PROMPTuesday: Exercise #2
(This is my 150-word inspirational speech, written in under 10 minutes.)
(Oh, and it’s for my friend, Katie.)
You’re always saying, I’m not a photographer or How can I be a good photographer or Really, you’re a better photographer than I am. And to this I say: Grrrrrrl! Have you seen the photos you’ve taken lately?
Look, I know I’m no one to say but I’m saying it anyway. You. Are. Talented. Your shit’s hangin’ on my dining room wall, for Chrissake, right above a hair grease stain that rubbed off when Ruby was having a time out a while back and she cried with her head against the wall and begged to see “the children!” Of course, she’s referring to the children you snapped in Uganda that now hang on my dining room wall. Of course, her wails were compelling.
But I said, No you may not see the children, you’re having a time out.
So there. If you don’t believe me, believe my two year old.
PROMPTuesday: Exercise #1
My friend Deb over at San Diego Momma just launched the first writing exercise in what she is calling PROMPTuesday. Each week—on Tuesday, hence the name—Deb will be offering an idea to get the poetry flowin’. Now, I don’t usually like prompts and I never write poetry. But something got into me last night. (Not my husband. Alas, he was sleeping.) I followed Deb’s stated rules: I set the timer for ten minutes, kept my nonsense poem under 150 words, left my edit-as-you-go switch in the off position, and posted my results on her blog before her deadline. I was interrupted once by my Child Who Doesn’t Sleep Through The Night, which cut into my writing time. But somehow I got it done. It may be my first and last poem. We’ll see…
Your hair’s so short
He said,
Like when we first met.
Radiating spikes of
Fleshtonic heart bursts
Flew from his startling
Blues to black. And I thought I knew what he thought
But instead
The angles pierced my wrongfled thought bubble,
Filled with waves as his hand migrated
From the razor shorn neck
And seared my low back
Where it came to rest and pressed and I sucked in a stony breath
Filled with our story-ness and us-ness of who we were then.
And we took long strides
Pushing against the concrete fast where
Other lovers once scratched their
Promises into our land
With a fragile cocktail straw.