24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
I grew up in Southern Colorado's San Luis Valley, positioned between the beautiful San Juan Mountains to the west and the breath-taking Sangre De Christo Mountains to the east. I am currently living in Utah. I am a father of four amazing children. My wife and I have two of my children with granddaughters living at home with us. I am now, the proud grandpa of three beautiful granddaughters. The two oldest call me Papa. A name that is more endearing than any other. I enjoy late evening swims, reading books, gardening, painting with the assistance of computer technology (GIMP) and taking hikes in the Utah and Colorado mountains and foothills. And of course, I also enjoy writing poetry and sharing it with my friends and family. I have had my personal struggles in life and poetry has helped me come out victorious over them.
Text Prompt
If you want a friend;
be still and listen.
If you need to hide from an enemy,
be still and listen.
Keeping still will conceal you.
Listening will reveal to you.
And you’ll know who’s your enemy
and who’s your friend.
Use this image and/ or the line it contains “…just be still, and listen” as a jumping off piece. Full credit goes to Shlokla Shankar.
Books and people are nearly the same.
Books just like people have lots they can claim.
Turning a page is like asking a question.
A person like a book has a secret confession.
Reading a book’s like listening too.
But reading is better cause memories misconstrue
A friend is a book and a book is a friend.
Book friends keep their words right up to the end.
A story can change when the truth seems too deadly.
A book keeps its story ironically, readily.
If I were to need to make a choice between two.
A book I would choose, cause it needn’t choose you.
Text Prompt
Use one of these quotes as a jumping off point.
“I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.” – Natalie Diaz
“I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it.” – Hanif Abdurraqib
“Books were safer than other people anyway.” – Neil Gaiman
Text Prompt
I lost the ability to smell years ago.
I miss the smell of strawberries.
like I miss my Grandma Emily.
I miss the smell of freshly baked bread
like I miss my childhood.
I miss the smell of Roses
like I miss how roses were once made for the eyes and the nose.
I miss the smell of dirt after a rain
like I miss growing up on a farm.
I need to take in a different breath in life.
I need to relearn to breathe.
I have learned with my eyes that I need to breathe only through my nose.
I have noticed that my sense of smell is returning
in just a little time I have started to be more mindful of how I breathe.
I never thought that breathing is a sense too.
I never thought that there is a right and wrong way to breathe.
Is there a more correct way to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to move, to smell, to listen, to be?
Write a poem focusing on an experience through a sense other than vision – or a sense you don’t often use or ignore.
Contributed by Janette Rosebrook.
Image Prompt
Image Prompt
Liminal deity of gates and doors;
what are you keeping so safely as yours?
If I say yes, to discover your truth,
will I be happy to enter your booth?
Will I regret the decisions I make?
Will, there be gentler roads I can take?
Liminal deity, give me a peak.
So, I can know if it’s elsewhere I seek.
Little did we know,
our lives would take this turn.
We were told we might never have you.
It was an Abraham and Sarah miracle,
Well in our 50s! We laughed—
at first.
but then your spirit took wings.
and like a beautiful bird;
always just out of reach.
you flew beyond our dreams.
If you could have stayed,
You would have come to know
How much we love you,
just like
your siblings,
Because—
by adoption,
they miraculously grace our lives too.
Text Prompt
Even if you have children, write poems about imaginary ones. They can be your own imaginary children, or the imaginary children of people you love.
Image Prompt
My Friend Death,
I am becoming you.
For, you are everything I want in life.
When you approach, I will look at you.
I will see a better me looking back.
You will present a charismatic appearance.
I will see in you the beauty that I have only dreamed of for myself.
So I know that by emulating what is beautiful and true in life,
You will embrace me like your beloved sibling twin.
A warm sunny day,
with a walk in the backyard.
We collect —
the petals from red roses,
the new lime green leaves from off of a trumpet vine,
a collection of clippings from the lawn.
Bring out the crayons, to color in the sky, the grass, the trees, the bright yellow sun;
a black cat, made as special as a 4-year-old can do it.
Then the watercolors—
One brush means girls must learn to take turns.
The rinsing cup gets more color than the white letter-sized paper.
The black cat turns dark green.
The water in the cup turns chocolaty brown.
Monet would be envious.
.Next glue down the petals from roses, the leaves from the trumpet vine, and the grass clippings,
and last, pretty colored feathers.
Papa tells the girls these are special—
from the wings of beautiful magical fairies.
He gets a hug from his little red-haired four-year-old.
Time to let it dry in the sun while we have fun in the park.
Little two-year-old sister walks hand in hand with her Papa.
Big sister rides her scooter all the way there.
The red slide is too hot,
The helical green tunnel slide is just right.
Time for the youngest to learn to be more independent.
Papa sits by and lets it happen.
The cool morning day is dipped like a painting with—
new memories of a happy watercolor day,
pressed beneath the weight,
of a1909,
Webster’s New International Dictionary.
The weight of time presses down on
fairy winged memories.
I open the front of the book to see a black and white lithograph—
Noah Webster looking back at me from more than a hundred years.
I am sure—
this wordy old papa would have smiled more
if he could have had a watercolor day of his own.
the darkest angel
proclaims the suns returning
God’s deliverance.
Text Prompt
Write poem about any holiday in December/early January.
Contributed by Nancy Ann Smith.
Text Prompt
Take a common saying like “To get lost is to learn the way” or “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” or “This too shall pass,” as the basis of writing a poem.
Contributed by KV Adams.
Image Prompt
