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.