Thank you and shoutout to Richard Lee for making this beautiful photo available for free on Unsplash.
The prompt for today was in honor of today being the 22nd day of Na/GloPoWriMo 2022, and they challenged me to write a poem that used repetition. I was invited to repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.
So, here you go fellow poetry loving friends. Not as repetitious as some poems I’ve written, but there is that element throughout.
Happy Weekend to you!
The Owl Sees
Where the mind ends, the owl sees— through Ominous golden eyes It breathes in stealth and exhales darkness gliding through blue-black skies. Underneath the fern unfurls, shivers in the windy wake.
Where the mind ends, the owl sees— with certainty of vision and a clarity of mind; she free falls into the darkness, her mournful cry resounding into the boundless cosmos.
Where the mind ends, the owl sees— the wilderness unconstrained, the weeping child whose wailing seeps into the warping twilight. Inside echos of sadness the owl and child grieve as one.
Thank you and shoutout to Tamas Pap for making this photo available for free on Unsplash. This photo isn’t exactly the way that Carmen looked, but she had a similar coloring. She was really a sweet girl.
The daily prompt was different today. It was a prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asked us to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.
I made Trace do it with me because I think it’s always good to write. Also, this prompt was so specific and timed that even those who don’t love writing (is that even a thing?!) could do it. I’d love to read your dog writings.
Don’t be off put by the time. You can half the time and get just as good a result. In fact, this is what I did with Trace. Here is your chance to experience NaPoWriMo for yourself and to do something more than scrolling on your phone.
Here are the instructions:
Set up a a 5-10-minute timer and briefly list as many dogs as you can think of. These can be childhood pets and just dogs you came across one day and never saw again. List as many dogs as you can, but try to get to at least ten.
Underline the one dog you're not surprised to see in the list—the obvious dog (because the dog was your first pet, or a family favorite, or one you just saw right before you began the exercise).
Circle the dog that surprised you--the one you didn't remember until you began the exercise.
Set up a 10-15-minute timer and write, to begin with, about that dog. Don't stop writing. Tell where you were, what you were doing.
Write about the dog but also around the dog. What else was going on? Let the writing take you where it wants to take you.
I hope you give it a try. Mine is below, and I post it with a Trigger Warning.
A Tragic Tale in Three Parts
I. The Prologue
Sometimes the ones we love the most get hurt the worst by our own foolishness.
Carmen was such a pretty girl. Caramel colored little pup—Vizsla-like(no wonder I loved her) We all loved her, even mom, and she never loved any dog after our perfect Pepper passed. But Carmen wasn’t our dog, she was yours, and I think you loved her most of all.
II. The Story
The night was dark and rainy (Don’t most tragedies begin here?) The street was mostly deserted.
Most would say being downtown Detroit at 2 am in a souped up car on deserted streets is foolishness, pure and simple. Every one knows the underworld comes alive at 2 am.
The gall and puffed up pride it takes to believe you’ll be fine where others weren’t is enough to blind or to get you blinded or to get you blindsided.
You never saw them coming.
How could you not see them coming?
When you saw the car with darkened windows pull up behind you, what did you think?
Hit the gas! Drive away!
But, no.
Six guys got out and you thought you would be ok. How could you?
III. The Epilogue
In the end, your face was unrecognizable, but Carmen, Poor Carmen— She paid with her life.
Poetry, Ponderings and Possibilities 