Today’s prompt mentioned Edgar Allan Poe, on the occasion of his birthday. This poem is written in the spirit of Mac Low’s A Vocabulary for Peter Innisfree Moore. However, there are 42,054 anagrams of the name “Edgar Allan Poe.”

(Poe)ticizing Poe

Parade Galleon
Galena Leopard
Alp Lore Agenda
Allegro and Ape
Gala Parole Den
Analog Pearled
Agenda All Rope
A Laden Pergola

Opal Red Galena
Ape and All Gore
Lone Gal Parade
A Pagan Eel Lord
A Palled Orange
A Paroled Angel

Today’s prompt: Write about an unusual death, either real or fictional. On line, I found the story of a man who fell to his death trying to rid his balcony of a troop of rhesus monkeys.

I’m sleeping. That noise, the one that’s
penetrated all my dreams.
The murmur, growing ever more intense
Now the chattering a cacophony
outside my window, inside my dreams.

It must be stopped. My dreams demand it.
Step outside and chase the demons away.
What? My balcony overrun
with whites of eyes and teeth and
incessant insistent chatter.

A score, a hundred humanoid devils
to drive away. I swing blindly,
all ferocity and bluster. I whirl
like a dervish, suddenly airborne,
then careening down and finally
free.

Today’s prompt: Write about something you did yesterday, including specific details and sense memories.
We exit the train.
The gap is there with no
reminder to mind it.
The line for the escalator so long
that we climb the stairs,
praying that we will not slow those
hurrying behind us.

The underground station,
a shelter from the windy day.
We stay below, in the warmth,
the mingled smells of fast food,
cheap perfume and homeless men.
Past the sounds of the off-key saxophone,
the flower vendor’s wilted roses.

Now the escalator to the street.
We head toward the exit,
where we’re met with cold air
and the food truck scent
of curry and kebabs. Welcome.

Today’s prompt: Brainstorm ten words related to snow and ten words related to oil. Write a poem that uses one word from the “snow list” in the first line and one from the “oil list” in the second line and so on until all the words are used. This was hard and time-consuming and I can’t say I’m proud of the result.

In a flurry of activity,
she begins cooking a meal
for him, the man she’d chosen
from many, anointed as the one.

As she scans recipes, her thoughts drift
to long days in the olive groves,
followed by chilly Italian nights
and the moon-borne sheen of his hair.

She shivers in frigid remembrance.
How slippery her memories seem.
If only to freeze for an instant
one memory, an unguent for loss.

Her thoughts, a blizzard of memories
spill unbidden before her eyes.
Like the fall of leaves in autumn,
slick in their recollection.

Her movements have now become glacial.
The wok she holds, heavy and cold.
Her thoughts now a virtual whiteout and
there is no balm for her soul.

Today’s prompt: Write a poem made up of rules for something that does not yet have rules written for it.

Falling in Love

Some things don’t require rules
Setting boundaries on what’s correct.

Look. Don’t look. Look again.
Ask. Listen. Repeat.
Touch. Wait. Ask. Wait.
Look. Wait. Wonder. Know.

We make rules, only to know
when they are
broken.

Only to know.

Today’s prompt: “Write a poem where you discover something and name it.” I got a bit lost in the weeds, or more precisely, the snowbanks, on this one. However, I did learn the Greek root for snow, which is “chiono-“

The Chionoclone Effect

You spend a lifetime
believing they’re unique,
each snowflake’s arm created
in its own special place and time.

Arms closely allied
in six-fold symmetry.
Each flake differs from others
Filling the same lowering sky.

Super microscopes
allow a glimpse of truth.
A limit to uniqueness
in the glacial atmosphere.

Now we see the myth.
Pairs, threesomes, scores exist.
Crystalline clones whirl as we
look on with grief at what we’ve lost.

Tuesday is the day for a prompt from Margo Roby. Today she asked for a poem inspired by the fog she awoke to this morning. When her prompt also contained the option to write a found poem from the information in the Wikipedia entry “Fog,” I decided to work on that as my smallstone for today. This may look like an especially small smallstone, but it took surprisingly more time and effort than I thought it would.

near the Earth’s surface
a transparent mistiness
vapor condenses

The prompt: Write a poem addressed to an artist, living or dead. I chose the British sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy, whose work I admire very much.

You gather your leaves, your twigs, your rocks, your flowers,
then wait for the moment, the exacting time of creation.
You place and replace, create and recreate.
Everything changes, again and again.
You wait, you document, you photograph perfection, only
to see it dissolve before your eyes.

You write, “Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature.”

The lifeblood in decay and the beauty of creation in
its destruction.
Every day, you gather
your leaves, your twigs, your rocks, your flowers.

The prompt: Choose a city you know well and write a poem about something you can’t imagine happening there.

In New Orleans, they outlawed the music.
At first, in the streets and public squares,
Later, in the bars and supper clubs in the Vieux Carré and Uptown,
Next – who could believe it? – in the schools and even the churches.
Finally at home.
Bonfires of contraband headphones, CDs, iPods,
Confiscated instruments lying broken in the street
Only a few hidden away and almost forgotten.

And yet – no one could outlaw the songs of the birds,
the beat of the spoken word,
the poetry and rhythms of city life.
Life blood flowing, music that cannot be silenced.

Today’s prompt, simplified: Choose a letter of the alphabet. Keep a running list of words beginning with the chosen letter as you encounter them during the day. Use at least fifteen of the words in a poem about something that does not begin with the chosen letter. I thought it would be fun to choose the tenth letter of the alphabet because today is January 10. It was surprising to me how rarely the letter “J” appears in writing or day-to-day activities. Looking over my list, I decided to write about writing.

To jump into a poem means
jogging the memory, a journey
to an unexplored place
Beyond perfection, justification
and judgment
Beyond jealousy, unless as it’s said,
“Art is a jealous mistress.”

Who am I to judge, much less justify?
A Jack-of-all-trades, or better said
A Jill
with an avocation
not a job, but still
a joy.