Day 8:

i'm not much of a
god guy
not into the
religious ultimatums
but i do know kindness

i know the force of
a smile
a consideration
a gesture

notions aren't always what they seem to be
but intentions often are

i may not see an afterlife
but i sure love the life i'm in

no saviours
no delusions
just kindness
trying to be given
with no reward



From www.notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:


"A couple of summers ago I was pregnant and house-hunting frantically. We looked at a lot of places, including this really neglected old place. It seemed to have been left quite hurriedly. Riddled with damp and sagging walls and full of old, tired furniture and odd left-behind items. The only modern thing was a recently installed, state of the art video surveillance door answering thing, with a screen in the bedroom upstairs, so that the person could see who was at the front door without getting out of bed. There was a bare mattress and, on the cabinet, this pile of gilt-edged bibles. I couldn’t understand why someone needed so many bibles.

I took a lot of photos, ostensibly to consider buying the house, but really just because I’m nosy and I like to construct stories from the remnants of people’s lives. What I would like you to consider is lifelines – what we rely on when we’re incapacitated. What we use to comfort ourselves, to connect ourselves to the outside world. What do you hope will save you?"

Day 7:

His life's work
made in three parts
a creation of pure brilliance
once shown, they said
"But it wasn't his hand that wrote it"

His life's love
vowed for forever
boasted upon, shone bright in his heart
his wife told of her happiness,
"But it wasn't your hand that made it so"

His life's end
a crime in a neighboring town
thrashed in the public eye
blamed, belittled, hanged
but it wasn't his hand that took a life.


From www.notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:

Wrong Hands

Mike says: I am recently obsessed with magic. Not just any magic. The top shelf stuff. Homer Liwag is an amazing slight of hand artist, and yet he is known for having “the worst hands in magic.” By some bad luck of the genetic draw, they are chronically as dry as the desert. This is one of the reasons I find Homer’s performance so poetic, the striking contrast between the beauty of the movement and his “retired” hands. They seem like the wrong hands…not to mention the fact that when you’re looking for the coins, you are almost always looking at the wrong hand.

Day 6:

I taste the colours of
dawn and the fresh greens
clear my senses. Fluttered anticipations
subside and fall away.

The warmer it becomes, the colder I am.

Nothing can stop this
chamomile scented attack
on what was this winter
The fallen leaves are replacing themselves

Flourishing life stops short my chest.

From www.notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:

The prompt? Spring. The general exuberance and complexity of life. Any or all of the erotic associations blooms have (the fleur-de-lis is supposed to be not just an iris but stylized male genitals). Or none of the above.

Day 5:

Screen door shattering
Late night damp with confusion
gotta have my pops


From www.notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:




"This prompt is sort of like the infamous New Yorker caption contest. (Infamous because I never won.) Only instead of a caption, your challenge is to create a poem that’s inspired–however loosely–by the strange little drawing I’ve created. So let your imaginations run wild! I think he/she/they/it need(s) all the help you can provide in making some sense."

Day 4:

Shaking hands grip a lens
in attempts to conceal regret for
ever even trying
Blurred
Unbalanced
In a sense, not happening.
Standing in the rain
framing an illusion
This is another poem about 2 a.m.
Clutching an irreversible desire
to make something of nothing
Jesus Christ, will this be
every night?



From www.notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:



Grab a book of poetry. Try not to be too picky. From the last line of the first poem, take a word or phrase and write it down. Now, from the first line of the last poem, take a word or phrase and write it down. Now, from a random line from a random poem somewhere in between the first and the last poems, take a word or phrase and write it down. With those three words or phrases, and this picture, write.

Note: The borrowed lines are from Bukowski's "the night torn mad with footsteps".

Day 3:

Finally! One before 10:00 p.m.!

She thinks out her requirements heavily,
piecing together the best parts
of fifty men.

It's the ultimate illusion of grandeur
voicing her own opinion this time
not the third wheel

She controls her destiny
She can slant her own world view
if only this were possible

This will never be the man she loved
and She was the one shucked in the first place.


From www.notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:







"Inspired by the photo above, write a poem that includes the words ‘voicing’, ‘shucked’, and ‘slant’.”

Day 2

Darling Nicole,

Even writing this paints me
a shade of red I'm all too
familiar with,
but I know you see through
my awkward darting glances; my attempts to flee

eye contact. Forgive me, behaving
like a sheepish wild dog, fearing any
connection with you, but you see,
my reservations are many.
With you, my hand trembles even waving.

Do I tell you how much I adore
you? If ever my audacity should precede me, I
will surely know my failure, and
this rejection will be all I have to remember you by.
So instead it shall remain crumpled on the floor.

From notwithoutpoetry.wordpress.com:

"Write a poem in the form of a letter to a person you desire but have not told, telling him or her what you would like to do to them."