two poem Tuesday: love and anti-love

We’re three weeks into the challenge now, which means “Two-for-Tuesday” day today. This is the one I break out every challenge (alumni know which one I’m talking about).

For today’s prompt:

Write a love poem and/or…
Write an anti-love poem. Because some folks just aren’t that into love poems.

Remember: These prompts are just springboards; you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want. In other words, it’s more important to write a new poem than to stick to the prompt. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

I haven’t written two poems on either of the previous Tuesdays this month. I’ll try today to write both instead of choosing one.

anti-love

There’s an ugly wound
on my soul
from the blunt force trauma
of losing a child to suicide

It’s the kind of thing
you always hide
in polite company
and even now
I hesitate
to say any more,
to tell the thing I came to tell.

The wound gives me thoughts
that should not be expressed
There’s a tiny voice I suppress
— would never say out loud —
every time I hear the news
someone is expecting.

I’m so happy for you!
Children are such a blessing.
But the wound whispers darkly
so only I can hear,
”I hope they don’t grow up to break your heart.”

love

it was love
that wrought
my devastation

— anyone
who has lost someone
understands —

and love
has been the only thing
to begin to revive
the damaged parts of me

a paradox:
that which harms also heals
somehow the seed of my destruction
yet is the source of my redemption

such power

I want to wield it well

So one thing about these poetry exercises is that they’re not all successful. I don’t wrap it up every day thrilled with what I’ve written. Maybe I come back and do some revisions. Every first effort could be improved with some additional attention. Or maybe I call it good enough and move on.

These days, so much depends on the energy I have. Am I fighting just to get through another day of self isolation without alienating the people I love? Yesterday I was so grouchy. Everything seemed bleak, and it was hard not to take it out on my husband, who is the only other person in my household right now. And he’s working — although things are weird, he still gets to leave the house and see people and maintain whatever sense of normalcy is possible under the extraordinary conditions of life at this moment.

So today’s poems, I don’t think they’re so great. But, as with every attempt at poetry, they did give me the opportunity to take some stuff that was inside of me and express it outwardly, and in some sense, let it go. So that’s always a positive.

poem-a-day challenge: six words

Write a poem every day of April with the 2020 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. Write a six words poem.

For today’s prompt, write a poem that uses the following six words:
bump, embrace, fixture, howl, lonely, resolve

How did I come up with this list? Actually, it’s a tie-in to our Shakespeare Week that starts today, because the Bard is actually credited with inventing all six of these words. Pretty cool, eh? For sestina fans, I kind of intentionally made it six words for a reason. So let’s get writing!

(33 lamentable words coined by William Shakespeare.)

Remember: These prompts are just springboards; you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want. In other words, it’s more important to write a new poem than to stick to the prompt. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

six words

I remember believing
the struggles brought on
by your depression and anxiety
were, while serious,
just a bump we would have to get over
in raising you
to the happy and successful adulthood you would have.
To the life you would embrace
when you could leave behind the petty pedantry
of compulsory education
and learn what you wanted to learn
and do what you wanted to do
create what you wanted to create
beholden to no one.

But the dark clouds
became a fixture
and your increasing discomfort
a howl, as they blocked out the moon
until there was no light at all
and you, lonely in the blackness
lost hope
even as we
with parental resolve unrelenting
and a love beyond explanation
tried to reach you.
Our every effort still failed
to illuminate the solitary place
in which you found yourself trapped.

In the end it didn’t matter what I believed,
what I still believe:
that you would somehow have found comfort
and ease
and satisfaction,
a life worth living,

if you could have held on.

When I read Robert Lee Brewer’s initial direction of writing a six-words poem, at first I thought of the idea of six-word stories. This poem was going to be pretty fast and easy (and short)! But then I clicked through and read the real instructions. Hmmm, it would likely be much harder than I thought.

After I worked the first two words into the poem, and realized they were in the order presented, I challenged myself to include the other four words also sequentially — not a requirement, but something I wanted to see if I could do.

The title, six words, obviously refers to the prompt. But I’ve also included my six-word story as the last line.

poem-a-day exotic species: orba parente

For today’s prompt, write an exotic poem. Set your poem in an exotic locale. Or maybe write about an exotic person, animal, or technology. And remember that your everyday things may be exotic to someone else. Honestly, I’ve found poets are a breed of exotic creature whenever I’m in a room full of “normal” adults. — Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest

orba parente

the bereaved parent is an exotic species,
the sighting of which is prone to provoke
barely concealed gawking
and furtive whispering

having lost a child
is as if one were a dangerous creature
on exhibit at the zoo
where everyone wants to see
but no one wants to get too close

because who knows what might happen
best keep your distance
and hope that I am
a mere curiosity you can forget about
tomorrow

Forgive the poorly translated Latin title; I’ve never studied Latin, so I had to just plug “bereaved parent” into an online translator to try and achieve the effect of a species’ scientific name. I think “orba” has something to do with the root of the word “orphan,” and since there’s not an English word for a parent who has lost a child (the way orphan describes having lost one’s parents) the idea of it being applied in reverse resonated with me.