mapping the nest
Photo by Duncan Kidd via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want... Continue Reading →
Photo by Moritz Knöringer via Unsplash Today's prompt is "based on Faisal Mohyuddin’s poem “Five Answers to the Same Question.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is." (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) Here's my... Continue Reading →
Photo by Kitera Dent via Unsplash I woke up to the wonderful news that my Day 2 poem is featured on NaPoWriMo today!🎉🎈😍 I had a little internal celebration, then went shopping for food, because reality in the shape of my husband knocked on the door to tell me it's Easter tomorrow and we don't... Continue Reading →
Photo by Dawid Łabno via Unsplash Sharp Dawn All night long, black moths shattered my bed with their bodies. I see your shape in the hallwaygrowing from my gnawed fingernails, bowing toward the earth. Who am I to honor you, Mother?Bring in your dog, sit by the fire. I have wine cooling in the bucket, bread and cheese on the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Matt Hoffman via Unsplash . Today’s prompt asks us "to make use of our resource for the day. First, make a list of ten words. You can generate this list however you’d like – pull a book off the shelf and find ten words you like, name ten things you can see from where you’re sitting,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Philip Brown via Unsplash . So how barbaric is it to write poetry during a pandemic? How wrong to suppress a pang of guilt at the thought that there are people dying out there, while I'm fiddling with words? And if I need to keep fiddling to stay sane, should I perhaps hide... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hannah Tims via Unsplash : morning : fitful sleep and the echo . of footfall down the hall the scarf of a dream lingers . in the room wafts off as the eyes open to see what happened behind closed . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Julian Lozano via Unsplash : On the Bus : I wait to get home. The bus keeps on its route. Shadow buildings bow in the rain. The driver recites in staccato names of streets, names of people, years of passengers’ births and deaths. Each street grows its people. They ripen and wait to... Continue Reading →
Photo by Randy Tarampi via Unsplash : The Riddle : A book is a set of dead symbols. And then, the right reader comes along and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words—spring into life and we have a resurrection of the word. ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Milo McDowell via Unsplash : Lizard : I discover the meaning of time: time of swiftness and clawing the face of a stone; time of losing my tail to the slow hands of a child; time of gripping the rotten log, black on black, nimble toes holding on to a friendly color; time... Continue Reading →
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi via Unsplash : Genesis : I walk slowly with my father. . We match our steps . to the tick of the clock. I walk slowly with my daddy. . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Stanislava Stanchy via Unsplash : Out of Eden : Eve What is the meaning . of this love . loaded with words? Doesn’t he know . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tersius van Rhyn via Unsplash : : Four Nightmares : It choked her path in the first one, tall as a wall, wide as the sea at night. It spewed darkness, waves of it clogging the shore of her sleep. She was somewhere near it, but couldn’t see herself. Beyond, was the world... Continue Reading →
Photo by Jo Wroten via Unsplash : : alteration : don’t look at my fingers : bluish ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Taylor Ann Wright via Unsplash : Count Your Blessings : Sneer, counting the moments touched by joy, the ones currently marching like mad across your front lawn. You clearly see them for what they are—frauds, counterfeit, foolish impostors, because, let’s be real, no way in hell do you deserve what brushed by with... Continue Reading →
St. John the Theologian : : The Icon : We crouched in the dirt behind the empty church and watered dry lumpy clods with our piss. We laughed at the yellow jets running between our feet, twin rivulets rushing to meet and flood a colony of ants. Disaster, perhaps, on a miniature scale, but not... Continue Reading →
Photo by Fabrizio Conti via Unsplash Rites of Passage : I The rock was thrown as a joke, a sleight of hand. Then, the bursting eye, the entrails- like stuff pouring out. I knew it was an eye, but it looked like an unhatched egg, the embryo throbbing with its own hunger for life. It... Continue Reading →
clayandbranches 