never know.
It was our favorite place to pick up our friendship,
Catching female gossip like crabs in creaky cages,
Although we preferred to wade in with chicken
On string to lure them in.
We were content to watch the locals tether boats
In a row along the pier, mooring just long enough
To share a bowl of soup before casting off
To somewhere I’ve never been.
We were locals too, but we felt foreign without boats
Of our own, like lifelong visitors watching something
Older than our memory unfold with the sun
Over the eastern horizon.
Today’s prompt is to write a sci-fi or fantasy poem. My poem is inspired by the ancient Chinese myth about how rivers were created by dragons who sacrificed themselves so that people would have water to survive.
River Born
It is time.
She stretches each claw until her scales ripple like liquid glass.
She lays her head down upon the mountain in final sleep
As her body meanders with the contours of the land.
The dam of tears pent up for a thousand years
Rush toward the shore to find their way back home.
Today’s prompt is to write a mixed up poem. This one is inspired by my Linguistics class because I am always mixed up in there.
Semantics
We are a minimal pair, close enough to be a set
But never a match made in perfect homonymy
Because the difference is in the middle.
Between the same and same is something else,
A no man’s land of tongues and broken phones
Glossed back and forth along the palate.
Every ugly stop tumbles smooth in your mouth
Until the only sounds left are digested words
That I would rather swallow whole.
Robert Lee Brewer, the host of the April PAD Challenge, has also offered a Poetic Form Challenge. I’m painfully inexperienced with the Tanka. I only know that it is a Japanese form that follows a 5/7/5/7/7 syllabic count per line. Still, I enjoyed writing something whimsical for a change, instead of the usual depressing stuff. So here are my two offerings. Tanka, tanka very much. (I couldn’t resist.)
—————-
faded chalk drawings
bloom into watercolors
underneath the brush
of spring rain dipped in moonlit
hues and dewy dreams of dawn
The Clown
The happy white mask
Is betrayed by coal tears
Slashed onto powdered skin
By the steadiest of hands
Gloved fingers mangle
Pink balloons into eyeless
Animals stretched into
Long bodies twisted
Rows of rainbow buttons
Enclose every strap of truth
From the silent man living
Beneath a shroud of white
Doomsday
1. The cracked violin you gave me on my last birthday.
2. Your faded blue tee shirt that I still sleep in.
3. The ring that promised this day would never come.
This is what I took from our house because the home
That actually burned was built with the mortar of years
And my hands could not touch the ashes left in that fire.
I only took the things I could hold with two hands.
I should have known that dreams were too big to wrap
In newspaper and throw into the bag with my clothes.
The objects in the backseat scratch at my periphery
But each glance in the mirror shows that you were never
As close as you appeared and I am just a pillar of salt.
Lucidity
We never talk about it, that day of shatterings
In the hospital when grandma’s long goodbye
Lifted in a momentary frenzy of truth,
As if the bellows of her soul could not sustain
The heaviness of silent years, the friction of life
Meeting death inside her mind forcing breath
To form into words never spoken.
Her fractious lucidity broke through
The soil of her mind to splinter family trees.
She spoke of a secret day when he came
Across the Pacific in his wrinkled uniform
To be all that he could be, but you said no
In a language he didn’t hear, screamed it
For your husband and your sons.
Our homogeneous blood diluted in a day,
Answering the question-mark hook
That always snagged the back of my mind,
Explaining the lingering pain of two generations,
The lightness of my hair that should have been
Black as the coal tears smudged beneath your eyes,
Black as the heart of a man I hate, but yearn to know.
I’ll never know.
Note: This was originally titled “Unlucky Day” but it felt a bit too trite. “Lucidity” was suggested to me so I changed it. For now. I’m still open to suggestions. 
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