Category Archives: prompts

Playing with Anapests in Monotetra

Today’s Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub is to use a movie quote in a poem. Mish provided a list to choose from. When I saw “It’s alive! It’s alive!” from Frankenstein (1931), the repetition reminded me of a poetry form. I looked back through my poems from last OctPoWriMo and found it in my post from October 6, 2020 Following Desire. The form is Monotetra.

The instructions for the Monotetra are a little confusing because it talks about number of feet and also number of syllables. If you look at my poem in that post, “Desire is the ear at the curtain,” I was counting syllables (eight), and rhyming, but wasn’t paying attention to meter. The instructions for the Monotetra form assume a poetic metrical foot to have two syllables, but a poetic foot can have more than two syllables: like the dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) I used in my last post, and the anapest (unstressed, unstressed, stressed) which is how I read “It’s alive!”

Since I want to play with anapestic meter instead of 8 syllables this will be an alternate form of a Monotetra. It will still be made of rhyming quatrains, and the fourth line will repeat, but each line will be in anapestic dimeter.

Revival

When a song with a drive
brings the bees to the hive
and the throng into thrive
“It’s alive! It’s alive!”

like a wrong she deprives
and with love to connive
and belong she can strive
Hope’s alive! It’s alive!

on the path to revive
when the depth of the dive
meets the wrath she archived
Hope’s alive! It’s alive!

like a storm will arrive
hear the clap, count to five
stay informed to survive
“It’s alive! It’s alive!”

Dactyls Dactyls Everywhere: not a ptero in sight.

Edward Okun – Walc Chopina (Wikimedia Commons)

Conviviality

dance to the, dance to the
music of Chopin and
waltz with me, waltz with me
round a nice fantasy
keep up appearances
sentimentalities
backhanded compliments
blacking out promises

dance with me, dance with me
turning me endlessly
waltz to the, waltz to the
mockingbird murmuring
visitors’ vanities
blushing with jealousy
echoing, echoing
over the
wonderful fantasy

At the Moulin Rouge: Two women waltzing by Toulouse-Lautrec (Wikimedia Commons)

Today’s Meet the bar prompt at dVerse Poets Pub is to take a look at the waltz. I took this as inspiration to attempt a poem in dactylic meter. Dactyls are feet that are three syllables with the first syllable stressed, or long short short like a waltz.

Pleasure of Poetry

My previous post, the last in my redrafting demonstration, was about emulating a poem or poet. Today, the Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub takes that to a whole new level. Laura challenges us to write a poem either about one of our favorite poets, or addressing a poet in direct voice. I think I’ll take a look at a couple lessons of the How Writers Write Poetry MOOC and see if one of the poets inspires me to write about or to them.

A Temporary Respite with James Galvin

May I share in your antidote?
I’ll approach with pleasure
pleasure of the somatosensory
alphabet that provides
temporary respite from knowing
we’re going to die

It will be delicious
delighting our senses five
We’ll get to hear beautiful musics
I won’t want just one
I’ll want another one
I’ll bring passion

I’ll drag it, pulling
against a leash
like a dog you don’t
believe knows or fears death
giving us something to survive for
giving us a chance to stay alive better

Great Balls of Fire! A getaway pegacorn happens!

Last week I found two Sunday writing prompts. Let’s see what they have for me today:

Poetic Bloomings‘ PROMPT #334 is “It Happens” and Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie‘s Sunday Writing Prompt is “Great Balls of Fire”

I thought I would combine the prompts and was mid-freewrite with the ideas, but then something happened. 🙂

A photograph of an inflatable pegacorn, white with rainbow mane, wings, tail and horn on a blue lake.
Pegacorn leashed by Maria L. Berg 2021

Flying Free on the Slightest Breeze

I ran to save a pegacorn. It happens.
I jumped up and ran to my dock
expecting to intercept
but it surprised me

It didn’t stop. It flipped
in a flash, floating
on a slight breeze,
landing halfway

to the neighbor’s dock
It eyed me and its escape
one more flip
then gone

I sprinted through the weeds
ignoring the bushes grown together
I found footing over the sharp
wet rocks and leaped

over the watery gap
to the wobbly planks
in time, just in time
to grab

that mythical horse’s
horn and deliver
it to a thankful mermaid
ready for a flying adventure

An open rose with yellow, orange and red petals
Great Balls of Fire by Maria L. Berg 2021

Here’s the original poem of somewhat combined prompts:

Fireballs Happen

The great ball of fire commands the day
burns up the clouds for full display
brightens the blues, the greens, yellows, and pinks
and heats up the ant invasion

The great ball of firing neurons attenuate
to every black speck, ready to hate
the second it moves, obsessively out for the kill
if only this year it could end

The great ball of fire from ant-filled wood
each crackle a hope lifting my mood
they burned, they burned the entire glorious day
diminished, but never gone

As I admire the great balls of fiery rhododendrons
each tattooed blossom aflame in summer, my neurons
burn with hope that the bomb of toxins I desperately set
in the bathroom will push back

No! Destroy the enemy, so I may some day
bake and bathe undisturbed under the
great ball of fire in the sky

Thinking about the smell of beautiful mistakes

Today I spent some time finding new poetry resources and sites to follow. I found a lot of prompts for today, but two stood out and I thought I would combine them (as I like to do) and write a poem.

The first is the Sunday Writing Prompt from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. The prompt is “Beautiful Mistake.”

The second is PROMPT #333 from Poetic Bloomings which is “Sweet Smell of Success.”

photograph of camellias by the NaPoWriMo poster
a beautiful mistake like this sun glare

A Beautiful Mistake Recognizes the Smell of Success

Beauty asks bubbles on a wire to interrupt
the ugly lips in the oven entertaining
a mistake exudes the middle thumb, wondering
while perfection glues pests to lenses on command
Success smells like powdered teeth complaining
that failure belongs as blinking noise

The Final Destination

Today’s final NaPoWriMo prompt is to write directions describing how a person should get to a particular place.

The final PAD prompt is a goodbye poem.

Over at the A to Z Challenge they have a word scramble. The Janus word for today is zip which can mean energy, vim, or nothing, nada, zero

fisheye view of trees and sun

Time To Go

Goodbye. It’s time
for me to be
on my way

If only I knew
where I wanted to be

I would zip up the stairs
and burst out the door
climb into the car
and back down the drive

I could turn right or left
and loop directly back here
somehow climbing uphill
both ways

with water always at my right hand
an eagle soaring overhead

and if I venture further
past the pentacostals and jehova’s witnesses
the elementary school or the gas station
speed down the hill or up
the road will bring me here again

larger loops radiating
as if a stone dropped in the lake
on a still day
I might as well stay

An Irreplaceable View

Tonight is the Poetry & the Creative Mind Gala. It’s free.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to imagine looking through a window, any window, and describing what I see.

The PAD prompt is to write an evening poem.

Over at the A to Z Challenge they’re playing the Yes Game. My Janus word is yield which can mean; to give up, surrender, or relinquish, but also; to produce by natural process.

Today is Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub where you can share your best recent poem and read and comment on all the great poetry being shared.

This is the window

with the slightly broken sill
covered in flakes of pop-corn ceiling
with semi-sheer blinds that when open
tuck up all wrinkled on one side
through this dusty, cobwebbed window
revealed by off-white sheers belted to hooks
where a speck of a beige-dotted bug climbs
there’s a once thought impossible view

because for my whole life
it was blocked by next door’s tall firs
providing cool shade lakeside
my great aunt told me
she did it on purpose
to hurt her brother next door
a family feud of unnatural proportion
wielding God’s power one sibling on another
imagine each day’s hurt never recovered

But they’re all gone now
and I can finally see past
the iron railing, the rhodie, and the hedge
to the rippling water, a dock, and a buoy
to the houses and the park, but above that
what this table was so long deprived
is the sky filled with mountain–
ignore the threatening volcano inside–
massive contrasts of blue and white
glacier and rock, snow blanketed slopes
it’s never not amazing, not one single time
I look, even hiding behind complete cloud cover
when a stranger wouldn’t know it’s there

I tried to think of any other window
where I would rather look
and suddenly, I am in the international
space station, looking down on Earth
my body is confined, but my view
through this small portal is as if
the eye of God. To see the sphere
its atmosphere floating in the void
to know the glorious insignificance
of momentary stresses, bringing
overwhelming strife, but seeing
all connection of a day in life

But there’s no coming back from that
I’ve already known what new seeing
can do, would I want to add that fractured
knowing too?

I only have this window for a ticking-clock
of time, I want to be aware, to take in each tick
of this view while it’s sublime, the years
of firs blocking the way flew so quickly by
knowing there are limits, a coming end
erases the flaws in the pane, even the
baked-on bird gifts that won’t scrape
with a blade, all I see gleams
this view holds a vivid shine

So Many Questions

  • So many questions to write about
  • Necessary writing accessory
Some fun products from my RedBubble store with my question mark bokeh design.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The PAD prompt is to write a remix poem. These should work well together. It’ll be interesting to look back through this month’s poems and see which questions spring to mind.

My Janus for the A to Z challenge is the letter X which can mark a spot, or delete it.

More fun question mark products from my RedBubble store.

Heightened Senses

What sense would I heighten if I could?
Which sense is the villain of my story?

Which smells trigger my memories?
Are they pleasant smells or foul odors?

What color tints my vision?
What do I see in the clouds?

What is this ringing in my ears?
What voice do I hear in the dark?

Which word tastes best in my mouth?
What flavor was the glue?

What texture represents me?
Why do I step on broken glass?

How far do I want to see clearly?
Which frequencies would I choose to hear?

What are the tastes I would enhance?
Could there be a dial for only pleasant smells?

If I sign by the X and everything would be as soft as Levi,
would I heighten a sense if I could?

The “news” Makes Parody Easy

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a parody. The PAD Challenge is a title prompt: “(blank) World”.

Over at A to Z Challenge there’s a challenge to add some variety to the day. One of the options is to try a new kind of exercise. I saw cardio drumming for the first time on a mystery show from New Zealand. I have a yoga ball and drumsticks. I think I’ll give it a try.

The Janus word for today is vault (1) A small locked box; (2) the expanse of the heavens.

My parody was inspired by a silly thing Larry Kudlow said. After watching the segment, he may have been making fun of “plant-based” as terminology and not saying the ridiculously stupid thing he appears to be saying, but my poem’s a parody and the idea is funny, so his original intent can linger as nonsense either way.

Lest a Green New World, All Must Fear the Plant-Based Beer

We’ve all been warned
it was on the “news”
from that treasured vault,
got those TV views

Do not listen to scientists
if they don’t agree
but he says there’s a study
that supports, soon we’ll see

They’re coming for our summer meats
no more family bar-b-q’s
We’ll be roasting brussel sprouts
and then what chaos ensues?

That’s right! We’ll be drinking
plant-based beers
removed of all that tasty flesh
or at least that’s what Larry hears

No more hamburger in our hops
no more bacon in the barley
no more yak shank in the yeast
might as well cancel all the parties

No fermented flank steak
or bubbly buffalo wings
Absent the Angus ale
and the joy a perfect pork-loin pint brings

How will we get a buzz without
a beefy broiled Bud
and what will tint the goggles
if there’s no sirloin in the suds?

*After writing my poem, I found this post about beers that are brewed with meat. Gross, but I felt it should be included.

Sky Awareness Week

A photograph of interesting clouds in the sky.
Practical Nephelococcygia – by Maria L. Berg 2021

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem for a particular occasion. And the Poem-a-Day prompt is to write a thought poem.

The occasion prompt inspired me to head over to National Day Calendar and see what kind of National events and “days” are happening. I was surprised by what I found.

Today is:

With that many special occasions that I won’t be celebrating for just one day, I thought I would look at what this week will be, and found:

A patch of blue sky with faint clouds.
A Patch of Blue – by Maria L. Berg 2021

A few of those got me thinking. National Work Zone Awareness might be difficult if you are observing Sky Awareness. And Every Kid Healthy may conflict with National Princess Week. However, Sky Awareness could combine with Princess Awareness if you see castles in the sky, and Medical Laboratory Professionals can be appreciated for keeping Kids Healthy and Infant Immunization. Lots to think about, but I’m kind of stuck on Sky Awareness Week. The idea that people might only be aware of the sky for one week in April is interesting and surprising. 🙂

Clouds in the sky.
An Offered Palm – by Maria L. Berg 2021

Nephelococcygia and the art of sky awareness

It’s finally here
the nationally recognized week
I’ve waited for all year

Those seven days
to lay down outside
and shift my gaze

up to the sky
and become aware
of things that fly

like jets and seaplanes
eagles and ducks
pleasantly observed until it rains

and clouds in layers
creating shapes
for nephelococcygian players

shifting and forming
fantastical beasts and faces
and castles before the storming

when I’ll run inside
but still be aware
the sky will abide

above and at week’s end
when awareness shifts
back to the earth to tend


sky unobserved like a falling tree
in the forest, eyes closed
no clouds to see

for another year
of head-in-sand
sky-falling fear