Retroflexed Triflections: A Summer Of Poetry Blog Challenges In Three Parts

by Steve Lavigne

ridicules as the “tent”,

  the one your old girl Sheila

  wore as a nightgown

  and you were so lucky

  to get back.

  Is nothing sacred?

  Each stain is a diary entry

  and who would cut up their words

  for rags,

  trash their journal

  just because –

  the boy riding high on your shoulders,

  the superman cape of a boy

  clasping your neck so tight,

  his limp figure so heavy

  in your arms as you carry him

  sleeping into the house

  from the car,

  the thread worn remnants

  of your sacrosanct self

  whispering,

  we all have things we don’t

  want to give up

  but should,

  the cool unbundling

  of your memories

  stinging

  your naked

  chest.

  Select a timeworn item to inspire your mystery into a poem.

  Robin red breast

  neck hanging limp

  when we lifted your body

  with a stick –

  ants scattering like a 5 year old’s

  thoughts -

  you, hop stopping worm hunter

  we constantly stalked,

  so strange what had left

  leaving it and us

  so frail

  and so easily

  caught.

  I immediately arranged a ceremony –

  burial, stick cross, impromptu

  eulogy - a bleak descending

  word sadness

  so different from play –

  I remember your wry, hands crossed,

  smiling acceptance

  but you were always the daredevil

  in the face of death –

  parachute, bungee, the ski jump

  accident – the one thing tripping you up.

  Strange, they all said, how once in a wheelchair

  you became the preacher teaching your flock

  the meaning of life.

  How strange, they said, the other one

  always going on and on

  about death.

  Death Be Not Proud– What was your first exposure to death? Was it a pet, neighbor, a close relative? Was there a long illness involved or was it sudden? Write it as honestly as possible. Say what you’ve always wanted to say.

  This is what meaning looks like

  a tree

  in winter

  known only by its

  smooth

  or rough bark,

  its patterned

  branching

  towards

  the light –

  no fruits, no flowers, no leaves

  a mirror

  reflecting

  the mirror

  of your jeweled self

  pressing hard on the glass,

  tapping, knocking to be let in -

  this marriage to the world

  a fractured, splintered image

  of your own

  wanting

  For today’s prompt, take the phrase “This Is What (Blank) Looks Like,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

  Sevenling

 

  It’s been so many years,

  so many long miles,

  this patina of indifference separating us.

  Father, I think, how frail,

  how much like grandfather you’ve become.

  When did you get so old?

  No, not father, I realize, but my brother staring back at me.

  Write a sevenling poem. The sevenling was created by Roddy Lumsden.

  Lament

  The simplest things, sometimes they’re the hardest things

  like explaining Samson’s lost hair and why a daughter no longer sings

  in the harsh light of endless hospital wings.

  Sometimes they’re the hardest things, the simplest things.

  It should be easy, my doing the right thing,

  like being a pillar of strength, taking the hurt, taking the sting, yet it's the shuffling girl beside me touching me in the silence to ease me,

  my doing the right thing, it should be easy.

  Write a Swap Quatrain. The Swap Quatrain was created by Lorraine M. Kanter.

  symbolism

  It always means something more

  than what you think it means

  these words

  and those,

  symbols, for example,

  poetry,

  like

  if the flower

  simply was not there

  and then was there

  in the magician’s hand,

  there would be no real magic –

  it’s the trick, you see,

  that we want to reproduce,

  some soul offering solace

  to our adoring prostrating

  masses

  who are all really only bending down

  to look up our sleeves,

  all of us asking and repeating,

  but that’s not really it,

  that’s not really what I meant

  et al(l)…

  my nonet

  form following function – forty-five

  intimate syllables having

  their inexorable way

  with you, leading to only

  one conclusion - the

  coming climax

  was always

  about

  now

  Write a Nonet Poem

  The nonet poetic form is simple. It’s a 9-line poem that has 9 syllables in the first line, 8 syllables in the second line, 7 syllables in the third line, and continues to count down to one syllable in the final (ninth) line.

  1

  long ago

  in a galaxy far away

  has meaning to

  someone

  somewhere

  2

  hard rain

  loose pane

  rattling

  thunder

  your one small light

  creating

  shadows

  3

  Twas a dark and stormy night

  and you're afraid

  context means

  nothing

  4

  the rusty

  dull

  surface

  once shone

  a warrior's smile

  bared and gleaming

  Write a poem that uses 12 words, no more, no less.

  Riding,

  climbing the

  rocking steps

  of the chain clanking, rickety Ferris

  wheel

  skyward,

  music and greasy wooden

  wonder stalls

  fading,

  you crest the dotted sky

  countryside

  tumbling away backwards

  a stomach dropping, hands reaching

  falling with your girl,

  a carnival cacophony of

  seasick houses

  circling

  tv screen

  aquarium windows

  to the world -

  inside - laughing crying confused

  your awkward

  one small step

  earthward

  and

  which is land, which is sea

  and what is this unexpected,

  lunging breath -

  the same air you just

  emerged

  from?

  Pen a poem inspired by the prompt carnival

  “When the words slip free ..."

  This slip-n-slide

  relationship

  wet with unspoken

  and implied

  meanings and tears –

  you say

  we should j
ust keep making strides,

  giants tripping on stones

  all around us,

  I say

  we twist

  and turn

  like otters

  bursting

  the shells of doubts

  in our bellies

  and if we fall,

  lay down

  beside me

  and my words will slip

  free

  rain through fingers

  sliding down

  your face

  showering

  you clean -

  you see,

  I really only

  meant

  to hold on

  until I found

  my way

  back

  to you.

  Take that “I wish I had written that” line from one of the poems and make it your own as a totally new poem.

  you've been gone so long

  and what if I can't remember

  and what if I forget

  your name

  and how we first met

  floating on that rocking dock together

  dark

  storm clouds rumbling in

  your certain smile

  as our surging bodies

  touched

  and how they felt

  as if they'd known

  each other

  a thousand

  lifetimes

  Write a memory poem.

  Change

 

  Down the same cement stairs

  wending the same streaming sidewalk

  leading to the same window-

  less office,

  he sees

  the humped bear of a man

  sitting mid-

  stream

  always wafting

  at the edge of

  vision.

  Change?

  they ask themselves every morning

  as change is thrown scornfully

  in front of them,

  their hands and knees worn

  in a chasing

  supplication -

  the empty bargain bottles

  of their hearts

  clinking softly

  in expectation

  inside of

  them.

  Impressionistic writing. For today, let’s get into their footsteps and write poetry in an impressionistic style

  Change (2)

  Change thrown scornfully

  in front of him,

  the flithy wrap

  layered bear of a man bends

  on hands and knees in a chasing

  supplication –

  an empty

  bargain bottle

  clinking softly

  in expectation

  beside him.

  For today’s prompt, write a poem that includes the following five words: change, wrap, bottle, bargain, bear.

  follow

  the labyrinth

  of your matchbox car

  breathing,

  the easy curving belly

  ballooning turning

  and know

  the deck clattering

  whining,

  shrieking,

  of your mind

  is best viewed

  from the

  stands

  Write a poem with the theme labyrinth

  Riddle

  It’s not music

  though music is contained within

  often as an introduction,

  and it’s not “knowledge”

  although you “learn”

  and occasionally share what you’ve been told

  with others,

  and it doesn’t sate like food or drink

  though it can be as cloying as chocolate

  when ingested too much, too quickly,

  and it’s not even the little display

  which you control indirectly

  and which can easily make you display

  anger, desperation, joy, tears,

  not necessarily in that order.

  This riddling sphinx of the new age

  giving voice to your words,

  intuiting your meaning like

  a high priestess at ceremony –

  a good guess would be AM 970

  before corporate sponsorship and

  the internet,

  now, snaking ear buds

  filling those empty holes in your head

  with endless podcasts

  telling you what you already knew –

  who woulda ever thought it would feel

  so good to feel so miserable

  driving your car, doing dishes,

  inadvertently ignoring your wife,

  your children…

  What is your obsession? What do you truly enjoy above all else? Write the passion that goes into your extra-curricular endeavors. What piques your interest? What would you love to try? What is your guilty pleasure? Tell us about it in all its poetic finery.

  there’s a line

  good poetry shouldn’t cross

  like me and you

  an archetypal

  tree line

  abruptly

  demarcated,

  I should have known by your

  rarified air,

  your being above it all

  whenever we were together,

  by my pining

  and stunted,

  half shorn pleas

  in your cascading

  icy breeze -

  was it something in our elemental

  substrata

  or a trick of a fickle clime,

  and if we had just kept up

  our breathy, CO2 talking

  warming

  would I have at last

  melted

  your permafrost heart,

  my rough bark

  invading

  and deflowering

  your

  precious

  alpine

  garden….

  For this week’s prompt, write a straight line poem

  fire

  elemental

  like a fear

  in your belly

  a once burned

  kind of

  love

  brightness

  in

  darkness

  a shining

  eyes

  wild creature

  desire

  reaching

  for something

  more

  until

  soft, licking

  kiss

  and we stare

  amazed

  this tough old flesh

  and bone

  could ever be made

  so tender,

  awed

  we don’t yet know

  what sustains it,

  what keeps it

  under

  control

  Write a Fire poem.

  random thoughts at 4am

  meeting your community

  through sacred rites of passage,

  your passing

  boyhood and girlhood

  marking you for life

  and the rebirth of the next

  generation

  with tattoos, indelible

  scarification

  and the psychedelic

  inhalation of

  ancestors

  as you leap across the backs

  of cattle

  where falling means failing

  means no marriage,

  no status,

  and this mocking idolatry

  of us,

  this mythology of the

  individual and the wealth

  that we have created –

  how chaotic and short lived

  as we stumble

  that one boy always

  falling off

  the back of the cattle,

  the one abject

  object lesson

&n
bsp; known throughout the village

  as its failure,

  and we are that last breathe

  of a dying language

  whose thoughts, perceptions

  and words

  will all soon be gone

  and we alone,

  the last speaker

  with no one to worship

  us with incense and sacrifice,

  to visit our graves at 4am

  so we can haunt them

  to the 4th, 7th and 100th

  generations

  and how shall we choose a future

  when our only choice is to live

  forever

  as if we are the only ones

  with meetings and coffee

  and strategies -

  a stonehenge of

  strangers

  write a poem about meeting someone

  Summer school

  water the color of a rusty

  creek bed

  up to your knees,

  its deep muck sucking you in

  toward your

  pine needle floor

  and slow lighting,

  punky tinder

  of a school year’s

  imagination-

  listen closely,

  that tree is a writing desk,

  the long sour line of ants

  on its surface

  more than all your scrawls

  on a chalkboard –

  the pricking blackberry treasure,

  long pods rattling in cages,

  percussive rocks on logs,

  poison oak, whole body

  learning system

  investigations-

  first year primal readers

  rejoice – everywhere is the Principle’s

  office-

  savvy, bandy boys and girls

  in search of bare shouldered

  redemption –

  how much time in the sun

  can you bear?

  write a camp-related poem

  One flew over the cuckold’s nest

  It was all love, peace and

  understanding -

  the knowing of what

  was in another’s

  mind, maybe heart -

  if even they knew

  what that was -

  the sluice of passion we all

  channel – streaming through

  our lives

  the gravity of each decision carrying

  our course past

  boulders, sweeping up debris-

  he looked on greedily

  while I f****d his wife

  the evolutionary, scientific reason

  I understood later,

  the increased volume

  of pleasure

  seeing your mate

  with another

  making all the difference

  between having

  and holding on

  to something

  strong

  For this week’s prompt, change the title of a book (that you may or may not like), make that the title of your poem, and then write your poem.

  Dessert

  Fishing for browned