Finally! Although, I say it never gets easier to do these challenges, but in some way, my process has been refined. I am really happy that I wasn’t up past midnight working on poems or tucked away in some corner at a milonga scribbling down my ideas. I made a point to finish a poem on most days before 9 PM, and definitely before going out for the evening. Often, I had to go with my first mind, follow a path, and make it work, which meant opening up channels within to let the prompts trigger experiences, emotions, observations, memories that I used to create poetry. Here is the last of what my first mind brought.

Day 28 (Prompt: Settling)

Pour yourself—pure and cool—
into a glass jar filled with the simple
sand of me at the floor.

Day 29 (Prompt: Realism/Magical)

Caladenia, the spider orchid, crawls

down the stalk, bit by bit, lands on the soft

moss of her clay pot.

Day 30 (Prompt: Calling It a Day)

At the happy hour, I’m still suited up

in dress and heels while the office men

have put their neckties and jackets

at ease and lowered their beers to half-glass.

As they say in the South, we are getting down to the short rows! It’s hard to believe 27 days are behind us. The lesson this week was going with my first mind. Most of the poems stemmed from the first idea that popped in my head. I might have started down different paths in writing, but the end product reflected the thing or image that sparked the poem. For example, the word monster (Day 27) always makes me think of Godzilla. I actually wrote more of a political commentary on recent events with basketball owners and Cold War bullies, but the strongest part of the poem led me to trim back to the original idea. Here are the results of those first sparks.

Day 21 (Prompt: Back to basics)

Females must not be ragged,

unkempt, or extreme,

but may be fastened,

pinned, plain, and limited.

Day 22 (Prompt: Optimistic/Pessimistic)

My eyes stay

with her slim brown

body awash in white

mimicking the movements

of tides

Day 23 (Prompt: Location)

My happy place is on that balcony

in Old San Juan where I sit

with postcards stacked

on one knee

Day 24 (Prompt: Tell it to the <blank>)

But don’t think she’ll keep

your secret. She’ll torture

your hypothalamus all night

Day 25 (Prompt: The last straw)

Does the scarecrow cry

out to heaven when he feels

the last slit of straw

slip from his side?

Day 26 (Prompt: Water)

I stand below the nozzle’s rush,

feel jet blasts of drops flow

down my back like a hot avalanche

Day 27 (Prompt: Monster)

Today’s monster no

longer destroys whole

cities with fiery breath

and colossal feet.

It’s always good to get past the halfway point in the month. The end is near, and yet, I know the poems must keep coming. Some days I surprise myself–like the rhyme in Day 17. Other days, I go back to the photographs I have stored in my poetic memory. Several poems this week seemed to run out of my mind onto the page. Thank goodness I keep pen and pad in the car and in my purse, and sticky notes on my office desk when the words start to form. Often it feels like clouds gathering above on the verge of a downpour. Here is what the poem storms brought this week.

Day 14 (Prompt: If I Were <Blank>)

I’d still be black

but this time

desired

Day 15 (Prompt: Love/Anti-Love)

The heat of your breath

warms my skin and every

feign, flutter, fantasy stands

arm hair on end.

Day 16 (Prompt: Elegy)

On a throwback Thursday, I see a photo

of you dressed in 70’s cool–wide-legged

jeans and Kojak shades–standing in a park

with a stoic lean like that tower in Piza.

Day 17 (Prompt: Pop culture)

You’ll never see me move it round, wave

my big round mound fast, slow, up

and down like a flag to raise your salute.

Day 18 (Prompt: Weather)

The freeze will come overnight,

trap you below the thick,

clear surface for the longest

winter on record

Day 19 (Prompt: Color)

I inhale the sweet

sting of citrus

then strip skin

in one long peel.

Day 20 (Prompt: Family)

It was my father’s foresight

to insist on a family photo,

the photographer’s instinct

to seat him at center

Week 2 is a mix of themes and topics that are familiar and new experiences and observations gathered each day. Already I sense a common thread connecting the poems this year–transition. This week, there are fewer poet-as-narrator poems and more poems from the poet-as-observer perspective. These PAD challenges give me an opportunity to observe the how of my creative process:

• how images, incidents, and feelings take root throughout the day and I can’t shake them until they are on the page
• how poems start in multiple directions and then I have to work different threads simultaneously until one of them comes to an end
• how sometimes I’m not sure if I pulled the right thread
• how some themes require a return at a later date when I’m not in get-the-poem-out-and-go-to-bed mode
• how some days I just need to get the poem out and go to bed
• how I seem to be writing the same poem over and over again

And always it’s an interesting ride to see where each prompt takes me.

Day 7 (Prompt: Self-Portrait)

seated and upright

black stockinged feet

freed from black-heeled boots

dangled toes cozy up

to the heater’s warm hum

Day 8 (Prompt: Violent/Peaceful)

I overhear him tell you

he told you up front

that he lived with his mother

and worked at the college

but didn’t have a degree.

Day 9 (Prompt: Shelter)

The tour of her fiancé’s house ends

in the room filled with what’s familiar and hers–

what I will name the piano room,

what used to be the living room

of the house where our friendship grew.

Day 10 (Prompt: Future)

The climate will change as the clouds

swollen with the megapixels of our digital

lives can no longer hold everything apart.

Day 11 (Prompt: Statement)

Spring Has Arrived

And so has he to the same park bench

where he unfurls the morning paper

and feigns to read

Day 12 (Prompt: City)

You strive ever upward with a million

anonymous stories stacked between

the gravel and glass of high

rises stretched down Broadway.

Day 13 (Prompt: Animal)

She likes her dogs the way

she likes her men–large and long-

haired, happy to be at her feet.