Also, I would love to see what you make of this prompt! Please post your poem or a link to your blog in the comments. :-)
~~~
Tsunami
What's the difference?
Who would even know the wave hit the shore?
The mountain under the ocean didn't tell.
Its secrets were too volatile for words
so it didn't speak; it just roared.
No one heard its scream underwater,
but they saw the arms of the ocean
it raised over its head in frustration.
Monarchs flutter by in nonchalant indifference.
The flower needed a kiss
that would bring it closer to creation.
It was unaware it was the root
at the base of a fragile existence.
Waters break all over the world.
Levvies too old to hold back the shame
fold over with sighs and tears
bringing forth things best left covered.
Manson in a mansion dying of cancer by the sea
because Helter had no Skelter if there was no family.
Freedom means NOW
going away and keep going until never here.*
The recesses of being hold no meaning
when the insanity of hindsight lingers.
These spirits linger
floating into windows from graveyards
bones left behind in closets
whose doors remain locked.
Summer will never fall again,
not like it did before.
Never swoon softly into slow rising tides.
Won't quietly molt its leaves
in a color parade of change
ever again.
Instead winter will whisper its chill swiftly.
We will hear it despite supersonic tendencies.
The shiver of best intentions will not hint
at the heat of the destination of the road they pave.
~~~
From Rachel's blogspot:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009 POETRY EXERCISE # 8
Ingredients:
1. One regret
2. A natural disaster
3. One perfect thing.
The first line of your poem is going to be #2. Next, imagine/write as if #1 had never happened.
Let the poem unfold during the regret's undoing. This is a literary moonwalk, my friend. What difference would it have made, had it never been made? Who would be born or not born? Who would you have loved or hated instead? Which house would have burned down, which house would have stayed built or not built? Which house would have the most or least ghosts? Do you understand I don't mean a literal house? What perfect thing would have lost its perfection if there was nothing to regret?
____________________
(This exercise was inspired by Bob Hicok's poem "American History.")
~~~
Personal note on the process...
Did the ingredients before reading the instructions.
Ingredients:
1. One regret
- ?????
2. A natural disaster
- tsunami
seismic sea wave or as a tidal wave, is a series of waves in a body of water caused by the displacement of a large volume of water
3. One perfect thing.
- summer
I did these backwards 3,2,1 because I couldn't think off the top of my head of anything I truly regret. There are a lot of things that I look back and think, maybe I could have done that differently. The idea of regretting it is more of a foreign notion though... had to think a bit on this. Thought and still nothing for #1... went and did other things and came back... still nothing. What to do???
So, I read the rest of the instructions. This stuck out for me: "What perfect thing would have lost its perfection if there was nothing to regret?" ... hmmmm... so... to REDEFINE "regret" as to answer this question...??
what summer would not have happened if...?
The first thing that came to mind was the one ex and that one summer but it was not a perfect summer... my perfect summers are so far away from being old enough to even know how to regret... dammit this is hard!
So now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
The end result poem is more of an examination of the meaning of regret using tsunami as a guide. Voilà!
* The lines about freedom were from an interview with Charles Manson
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