at least one poem

[radiantfracture]

I've done nothing for poetry month this year, but this poem was a prompt from one of the writing sessions and I liked it.

* * * * * *

STAY
~ Kim Addonizio

So your device has a low battery & seems to drain faster each day.
Maybe you should double your medication.

You might feel queasy, but also as if the spatula flattening you to the fry pan
has lifted a little.

So your breath comes out scorched, so what.

Inside, trust me on this,
there’s a ribbon of beach by a lake,

in the sand, fragments of a fossilized creature resembling a tulip.

Back in the Paleozoic, online wasn’t invented yet
so everyone had to wander alone & miserable through the volcanic wastes

or just glue themselves to a rock hoping someone would pass by.

Now you can sob to an image of your friend a continent away
& be consoled.

Please wait for the transmissions, however faint.

Listen: when a stranger steps into the elevator with a bouquet of white
roses not meant for you,

they’re meant for you.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

I really love this too. Thank you for sharing!

[radiantfracture]

I'm glad! I got to read it out in the workshop, which was nice.

[sabotabby]

Thank you for this. It's an excellent poem and kinda the thing I need to be reading right now.

[radiantfracture]

Right?

When I read it out in workshop (she asks us sometimes) I felt like I recognized the cadence as close to my own.

[elusis]

I like that a lot. :)

[sovay]

I've done nothing for poetry month this year, but this poem was a prompt from one of the writing sessions and I liked it.

It's wonderful and I've never read it; thank you. (Have I seen the poem it prompted?)

[radiantfracture]

I don't think I have one -- I've mostly been working on bits of the novel in those sessions, and the bits come from all over the timeline, which is a terrible way to write anything.

[sovay]

and the bits come from all over the timeline, which is a terrible way to write anything.

I don't write linearly.

[radiantfracture]

I don't write linearly.

No, I don't seem to have that setting.

It is a silly thing for me to say, of course. It's just harder to share with people this way, especially if you are, as I am, naturally secretive (blog notwithstanding) and tend to avoid writing any of the usefully revelatory bits in front of anyone.

[sovay]

and tend to avoid writing any of the usefully revelatory bits in front of anyone.

Well, you do want them to read the actual book.

[wordweaverlynn]

Oh, I like that. I like that a lot.