Novel poetry prompt

Finally getting around to posting the piece I wrote for read.write.poem this week!!! I had to go thru books I own and use the last words in them in a poem. Thw chosen words are the first words in each line…

Pieces of trash drift across your
choice of homeland. Here, I can’t find
peace. I’m constantly shifting; your
dedication is in question as crowds
clap for your inauguration in the place you
know only. Each year, it’s new, each year
rotation brings different trees, seasons. Only
owls know what it is you’ve
paid to have it so. To make your
walk always towards someone new.

Word Lust

What I want from all of you are words. I want everyone who reads this blog between now and my birthday (January 4) to post a word in the comments section.

What I’ll do with it, you’ll have to wait and see.

In other news, I love words. I was working on a poem in my head as I wrote a grant just now, and I was thinking about words. thats all I want for Christmas, my Birthday, all I want of love are words. When I’m angry with someone, *hint hint* its usually because I feel a lack of words.

The poem in my head started with all I want from you are words. Words that fall like pebbles or float like petals in a calm mirrored sea.

I was thinking about this possible poem, whe words were washing and swishing around, repeating in my head the way only a poem can. (Funny, I almost wrote heart there, would that have been better?) But then, my sestina reared up. I like my sestina. It keeps sounding way too much like that Plath poem about the runaway horse, though. That annoys me. Oh, well..

Write.Speak.Love

A little writers block, and what I started writing for the poetry chalenge last week was just too sprawling to finish yet. So, here is my three pieces of me poem…

I can’t write as well as I used to, the blank
stare of another page is no longer a promise
or refuge. I see guilt there now. I see
no pleasure because I am no longer churning

poem after poem out into a deaf world.
Now, the words trickle, they start and stop
like when I finally started talking around two,
when all sound was new, and I barely got used

to it all before it started to dampen again. And later,
I grew up and noticed how lovers let go
in stages. I noticed how allegiance
is deteriorated a little at a time, and every

piece I give up is not a piece I should,
but fighting for them is too hard, and letting
go of the rotten ones is too easy, and then
there is that one that can’t break into

these quatrains, and that is the one
I want gone most of all.

American Sentances

I can’t be anyone else for you under yellow leaves in the fall.

When we broke up, you walked to my plaque shaped like a heart and flexed fingers.

You can’t expect to return to where you’ve been – pain once you’ve gone away.

Classical music is background noise to telemarketer phone calls.

Anxiety

So, I got a great prompt at read write poem: take all your anxieties and write them into a poem. I like it. I’m a pretty anxious lady. So, here’s my poem!

Anxiety

I am in the dark. I am the cracks
between basement stairs where I
might slip and choke to death.
I am lost in the woods and the ants
have eaten all the breadcrumbs. I
I am love love love stuck between
your gnashing teeth when all else
is devoured. I’m the last empty
table at the coffee shop and your third
in line. I’m the friend I have
a crush on who doesn’t feel the same
way, so I blush whenever we talk,
and I feel stupid, so I quit
calling and quit answering
and hide for a while and nothing is ever
the same again. I’m your dog
that just won’t quit barking. I’m fat.
I’m vaginally shaped scars on trees
in dark parks spouting gnomes.
I’m the painting of a sad eyed cat
that hung on the bedroom wall of
your childhood home and came alive
whenever you tried to sleep. I’m lurking.