As a valued poet, you can rest assured
that the rhythm and echo of your silence is
of utmost importance to us.

We recently became aware that you may
have shared your blood and silence with
another partner, such as your shadow, a
falcon, or perhaps a trace of rain.

Please note that sharing of your light
may lead to unauthorized doubt and
the potential for darkness.
 
 
This found poem was written in response to Impromptu #2, a challenge from Collier Nogues to select a piece of junk mail or other bureaucratic form, remove the nouns and replace them with words from another source, perhaps a favorite poem. I combined a letter from our bank with words taken from the poem “Orpheus and Eurydice” by Czeslaw Milosz.
 
 
 

 

Peregrine falcon, you must know
there is a limit to everything

From the feather-rustle touch of
spring rain to the pebbled confines
of your hollowed-out scrape,
the round softness of your mate,
the raucous cries of baby chicks,
the unceasing dictates of predatory days.

And yet —
What do you know of limits,
defier of wind and of gravity,
plunging toward earth in pursuit
of everlasting life?
 
This poem was written for the April 1, 2016 FPR Impromptu prompt. The poetry generator provided me with the following instructions (paraphrased): Select a sentence or phrase from Stone and Webster journal  v. 22 (1915), pp. 2-3, rewrite the sentence to refer to “falcons” and use it as the first lines of a poem entitled “Textures.” Voilà.

The image above is in the public domain.

 

[photo by my_southborough at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mysouthborough/3457987316]

 

abandoned farmhouse

fringed in gold

front yard daffodils

 

Thank you to NaPoWriMo, 2016 for starting the month with a lune, a poetic form following a pattern of 5-3-5, either syllables or words. Lovely to ease back into writing poetry again.

They met on a Sunday, the skaters
twenty-two of them, each
essential to the team, a kind
of human chain outlining
a mighty figure eight in
the flooded frozen field.

Come and peek through nearby boughs
to watch the twenty-two as they
slide and glide on knife-edged skates,
cutting the ice, making crystals fly.

Distant mountains shield their green
in a veil of new-fallen snow, all a
silent wonderland, a sight
to make your heart stand still.
Watch the mist of your breath
appear and know that you are here.
 
 
 
This was written in response to Miz Quickly’s “Anything Monday” prompt for January 11. I believe I used eight of ten words from the list and gave myself a bonus for incorporating just a touch of Da Doo Ron Ron.

 

In a letter to my younger
self, full of subtly sage advice,
witticisms, aphorisms, nothing
suggesting condescension born of
knowledge bestowed on me by virtue
of my advancing years, not that
there’s a thimbleful of virtue in
all of that.

“Be brave; follow your dreams; don’t fall
for weight-loss scheme; don’t wait for
Mr. Right; always keep moving, but stop
to look at the stars.

The only thing you’ll regret is what’s left
undone when what’s done is done.”

(I doubt that you will read this anyway.)
 
 
 
This poem was written in response to Miz Quickly’s January 10 prompt to write an epistolary poem.

 
 
Square grid of numbered boxes
bordered in ordered blackness.
Numbered clues, across and down.
Gradual filling in of spaces
Pencil or ink? Erase or cross out?
Dimming vision mandates ink.

Near the end now. Shall I cheat?
Google makes it feel like “research.”
Google search says many do.
Don’t I see myself above that? Yet
do I have the time to ponder,
even for a moment more?

“Wasting time,” some say about it.
My trusty pen knows better though.
She and I are filling grid cells,
saving brain cells, making word spells,
staving off demon dementia
for at least a moment more.
 
 
 
 
This poem was written for Miz Quickly’s January 9 prompt in which we were to make a list poem by describing attributes of an object or idea. While working on the NYT Sunday crossword, I decided on this.

 

The world was born out of chaos.
Divine spark or lightning strike.
A cosmic cyclone of creation
and primordial soup
comes into equilibrium.
World born of the whirlwind.
 
 
This was written in response to Miz Quickly’s January 8 prompt to create a poem based on a title I chose. This is more a preliminary sketch than a poem, but then again it’s almost 10 PM.
 
 
 

 

 

Waiting, chatting, hands in pockets, hiding, holding, on hold
For hours anticipating something (someone?) to return.

The traffic stop, the casual cop, belie the
miracle still unclaimed, still unnamed — still
to all a familiar mystery, a known unknown.
Come as you are or as you know you want to be.
 
 
This poem was written in response to Miz Quickly’s January 4 ekphrastic prompt. I responded to the painting shown above with a persistent earworm of Leonard Cohen’s Waiting For the Miracle to Come, thus the attempt at an acrostic.

 

I am essence of Rose Solitude,
single shell wave-abandoned
above the sun-drenched shoreline,
a shell bleached silvery-white.

Shell-shocked, alone, yet inside,
a subtle whisper of pink
shading to rose at its core,
and daring to dream of rebirth.

This was written for Miz Quickly’s January 3 prompt in which we were to select the first line of an existing poem to use as the first line of our newly-created work. This first line is from Rose Solitude by Jayne Cortez.

under leaden skies
boat bobs amid rolling waves
plumbing ocean depths

A haiku(ish) response to Miz Quickly’s prompt for 1/2/16, to write about plumbing.