AllPoetry Contest entry. Assignment: Write a letter to the editor about poetry – Bukowski style. Bit of a departure for me. I don’t think I would like him as a person and I may get yelled at for that. Usually when I read his work, I feel like he needed a good smack, but here it is anyway 🙂 Update: Won GOLD by the way 🙂

dear editor
(it says that on your door)

I come to this page
over and over
hoping for something
on fire or at least
smoldering
instead of cold stinking
morning after soot about “he
done me wrong and I don’t think
I can write again”
minimum requirements should
be could we sit down and
talk about it over a beer
for more than ten minutes
without one of us needing
to take a leak
or letting minds wander
to the waitress’ cleavage
there is more fire in that
shadow than this
rag ever prints
(make it my obituary –
I’ll pay extra)

yours,

smug, slightly bitchy poet

image unknown origin (an allpoetry.com contest entry)

If every tear that ever fell
Became part of the cycle of rain
They would evaporate into
Our atmosphere and we
Would all breathe pain

allpoetry.com contest Count To Eight

Create a rhyming poem
with 8 syllables per line
and 8 lines in length
based on this image.

I shall never live in darkness
though shadows hover round my room
I’ll make a little light to shine
to keep away the sense of doom

I will write away the darkness
I will write of the stars so fair
I’ll even write some light for you
I have got plenty more to share

According to Wikipedia:

This Little Light of Mine” is a gospel children’s song written by Harry Dixon Loes (1895-1965)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Little_Light_of_Mine

AllPoetry contest Prompt: Who are you?

I used to be young
skinny girl kind of snarky
loved the world and sang
the years with friends and
all the ideas my mind would
run though like a thousand
crystal streams

I grew up and had my babies
those were good years
but confusing
I lost me for awhile and
before I could find me
they were grown and off
looking for their own
I surprise them

now I am young again
though my outside
has not caught up
I dream and write and think
and wonder if I have ever
been me or just
a reflection of those
I love

I have wrapped up parts
put them away
like forgotten toys
some broken
some barely touched
many were loved once
some as ugly as the sweater
aunt Alice gave me for
Christmas

So now I am a little
snarky and a bit pissed
because time is passing
and I have wasted
I won’t ever be guilty of
that again…I will be me
in strength and weakness
joy and pain
I am wading in the water
again

AllPoetry Prompt: “I know why some animals eat their young”

“whatever” he said,
staring at me from under
lashes once curled round my finger
now lip curled, stance
all defensive,
shoulder slumped, hands
thrust into denim pockets,
after shave and cigarette clouds,
“I love you” whispered to his
back as it goes out the door.

my hands itch to gently
push hair back,
wish for ghost of the smile
that once came easy,
giggles at whatever I said.
curly hair baby shampoo
mixed with little boy smell,
nose rub, bear hug,
“I love you this much”
whispered as I closed the door.

AllPoetry Contest Prompt: Mystery ’80s Lyrics Prompt: Alone above a raging sea that stole the only girl I loved, and drowned her deep inside of me
weird prompt for me – did not listen to The Cure and never had my girl stolen lol

and  I am full of anger,
roiling, boiling over, spilling all
around it makes a mess;
the test is how effects appear.
It killed the love.
It killed the hope.
That’s what it does,
A slippery slope
that once begun, control is lost
and further in the cost,
it takes more than it fills
the angry sea of me is what
it’s all about; my anger, my feelings,
my self, I shout: me, me, me,
and you are gone, but
I was so mad, I didn’t even notice.

allpoetry prompt – write a Triolet

not completely satisfied with this but it was interesting to play with – I will revise later. Not sure it is exactly correct in form.

An old child, who knows the past
with love tattooed on worn out flesh
and bones that carry memory cast
An old child who knows the past
where sunny days died all too fast
inward eyes see life afresh
An old child who knows the past
with love tattooed on worn out flesh

8 lines.
Two rhymes.
5 of the 8 lines are repeated or refrain lines.
First line repeats at the 4th and 7th lines.
Second line repeats at the 8th line.
Rhyme scheme (where an upper-case letter indicates the appearance of an identical line, while a lower-case letter indicates a rhyme with each line designated by the same lower-case or upper-case letter):
A
B
a – Rhymes with 1st line.
A – Identical to 1st line.
a – Rhymes with 1st line.
b – Rhymes with 2nd line.
A – Identical to 1st line.
B – Identical to 2nd line.

allpoetry prompt – word bank: curtain, serpentine, sentinel, noble, unbound, crystal, finite, reverberate

form – etheree

circling,
serpentine thoughts
slither, a sentinel searching
for cohesive nerve connections;
unable to place two words together.
The curtains of the heart shut, no noble
endeavor this. Frustration unbound, needing
one crystal clear chorus, a prayer that
creativity won’t prove finite with
broken edges the mind ever
falls from, unending
reverberation of
failure.

allpoetry prompt – nightside of eden

We live out our days
on the nightside of eden,
banished from the garden.
Left to cold, dark, and pain

We wait impatient
for the last sunrise,
that signals homecoming;
that trumpets the gate song.

We toil for things that
never bring peace.
We love frail people
that forever disappoint.

We strive for growth
that never hits the mark;
a people breathing need
for a place we can’t remember.

We love imperfect,
with less desire than
needed to lift us
high enough to be loved.

We wait sleepless
through the long night,
shivering and longing
for the gardener to wake us.

allpoetry prompt:  against a pier and the ragged fingers of ten thousand waves

When one man stands strong
he is a pier jutting out
into the ocean of humanity.
He interrupts
the course just enough to effect
the flow to shore, as the waves
of daily life
divide and go around him.
The shore
is breached from a new angle,
and deflected back to the sea,
following the altered path.
Though small, you can see the effects
ripple outward as he changes the tide
forever.

allpoetry.com prompt: “Life goes on even when you feel frozen in time”

there is no silence like ice
everyone moving slowly
as though under water
I watch them pass
and wonder
shrinking
to the size
of the hour that
gives no quarter
drags on into days
and stuck, I keep watching

allpoetry prompt: you disrobed the moon

We are on to you
coy beauty!
Shyness?
Only showing yourself
after dark but
then that light,
the glow that catches
the eye and draws
us to watch.
Night by night,
in front of all those stars,
you do a slow dance
teasing, just a little hint
at first, as though you
haven’t already decided.
Hiding in the day,
making us wait,
until naked, you smile
and beckon,
wanton, no blushing
virgin.
You’ve done this before.

First attempt at poetry in the form of a pleiades

One lone star before the dawn,
Only singing morning song.
Own the sky until the sun
opens eyes and light has won.
Obeying gravitational laws,
Ocean tides rotational cause,
Offering beauty as I pause..

“PLEIADES: This titled form was invented in 1999 by Craig Tigerman, Sol Magazine’s Lead Editor. Only one word is allowed in the title, followed by a single seven-line stanza. The first word in each line begins with the same letter as the title.”

brother coyote whispered a howl
turned off the tv, news all bad anyhow
left piney woods set out for road
the road that leads to horizons past
the angry majority cloistered in cul de sacs
eating sacks of snacks with racks of clothes
closeted in shacks lacking love I’m
thinking, a snarl, a growl I listen now
Coyote said “come closer Jack.”
it was whack, talking smack, walking
through a dry wash with bird squawking
the mountains ahead I was led red sky
hiding day setting, blood letting, climbed
miles and days and rays of flaming sun that
frozen doubt, against  snow that blows
and burns and turns me inside out
coyote tunes were sung.  I followed desert swallows
sent ahead to scout coyote ruins
under indigo moons we saw the planes
dropping money, money burning
money turning, turning all the wheels the
love it steals coyote laughs and laughs
he knows  it’s only moonlight
moonshine in his eyes through
clouds yellowed with age, the page
the story coyote told is written on the desert
and erased by one small drop of rain
but I’ll keep walking singing
stringing dreams and schemes
coyote seems to know but only shows
me what I want to hear and I am lost
the desert swallows up the cost
of walking with coyote

prompt: indigo, desert, Jack, drop of rain, lost

allpoetry contest prompt: as time settled against itself

sun poured out
dregs of summer sauce
and heavy lidded
heavy limbed
I watch it cease
the moment stretched
and curled up
on the grass
tiny pink tongue preened
as time settled against itself
softly purring

allpoetry contest prompt: if you saw me

and if you loved me
my flesh would not be
bruised from trying to
fit your iron mold
my inmost heart of
center part of who
I am
would sing and
you would find the harmony
line that drifts waiting
to be anchored by
your acceptance