24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Write a narrative poem set during a holiday. It could be a poem based on your own lived experience or it could be an imagined event. A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story, but the story does not have to be compete, nor does it have to be told in a linear way.
A chance encounter
Not remotely expected
But appreciated just the same
We’ve known each other
fifteen years or more
never really spoke
Never really noticed each
other
You came in
it was late
we started talking
and it was like we connected
I learned a few things about
you tonight that I didn’t know
before
and I am grateful for the chance
You’re the one that I can count on
to be there
to listen
to keep it real
You say you don’t have a heart
you do, it’s just frozen
you say that you don’t really
believe in God
I’m still going to pray for you
If a moment like this
never happens again
that’s ok
I’ll treasure what we bonded
over regardless.
A Poet’s Dilemma
“How do you describe pen to paper?” Anne Coen
A pen without ink
is like an unloaded gun in a home invasion.
It is a blender full of fruit without a lid,
where your thoughts, ideas spill over
and go missing.
Because you don’t have the means
to write it down.
A pen without ink
is a dog without a leash
that spots a squirrel.
It’s a faucet running without a seal
turning your kitchen into a sprinkler system.
A pen without ink
is a $9.00 leaky Starbucks cup
filled with espresso on a Monday morning.
It is traveling without Waze or Google Maps,
you know your destination, but not how far to get there.
How do you describe pen to paper?
Like blood and veins to the heart and brain.
Some people are lost without them.
Margarette Wahl
B.B. King – Live at the Regal
a wine colored vynl sticks out of my shelfs multicolored media jungle
its printed in big letters beneath
in red hot motion:
the blues messiah, guitar slung over one shoulder
belting out pure sorrow
embellished by yelping sax
under the crackle and pop that coats the soundscape
when finally: BEAAM
the guitar sings out in smooth lamentation.
unbridled sonic voodooo
unleashed on my unkept bedroom
My grandfather’s house didn’t have a telephone,
Loved ones lived on memory and good fortune,
For the longest time, distance carried such importance
That my grandfather was nearly heart broken,
When his house was finally filled, with distant voices
I was fascinated with the idea of those who lived so far from home,
I was enthralled by the idea of life, outside of home
If only we had listened to grandfather,
When I ran away from home, I didn’t know I was taking home with me
My mother hugged me goodbye twice but I only looked back once,
I belonged to the distance now, the one my grandfather so revered,
You see, I wanted to get away,
Hide in the distance, so I may have an excuse to say,
Talking to you twice a week is enough,
If we talk more we’ll run out of things to talk about,
There was a drought of voices back home,
And I blamed my absence on the abundance of things we shouldn’t say.
Though it feels scripted like a well versed movie
When it arrives you ask yourself thorny questions
about whether it is real or deserving
They say it should be the first language spoken to babies
with coos, soft songs, warm blankets and warm milk.
Everyone doesn’t get this though
Some Mama’s are dragons
like they carry signs on their hearts saying closed until further notice
but those that are lucky don’t have the grieving unaligned struggle of cooing themselves to bed.
Those of us, who hugs feel good to.
Those of us who don’t grow mourning something they should have received
It’s luck of the draw
and I must have pulled the long straw because Mama did the best she could
and I forgive for all she couldn’t
I’m more and she never gets enough credit
There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it.
-Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
There was supposed to be
open space for everything
to be as they were
Some way for things to be
what he knew and
always held dear
He tried to believe
that there was a way
it could be done
But he was caught between
the memories of something wonderful
and the nothing they were offering
About this time
old words came back to him
from a story he once read
And rang in his head
like a bell ringing over and over
if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it
Hour 17, using Prompt 9 (5 words used)
Firefly in a bottle
by the bedside
light up nights that wear
a mask of terror
to childish minds rife
with notions strange
A blanket of magic
to guard over dreams
not yet singed by the heat
of banal logic’s dictates
I found a receipt in an inspirational writer’s book
It cried out to me about past time promises and desires
Unfortunately, that was a decade or so ago.
I’m going emotionless again
Shawn messages after two months
of mutual silence, I hear the ding
and sigh, knowing it’s him, knowing
he wants to talk, knowing I can’t
take his words and make them new,
let myself fall, his lies nipping
my ears, trying to take hold.
So I stare at the screen and blink,
forcing fingers to still, a screen to stay
cold, keeping silence instead of spilling
that my emotions are long-gone too.