As we say in the South, It’s getting down to the short rows! I’m at the point in the poem-a-day challenge where I don’t remember the poem I wrote yesterday because I’m so focused on finishing today’s poem and resting up before tomorrow’s prompt is posted. When my friends comment on poems I’ve written earlier in the month, I sometimes don’t remember writing it. The challenge keeps me in the moment of writing without the attachment that what I write has got to be good, finished, publishable, inspiring, <insert any other adjective here>. Which I guess, is part of the point.

Day 20 – My <Blank>

My eyes open before the early bird’s song
as if starting this job on the first day. After seven years,
I know the rhythm of this place like a child’s favorite lullaby,
can fall back in line like a soldier on his fourth tour.

Day 21 – What You Are (Not)

Born of the Atlantic
but I am nothing
like my mother.

Day 22 – Nature

The days grow long, my patience grows thin
The work you do to emerge from the ground is hidden

Day 23 – Historic

We call you by your first name as if we grew up
side by side on those red cushioned pews
in your daddy’s church

Day 24 – Moment

In the end, she did nothing
even though this was the time
she’d promised to do different.

Day 25 –  Across the Sea

A woman waiting
Her sister dying
Bleeding from eyes
Ears and nose.

Day 26 – Shakespearean Words

Courtship:
a frugal compromise
to end Lonely’s reign

Other than 14 Words of Love and my weekly poetry dates, I haven’t been writing much this year. National Poetry Month tends to increase my writing output when I take the poem-a-day challenge using prompts on the Poetic Asides blog. Like last year, I will post the first few lines of each poem in case I want to publish them later.

Day 1 – Resistance

Hope lies still
in the hospice bed.
Her once vibrant skin
ashen and gnarled
like washed out deadwood,
her eyes adrift in the sea
of colorless walls.

Day 2 – Secret

We may never know who looped a simple rope and hung it from a tree.

Day 3 – Machine

Lever
Simple machine
Press hard to reduce the load

Day 4 – Departure

At 5 am, the city shifts from graveyard
to day. The all-night clerk steps out
of the token booth the make room
for his replacement just as the passenger
with the uniform slung over shoulder
pushes through the turnstile.

 Day 5 – Vegetable

she’s everywhere
you look
wild and small
like a pin
ready to prick
your heart

Day 6 – Things-Not-as-They-Seem

You wake to an alarm
set by Ground Command
to keep your circadian rhythm
pegged to the Greenwich Mean.