Writers' Pantry #67 and NaPoWriMo #18

 NaPoWriMo Day #18

Again, my Sunday post for Poets and Storytellers United is from one of the NaPoWriMo prompts.

 Writers' Pantry #67 

The prompt for Day 18 was:

"Write a poem based on the title of one of the chapters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words."

I couldn't pick just one, so I didn't!  The numbers are the chapters in the book, and are followed by the chapter titles.

🌥     🌥     🌥     🌥     🌥     🌥     🌥

39  Who Were You in My Dream? 

Who Were You?

 

I dreamed

there was a party,

but I couldn’t find you anywhere.

I knew you were there,

for I wouldn’t have dreamed alone.

Strangers grabbed at me,

ripping me from the crowd. 

I was panicking,

thrashing my arms,

kicking my legs.

I woke covered with sweat,

tangled in my duvet.

Who were you in my dream? 

I wouldn’t dream of dreaming without you.

 🖼     🖼     🖼     🖼     🖼     🖼     🖼

40 Collage 

 

Collage

 

An art form.

Not further education

after high school.

If you can’t spell the difference,

hand back your diploma.

 💔     💔     💔     💔     💔    💔     💔

57 Catching Myself

 

Catching On 

 

Who else will catch me

if I don’t catch myself?

There’s no one I trust more.

I trusted you once,

and look where it got me.

🌉     🌉     🌉     🌉     🌉     🌉     🌉

60 The Poem Bridge 

 

Building Bridges 

 

What words to build a bridge?

What words to tear it down?

Surely “love,” the keystone

of it all.

Patience the glue when

firmly pressed in place,

the stones, kind words

to last a lifetime.    

🌊     🌊     🌊     🌊     🌊     🌊     🌊 

 

3  Collecting Words and Creating a Wordpool

 

Wordpools

 

Ebbing and flooding.

At any given moment

they’re full or drained of words,

dependent on the waves of inspiration.

Waves bringing words of solace

or sorrow with the tide.

Ebbing and flooding.

Low tide’s words are tranquil, reassuring,

then anxious,

listening for the crash of breakers,

a surge of angry booming phrases,

churning words,

profane flotsam.

Ebbing and flooding.

Reach in, touch the words.

Some may pinch with claws,

others soft, invite you closer.

But, beware…

There are riptides too

in the wordpools.

They pull us under to

drown in our own words. 

 ☹     ☹     ☹     ☹     ☹     ☹     ☹

36 Please Don’t Understand

 

Please Don't Understand

 

Please don’t understand

For then my obligation

Will be to remain

 🧦     🧦     🧦     🧦     🧦     🧦     🧦

54 The Blue Socks

 

The Blue Socks 

 

These blue socks now have a hole

where my second toe peeks through.

The long toe on my right.

Some said a longer second toe

meant I’d be a nagging wife.

I hope that wasn’t true.

Others called it “a sign of beauty,”

or “intelligence.”

Intelligence is beauty to the wise,

so that’s okay.

These blue socks have seen a lot.

Before the birth of our first born son,

they paced the floor with me in labor.

They rocked our daughter,

then paced again,

when she was late for curfew.

True, they’ve grown thin on the bottom,

as you grew thin on top

(in, need I say? baldness).

But these blue socks outlived you.

How can socks outlive a man?

Now there is a hole.

Like the hole in my life.

Darn.

Damn.

Damn blue socks. 

Damn you. 

Damn you for dying and leaving me this hole.

Undarnable.

 

 ©2021 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved