PROMPT #427 – MOVING FORWARD

/ Poetic Bloomings

This week, take one of your sentences from last week and build it into your poem.. Simple as that.

WALT ADVANCES:

LOVE POEMS ARE JUST WORDS

She found she couldn’t compete with love. 
It sounded wonderful in a neat little poem.
But love poems are just words
and she didn’t believe words anymore. 
He found it hard to express his heart
and so he didn’t even try to anymore.
She found she couldn’t compete with love. 
She just didn’t care.

(c) Walter J Wojtanik - 2023

Oops! Set the post time at 6 this evening instead of in the morning. My thumbs just weren’t on point lat night! Sorry poets. That one’s on me. Marie is still MIA doing Good!

58 thoughts on “PROMPT #427 – MOVING FORWARD”

  1. If Wishes Built Legs

    I yearn for the day
    I might hike trails again,
    letting my mind search
    for a poetic refrain,
    even as my brain is jogged,
    before I set off at the start,
    knowing the loveliest strain
    must stem from my heart.

  2. Not a Movie Scene

    Strange feelings nestled in my belly
    as I took in the view
    of the busy street
    with the usual cars, vans, busses
    plus old and tiny cars,
    bicycle taxis—
    customer clinging to the driver.

    Tall trellises filled with greenery
    to make up for loss to concrete.

    People scurrying here to there,
    not unusual in a city
    but the number of them!
    And peddler after peddler
    accosting vehicles
    selling their wares: thrift-store stuff
    or items from a discount store,
    and bunches of bananas and
    bundles of taro root.

    I watched through a window
    like a TV screen,
    but this was Nairobi life,
    not a movie scene.

  3. MARVELLOUS MARVIN

    When Marvin lost a sandal,
    he thought it a major scandal;
    he simply couldn’t handle
    his own ineptitude.

    He warped his teeth with gnashes
    and cut himself with lashes;
    he wore sackcloth and ashes
    to complement his mood.

    At first I didn’t buy it
    or think he’d really try it,
    but he really had a diet
    of truly inedible food,

    and all this flagellation
    caused nothing but constipation;
    in the end, his aggravation
    was something that he rued.

    Despite this fractured history
    a highly solemn consistory,
    in a process laced with mystery,
    made him a cardinal dude.

    Here’s a truism that bears repeating;
    it almost could be a rule:
    stupidity is self-defeating
    except for exceptions to the rule.

  4. TAKING A YEARN TOO FAR

    pull up a seat
    on a brilliant star
    avoid edgy heat
    no matter where you are

    feel what you long for
    make it a focus
    push it hard, give it more
    next, do share it with us

    once you learn to value that yearn
    it will drive you until it’s done
    you’ll undoubtedly feel the burn
    grab your courage, become the sun

    keep it a secret or openly share
    just don’t stop longing inside
    maybe toss it high in the air
    or choose to let it endlessly hide

    dig that yearning out
    wear it on your billowy sleeve
    just don’t listen to the doubt
    or long for the yearn and grieve

    be proud to carry it, let it speak
    tune into what it really needs
    maybe fulfill it, week after week
    or be willing to just plant seeds

    trying too hard could make us crazy
    if so, maybe ease off the yearning
    not to become too terribly lazy
    it never hurts to be more discerning

    (c) Janet Rice Carnahan 2023

  5. YEARNING FOR MOONLIGHT

    She yearned for silent moonlight slipping
    over the hillside. The high tides in her heart
    carried heavy-laden burdens far, far away.
    Wading in sweet pools of milk-grey light—
    until mesmerizing flows swept her aimlessly
    into another day.

    Benjamin Thomas

  6. Strangely Normal

    To think me strange
    Is to assume you normal
    But what is normal
    And what is strange
    I consider you strange
    Since you think yourself normal
    For I’m the most normal
    Of all those who are strange

  7. CONNIE

    There was never a lovelier plane in the sky
    than the Lockheed Constellation;
    the sound, when those Wrights went thundering by,
    elicited admiration
    and made me think, with a tearful eye
    and a lingering libation,
    that if there’s a heaven to which I might fly,
    let me go in a Constellation.

  8. And Sipping Ginger Tea

    I sit at my desk,
    Waiting for the tree leaves, while
    I sip ginger tea.

    Mary Elizabeth Todd
    February 27, 2023

  9. While I feel weak…

    While I feel weak,
    I long for the day I feel
    The tips of my fingers and toes, and
    My blood is not red water, but
    Flows thickly through me,
    But today I am weak and broken.
    Still
    I shout…
    Let the Healing Begin.

    Mary Elizabeth Todd
    February 27, 2023

  10. This is tough for me…

    For the last decade and a half,
    I have looked upon dread
    On this day…
    The day my mother was born…
    The day my last brother died.

    They were tied together
    In their going as much
    As they were tied together in life.

    Ma told me that Joe was always
    Clinging close to her…
    It is the reason when she dropped a hammer
    When he was three…
    It hit him and same for the burn.

    I was not like him…
    I was the escapee,
    Looking for a way out…
    I never liked strawberry cake
    But because Joe liked it
    I got it for my birthday.
    Now I miss it for I miss him,
    And I miss her.

    His birthday falls a day later
    Except on leap year.
    These days hit me hard each year
    For they are both beyond my hugs,

    This is tough for me this year
    For I feel pain everywhere,
    And sleep eludes me.
    I am tired of being tired,
    And I will see no one I love today…

    Mary Elizabeth Todd
    February 28, 2023

  11. Thank you so much Janet. I am going out to buy some cat food. The beasts don’t know they are without.

  12. Competing with love when we don’t care is futile, I agree, Walt! The heart has got to be in the game!! A beautiful poem about just words without true feeling!! Well done, Walt!

    • thank you Janet, and I know your wounds of grief are still fresh…They mean a lot to me.

  13. The Big Bake-off

    She thought is was just for fun,
    would not compete, didn’t care who won
    in a silly bake-off of cakes.
    And just how high were the stakes?
    There would have to be a judge
    against whom there could be no grudge.
    She had assumed they’d sample all wares,
    exchange recipes, have some laughs, and cheers.
    Since this would not be the case,
    She baked coconut cake for family; none went to waste.

  14. Patterns

    tough like luck
    and bad steak cheap
    wine
    the longer she chewed
    on either/any
    the harder to digest/dissect

    so she sat in that office
    meant to be homey
    with its seashell afghan
    and conchs from places
    she’d never been nor
    would ever be

    but it was tough the sum
    total chalked up to luck
    or fate or karma
    how her body
    didn’t process serotonin
    and left her grasping
    gasping for the elusive
    hidden in tiny round discs
    she shook out each morning

    or take the night she lost
    a needle hunting for an hour
    before she stepped in a puddle
    of pink thread and spied
    a tiny shiny shaft wondering
    why she’d had to spend sixty
    precious minutes before
    the universe was restored
    to its rightful spinning

    but if anything she was determined
    to keep at it to push through
    so she tasted chewed fingered
    felt ached and cried and kicked
    still trying to suss it all out

    even as she sat calmly writing
    down the pattern of those afghan shells.

  17. I enjoyed your pattern poem, Pat! Especially liked, ‘the longer she chewed on either,/any the harder to digest/dissect’ and the ‘rightful spinning’ referring to the needle and the universe! Great images!

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