Welcome to “Writober,” a challenge hosted by Maria at Experience Writing.

Today’s chosen prompt:Skeletons. “In poetry, the skeleton of your poem can be its poetic form or shape on the page. It can be the through line of the poem: a mood, a color, a theme, or extended metaphor. It can also be an emotional arc and/or a narrative structure.”

Catching up on these prompts today…bear with me.

Home

I sit in its chest, rib cages
of hardwood floors flexing

through seasons. Breathing
in ways we forget until we remember

“Oh, I am breathing.”

Left to itself, it dissolves like bone
buried in dirt and lime. Until one day

we return to find only fields, dimpled
with mounds under which it lies

arms over chest in silent repose,
unable to scream.

Welcome to “Writober,” a challenge hosted by Maria at Experience Writing.

Today’s chosen prompt: Psychic Powers. “How can we use our sixth sense in our poetry? Many great poems start in one place, with one question, statement or idea, but through the writing of the poem, the poet ends up in another place. Follow those instincts. Let your poem leap, following free associations that may not seem to connect at first. Let those gut feelings guide you. We can also connect dream imagery with specific sensory details in the present, using dream symbols to inform our understanding of our poetic themes.”

I wish I could read minds, to understand, to pull apart reasons like pulling out batteries in a remote control so we can change channels again. To replace excuses, opinions, beliefs, with facts and reasoning, so when we press “on” we can get on with our lives, free to agree or disagree without being right, to settle in on comfy couches in front of blazing fires and clink glasses in a toast even if we don’t all like the movie.

Welcome to “Writober,” a challenge hosted by Maria at Experience Writing.

Today’s chosen prompt: Blood. “Prompt: Write a poem using blood as a symbol for life, a romantic encounter, and/or death.”

Transformed

You see nothing
in the mirror

but feel face
drained of blood

two pricks of red
in your neck

and a hunger
grating, churning

inside where your
heart should be

a cavern that feels
empty, as a melon

scooped out for breakfast.
You stare and scream.

Welcome to “Writober,” a challenge hosted by Maria at Experience Writing.

Today’s chosen prompt: Mirrors “Mirrors distort images in different ways. This distortion creates a conflict between seeing and believing which causes discomfort. The reflection in a mirror is also reversed, so though you know you are moving your right hand, if you switched places with the you in the mirror, you would be moving your left hand. Mirrors symbolize reversals, reflection, and distortions. What is your relationship with mirrors? Can you think of a time that a mirror frightened you? If you slipped through your looking glass, what would your mirrorworld look like?”

Mirror

Once I paused
to glance
at red hair
curling around ears
wide green eyes hovering
over pointed nose
lips pressed together,
content to know
I was still here.

Today, I brush past,
look away before
the wisp that was once
my brow, my cheek, my visage
reveals walls behind
where I stand
in shadows,
waiting for night.