Prompt 407

I just watched the Royal Wedding. What a stunning tiara, what a stunning wedding dress that was so without embellishment. And how emotional Harry was. And how in love they are. And Meghan’s mother looking so visibly moved! It’s like a match between America and England isn’t it, a breaking of barriers. In a way it’s perfectly scripted and spectacular–yet it’s a performance that is filled with feeling. You feel it don’t you? It made me feel that life is filled with gravity, the gravity of love. The US bishop spoke movingly of the power of love. Yes love is the moral measure of all things. Love removes barriers. Love it is. Moral failure is the failure to love.

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Prompt 406

I like poetry because it’s full of soul. Aren’t we all, after all, souls rather than bodies? Do our souls survive death? A question for all eternity. Once our soul has achieved its life purpose we die. That’s what I believe anyway. And we leave behind traces. What are these fossils of ourselves? Are these our life’s work? It seems to me our work do leave behind something–I mean that’s the purpose, isn’t it, to leave behind something before extinction claims us? In the long run we’ll all be gone. Other people–our kids–have to carry on.

Prompt 405

So it’s the weekend–thank God for that–and I’d just finished watching Woody Allen’s The Wonder Wheel. So that’s what it’s about. It filled me with such a sense of depression. I suppose that it’s heavy with irony that it’s got this faux buttery atmosphere and set in a carnival on Coney Island. And Kate Winslet yet again reprises her overwrought single mother role. So totally morose. It contrasted so much with the movie I watched yesterday which was Salmon Fishing In The Yemen. The feeling there is totally real, real-to-life, honest and yes, funny in an unfunny way. It’s so unlikely and memorable, that one. So you could watch a movie and write a poem inspired by it. Why not? Weekend homework?

Prompt 404

Hey people, hope you’re having a smooth week. A new work week as it were. As usual things go on seemingly normal–and maybe it is–or maybe not. Sometimes a curve ball is thrown, and that throws you. And then you’ve got to make ever small or big adjustments. Isn’t that uncomfortable? We all like things to be the same. But still if you look back the changes come at you and you’re pulled along with them. Doesn’t it ever occur to you–people are really work horses? The majority of us got to work to survive. We’ve been put in this world to be put to work. So yea all you work horses, loving y’all, and while we’re working we could all be kind to each other. Work it, people. Be firm but kind. Off to work. And if you ain’t got work you could write a poem today, if you feel like it.

Prompt 403

Hey guys are you still homing? For homing is the arc that we all follow. And further it’s the theme of Red Wolf Journal, which incidentally, is still open to submissions. Till August 25, if I remember right. I admit it’s a pretty long gestation. As far as gestation of journals go, I think, though really I’ve no idea how long gestation periods ought to be. It takes nine months to create a new human being. Just for comparison’s sake. Then the life span of that human being is anyone’s guess but it’s generally 80 years? Again I’ve no real idea of anyone’s life span or even inner thoughts or anything at all. We just muggle along. It’s good to meet up after a long while and then catch up. Then you kind of have an idea pretty quickly what sort of life they’ve had up to that point. It’s strange how details come up–so you really have an idea. Still it’s an idea of how they’ve made their home and how it’s still in the making. The point really is we become. We do become something or other at the end of it all.

Prompt 402

So this comes as a closing day poem. I’d been writing poems about love the whole month. Love is difficult to negotiate. If there’re non-negotiable stuff going on, if there’re issues of compatibility, or practicality, then it’s kind of doomed. What if one side is blinded to that? What if one thought the other is happy when he or she isn’t? Are there red flags? If you didn’t see the end coming then the other person would have hidden it well. Why would a person hide? Why would a person suddenly up and leave? These things happen. Why must love be so complicated? Robert’s Day 30 prompt is to write a closing time poem. Thanks for all the prompts, Robert Brewer.

Prompt 401

Hey there, missed me? I’m not gone, just gone for a bit. So I realised April is done. Decided to play catch up. Robert’s Day 28 prompt is to write a poem with the title “Blank” Wave. Or “Waves.” The most solid kind of waves I felt was during childbirth. But let’s not go there. Let’s try “waves of panic and pandemonium”. Whatever it is, a wave makes us feel closer to life. Any kind of wave. Are you being a particle or a wave? A particle would be a solid state whereas a wave is an active state. So thus the phrase, “making waves”. Love, it occurred to me, can be both a solid and a wave. Try theorizing that in a poem.

Prompt 400

I’m reading a book called “The Only Story”. So yea I’m borrowing the title. The only story is a love story. The world is a love story. That’s the version I like anyway. And love comes and goes too. So there’s love and then there’s loss. That’s the second part of the story. So what comes after loss is a distilled sense of the meaning of love. It is how the world tenderizes us. Why? Because we’re in need of tenderizing? Unfortunately that’s also true. Do you remember a time of your youth when you haven’t yet love? See what I mean. So yea write a love story. Robert’s Day 27 prompt is to write a story and you know you’ve got to write…a love story.

Prompt 399

Can you believe it, it’s Day 26. So we’re left with 4 more days of poeming. Time passes real quickly when you’re having fun. Are you? Having fun? Instead of doing nothing much–though this counts for nothing much some would say. And that would be true and not true. Time allows us to process things. Because things are often real murky. So we need a longer range lens. Same thing with relationships. There’s a difference between a relationship starting out and one that’s gone on for a bit. The outcome’s always interesting and not always the same. Why would anyone expect everything to be the same? If you think so you’re nuts. You’re nuts all the same. Robert wants you to write a relationship poem and to dive deep.

Prompt 398

You’re supposed to find an unusual word. I think ‘lucent’ is one?
Who amongst you is the lucent one? There’re lucent people, no? Sorry. I’m the kind of person who gets excited when someone uses a precise word. Yup. My friend Christopher is one. He gets brownie points for an excellent vocabulary. You’d have to find your own examples though. My vocabulary isn’t that excellent. Better than average and almost excellent? Nah. Anyway Robert has put us up to it–find a bombastic unusual word to use in your Day 25 poem. 🙂