Friday, April 04, 2008

Watermark and her prompts

Prompt 8

The hand on the iron bar
Comes off smelling of rust
It’s somehow harshly male
And uncomfortably familiar.

The smell holds memories
Of train compartments
Summer heat and anxiety
Of a love being left behind.

It’s going to need soap
And happy thoughts
And pretty fluffy things
To make it go away.

------------------------------------

Prompt 16


Dark is a difficult skin tone
It needs a Halle Berry or
A Sheetal Malhar or
A distant cousin

To make it glow and resound
And fill a room with light
To stop you mid word
And leave you spell bound

Mesmerizing dark is
Impossibly distant
To attain it, it needs help
It needs red.

------------------------------------

Prompt 2


She sits sipping her tea
Her special Chrysanthemum tea
In the corner that she knows
Makes her feel picture perfect.

The pineapple-shaped timer rings
She can feel the grumble rise in her
As the inevitable task approaches
And the dread of an oven to be opened.

Her eyes close for a moment
And then come open guiltily
The salt shaker awaits
And so does the evening ahead.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love all three of these poems! They were fun to read and see how you used the prompts. I linked to you from Watermark.

Anonymous said...

I am falling in love
with my imperfections
The way I never get the sink really clean,
forget to check my oil,
lose my car in parking lots,
miss appointments I have written down,
am just a little late.



I am learning to love
the small bumps on my face
the big bump of my nose,
my hairless scalp,
chipped nail polish,
toes that overlap.
Learning to love
the open-ended mystery
of not knowing why



I am learning to fail
to make lists,
use my time wisely,
read the books I should.



Instead I practice inconsistency,
irrationality, forgetfulness.



Probably I should
hang my clothes neatly in the closet
all the shirts together, then the pants,
send Christmas cards, or better yet
a letter telling of
my perfect family



But I???d rather waste time
listening to the rain,
or lying underneath my cat
learning to purr.

UL said...

esp. liked the first and the last - as for the first one on iron - 'will it ever go away?' I dont think so.

nice to see you doing these prompts, they're fun arent they? i like watermark much - if you have time stop over and tell me what you think of my poetry attempts, nothing compare to yours i am sure. Thanks.

small talk said...

Hey UL. Thanks. And I do stop by your page often - just don't leave my comments, that's it. Will do so from now on.

susan said...

Nothing small about what you express in 8 & 12. I really like and admire what you do. Almost without fail, I read and re-read your work. Each read presents a chance to better appreciate and comprehend your message.

small talk said...

Thanks Susan. It's very encouraging.

UL said...

Hey wanted to let you know that i tried prompt 1 and had fun with it.

Vineeta said...

hey, what is prompt, must check it out-
Love all 3 of them.
I really enjoy your poems :)

small talk said...

thank you! hope you check out the prompts and try your hand at some of them yourself.

The Power of the Story

  Victory City by Salman Rushdie It is amazing to see how much of real history finds its way into Rushdie's latest novel Victory City. ...