Photo by Eric Muhr via Unsplash

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Today’s prompt, “which you can find in its entirety here, was  developed by the poet and teacher Hoa Nguyen, asks you to use a long poem by James Schuyler as a guidepost for your poem. (You may remember James Schuyler from our poetry resource for Day 2.) This is a prompt that allows you to sink deeply into another poet’s work, as well as your own.” ~ NaPoWriMo, Day 25

I struggled with this one. I love James Schuyler’s poem and Hoa Nguyen’s prompt–but am disappointed that I cannot come up with a question as resounding as Schuyler’s “The impermanence of permanence, is that all there is?” I feel very impermanent tonight and wish I had more time to work on this draft before posting it. Like, another month. That would give me slightly more time to achieve a modicum of permanence. But because it’s almost midnight here and I’m tired and bored with my own words, here is my poem, warts and all.

PS–Most of the poems written this April will remain online for up to five days, after which they will be replaced by an excerpt, an erasure, or a thoroughly amateurish art piece that will only allow for bits of the original poem to peek through. At least, this is the plan. The reason being that, at some point, in the hopefully not too distant future, these drafts will undergo revision and begin their multiple-year pilgrimage through the slush piles of many a literary journal. So help me, O Muse.

PPS–You know the drill–seashell angels swoop in to help me stage an erasure of the original poem. I’m not saying they’re doing this as magnanimously as in the beginning. Far from it. Now I have to keep them entertained by making a fool of myself. Well, it’s not the first or the last time. I can do this. Five more tableaux with boisterous angels.
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Poetry from the trenches, Day 25

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