Day 7

The prompt: write a poem where each line is a declarative sentence, except for the last: a question.

"Grief"

There was a shooting.
There was an accident.
The cancer has spread.
I can't find a heartbeat.
The damage is too extensive.
There were complications.
The drugs stopped working.
It was the wrong place, wrong time.
We did everything we could.
It wasn't enough.

Why?

Day 6

The prompt: Write a valediction

"Farewell to Winter"

Now the pollen lines lay dense
Around every door and fence.
And breezes sing among new buds
Over children covered in mud.

Wide windows are pushed open
To pull all that sweet freshness in
With verdant shimmering light
And the yellow-bright dust of new life.

Until November next, my friend
When we'll be sure to meet again.

Day 5: Write a quintain

I'm not happy with this, but here it is:

"A poor weatherman"

You said
the rain was done
but when I went outside
I quickly discovered your lie
I'm soaked.

I stand
dripping coldly
glaring over at you
warm in your jammies and blanket
you jerk.

Day 4

The prompt:
Take the title of your poem from an Iain Banks spaceship name

"Armchair Traveller"

The atlases were stacked
to the ceiling in some places,
and the maps were all packed;
no time for last embraces.

"Farewell, my sad and lonely hovel,"
he said, and opened a novel.

Day 3

The prompt: write a "sea chantey," but I didn't.

You exhaled and my lungs expanded
          your fragrance broke over my face
          and your warmth embraced me

You opened your eyes and I saw
     this golden, shimmering earth
     full of golden, shimmering humans
                                                        with shining eyes like mine
                                                                open hands like mine
You poured out your heart and I lived.

Day 2: Tell a lie (or is it?)

A love song

If I told you I never liked the way
    the sun comes up from the depths of the ocean
at the start of each wakening day

If I told you I thought that briny sea
    with its caressing, cradling motion
never whispered a true song to me

If I told you that beautiful, life-giving mother
    never stirred me, nor taught my devotion
to waken and turn new eyes to that Other


Then I told you my heart doesn't remember
    the precious words you've spoken to me
their rhythm, their cadence, their timbre.

Day 1

The prompt: start with a line from another poem


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and there I stood as long as I could.
I had to admit I was helplessly lost
As I held my GPS aloft.

"No signal" flashed in dying light
And I cursed those stupid satellites.
I shook the finicky little thing,
But all I got was a warning ring.

Curse you, Mr. Robert Frost
Who probably was never lost.
While I myself, on the other hand
Seem always in uncharted land.

So universe, please send me a sign.
I might even listen to you this time.

NaPoWriMo Day 1