Goodbye is an Evening (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, May 30 2009 

Prompted and Rhyming , , , , , , , Becca 7:01 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a farewell poem.

Goodbye is an Evening

No goodbye
I ever tried
really did anything
like what it said.

Even funerals were just midpoints,
resting spots,
before everything
spun off.

Every person’s movement,
every person’s light,
attached to the thinnest strand:
unbreakable still.

Each person
going where they go,
where they’ve been,
weaving me in.

So goodbye was just a word to say
temporary things,
to say something changed-
the end of the day.

You can’t put people away,
you can’t put away things
that keep moving,
keep meaning.

Goodbye is only an evening-
a moment when we rest between
the places we’re going
and the places we’ve seen

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/30/AprilPADChallengeDay30.aspx

 

Never Trust Poetry (by Rebecca Chasteen) Friday, May 29 2009 

Non rhyming and Prompted , , , , , , Becca 6:53 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to title your poems “Never (blank)” with you filling in the blank with a word or phrase. Then, write a poem based off your title

Never Trust Poetry

Never trust poetry
to say the things you need to say
to the ears you need
to hear them most.

Never trust poetry
to tell the truth
without it’s own twist,
making pretty to the ears
even the sad and ugly.

Never trust poetry
to navigate for you,
to do your dirty work,
to make your mark.

Never trust poetry
to settle it all.

Poetry is options,
variety of choice.
Poetry’s the vessel,
the Poet, at the helm,
must bear the rain,
take the salt in the wounds,
the wind, the sun…

elements can’t be written off,
but are written out
until they’re
something else.

Never trust poetry.
It’s
barely anything
but imagination.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/29/AprilPADChallengeDay29.aspx

 

Honestly Trying, Waiting, Counting on Careful Belief (by Rebecca Chasteen) Thursday, May 28 2009 

Non rhyming and Prompted , , , , , , , Becca 7:44 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a sestina.

You pick 6 words, rotate them as the end words in 6 stanzas and then include 2 per of the words per line in your final stanza.

Honestly Trying, Waiting, Counting on Careful Belief

I can’t believe
how honestly
you try
waiting,
careful-
because anything, everything counts.

You’re sure that if you care
enough you’ll never have to try
to stop believing
in the precious counted
beauty you honestly
expect to come back to you, if you just wait.

I know you’re trying
your very best to carefully
conserve everything you have waited
so long for, believing
in the last layer of love, that everything counts-

even the littlest things count,
the long ago stolen glimpses, carefully
hidden, trying
to reshape honest
to allow for belief.
It was an accident, the waiting.

The waiting
was forgetting to try
to believe
there’s nothing that counts,
there’s no caring.
But that’s not honest.

So it turned belief
into a game of waiting.
And words were tried
so carefully
that they were never honest.
So what counts?

You wanted to believe it was waiting,
that what counted was trying,
But honestly, there was never the option of careful.

I’d never heard of a sestina before, so this was new! It was kind of tricky, but definitely fun. I used my six words as the title because it worked out that way, that wasn’t a requirement. I actually really like this. It kind of reminded me of the stained glass journal activity.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/28/AprilPADChallengeDay28.aspx

 

Stakeout (by Rebecca Chasteen) Wednesday, May 27 2009 

Non rhyming and Prompted , , , , Becca 7:10 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem of longing.

Stakeout

Standing at the periphery
I know you know
I want you to see
I’m watching
everything
waiting for my opportunity
to slip into
the inner circle
be folded in
to the pages
of history with you

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/27/AprilPADChallengeDay27.aspx

 

Haiku (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, May 26 2009 

Haiku and Prompted , , , Becca 6:47 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem involving miscommunication.

He said – “I love you”
What he really meant – “I’m high”
It’s too bad highs crash.

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem involving miscommunication.

 

The Honeymoon (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, May 26 2009 

Prompted , , , , Becca 6:32 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to pick an event; make that event the title of your poem; and then write a poem

The Honeymoon

I wonder if they knew
I wasn’t even old enough
to drink?
Of course not
but that’s another story…
and we emptied
that bottle of Biltmore wine
anyways

I loved
the hundred year old wood of the porch
we rested all our future on
the rockers
watching as the French Broad River
would slowly take the day downstream
we sat with boiled peanut shells
at our feet

I hated the way, one night,
you watched the Braves
while I was sitting there
in new lingerie

But you probably
didn’t appreciate
my ex boyfriend
calling
(even if it was to say
congratulations)

Hiking Chimney Rock,
the open air train,
Biltmore Estate
and that blackened salmon at the little tin-rooftop place…

The look on your face…

But the best thing
was the way
we had that week-
oblivious

River wide and moving,
smooth through mountains and valleys,
always forward,
all the days before us-
ours.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/25/AprilPADChallengeDay25.aspx

 

It Was (by Rebecca Chasteen) Sunday, May 24 2009 

Non rhyming and Prompted , , , , Becca 7:40 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a travel-related poem.

It Was

It was caravans and walkie talkies
(because who had cellphones?)
It was lugging enough
beach towels, chairs, rafts, coolers, umbrellas, and sunscreen
for 15 people
to spend the whole day
Surfside

It was watching the rain add to the ocean,
lick the salt from our skin.
It was staggering inside for lunch and air condition.
It was covering sunburn
with foundation for a night out,
my first bikini,
and telling boys I was 16
3 years too soon.

It was trail mix and

searching for shells

to add to mom’s collection.

It was, one year
one house for us all
and the words:
Never Again.

It was Garden City Pier and
“Achy Breaky Heart”
moving the feet of family and strangers to
mix to the music on the wooden planks
between the dark water and the dark sky
(we weren’t quite grounded and weren’t quite high),

and the stars
that followed us
from the farm
shone their approval.

It was
the absolute truth
of my childhood and adolescence-
we
were everything
we needed,

we were
laughter,
and sadness,
and comfort;
we were
strength
and stories
and safety…

and “surfing” on a
scratchy red and yellow raft
while our dads held us,
gave us
fruit stripe gum
so we wouldn’t swallow saltwater
when the waves crashed in our faces.

And
in the face of,
in the wake of,
in the mean time,
all the world was taking away
precious things
and throwing us
the weight of mountains,
the dark of caverns

we were loading up,
leaving out at 5am
determined to
enjoy this

this
sandcastle
this 3 slide water park
this
MTV for a week
this
beer on the beach
this
foam at our feet
the moonlight,
these separate nights,
just card games
just balconies
just fish camps
just being…

just hold on
we’re still days from home.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/24/AprilPADChallengeDay24.aspx

 

I’m Still Really Sorry (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, May 23 2009 

Prompted and Rhyming , , , , Becca 7:26 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem of regret.

I’m Still Really Sorry

It is the most lingering
regret:
not a boy,
not a yes
or no-
misplaced,
not a credit card-
overused,
not even
angry words at my father
the day before my wedding,
or overzealous
Jesus-talk
with friend
on the phone one night

No,
it’s that
8 year old
rallying her little
lunch bunch crew
to leave out one girl-
to reject every
effort she made at friendship
that whole year.
And to decide too late
to apologize,
to include,
because Stephanie Odom
had already moved.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/23/AprilPADChallengeDay23.aspx

 

Qualified Mental Health Professional: Year 2, Month 6, Day 14 (by Rebecca Chasteen) Friday, May 22 2009 

Prompted and Rhyming , , , , , , , , , , , , , Becca 6:09 am

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a work-related poem.

Qualified Mental Health Professional: Year 2, Month 6, Day 14

We laugh about crazy- that word people use,
they’ll claim it, jokingly.
I wonder how much they really see
from the farm shack
at least a mile off the road.

I take mental notes:
strip joints
social workers
drug addictions
jail time
mental hospitals
baby-daddies
and assaults with
an axe
a hatchet
a shotgun (and moonshine).

I laugh when they laugh,
shake my head
and then
the sadness:
abandonment- the poverty of childhood,
the rapes
the worry, the abuse, the heartbreak
how can so many stories play out the same way
has no one ever learned anything?

And finally
we go over the plan-
how to be alive again,
how to be more
than anything they just said
how to let go, press on
how to move through and beyond
every place they’ve ever gone
and how I won’t judge a single word,
a single mismatched shirt.

I question for the thousandth time
why
I don’t think it’s pointless
why I’m not scared
why I’m there, wondering if I’ll really help.
But at least I’m there,

dust flying around my car
as I dodge potholes,
hair drenched in smoke
and yea, there it is- hope,
the knot at the end of the rope,
the “I can play the harmonica”
“I’m a loving grandma”…

They don’t call this job what it is-
acronyms with credentials and degrees
it all comes down to one word:

belief.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/22/AprilPADChallengeDay22.aspx

 

Haiku (by Rebecca Chasteen) Thursday, May 21 2009 

Haiku and Non rhyming and Prompted , , Becca 5:16 pm

Prompt for the day: write a haiku

Here it is, the world
with certain entirety
in my bed, soft-warm

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/21/AprilPADChallengeDay21.aspx

 

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