I’ve been participating in a poem-a-day challenge this month. The goal is to create a chapbook worthy of submission, but my personal goal is to do some healing via poetry. I picked a specific theme, a healing focus if you will, and I’ve been using the daily prompts to write to it.

Have I healed any? Probably not. But I have analyzed and examined the wound I’m working on and I’ve concluded that it’s made for some decent poetry. However, because this topic is so personal, it hasn’t been poetry that I’ve wanted to share. I’d feel too exposed to put it out there for other eyeballs.

However, there is one poem that’s figurative enough that it feels safe to share. It comes from the Day 19 prompt of Six Words. The words were submitted by folks and the guy running the poem-a-day challenge picked six of them -bubble, dandelion, gibberish, gnarled, roiling, and squint. The goal was to use at least three of them in a poem.

I’m an overachiever. I used all six. Utilizing my usual free verse style made it easy.

Maybe My Request Is Too Abstract

a dandelion fluff wish in a bubble
squint and the hope flashes iridescent
pop it and it sounds like gibberish
a gnarled love prayer
roiling into the ether
blown away and ignored

I wanted to come up with a horror poem for the month, but then I thought, aren’t all of my poems terrifying in their own way? So, I settled for a more seasonal, slightly spooky poem instead.

This form is a catena rondo, which I can’t remember if I’ve done on the blog before, and I’m too lazy to look it up to see if I did. So, quick recap: the stanzas are quatrains with an AbbA rhyme scheme; first line and last line of each quatrain are the same; the second line of the quatrain is the first line of the next quatrain; the final quatrain in the poem is exactly the same as the first.

I actually love this form when I have an idea or a theme or maybe just one line and I want to write a poem. This gets the job done.

In Autumn We Don’t Walk Alone

In autumn we don’t walk alone.
Footsteps of leaves accompany us,
ghosts following with a fuss.
In autumn we don’t walk alone.

Footsteps of leaves accompany us,
haunting us through the season.
We’re never alone for this reason.
Footsteps of leaves accompany us,

haunting us through the season.
The echoes of phantoms chasing after.
Can’t you hear their raspy laughter
haunting us through the season?

The echoes of phantoms chasing after,
in autumn we don’t walk alone.
Shadows dash ahead, race us home,
the echoes of phantoms chasing after.

In autumn we don’t walk alone.
Footsteps of leaves accompany us,
ghosts following with a fuss.
In autumn we don’t walk alone.

How about an almost timely reaction poem?

James Dobson was the latest in a long list of evangelical preachers who enriched themselves by preaching subjugation, oppression, and hate before finally exiting this mortal coil.

When he kicked it, I thought, “Boy, won’t he be surprised when he gets to where he’s going?”

I bet he was.

Free verse is my default poetic form, but even that has room for growth. I’ve been trying to play with and experiment with line breaks and format. I’ve been messing with stanzas, you could say.

Please enjoy my messy musings.

What a Surprise

Won’t he be surprised to find

the Jesus he preached for wealth
and the God he prayed to for power
and the Holy Ghost he sent to haunt

the believers and non-believers alike
don’t exist and never did

Won’t he be surprised to find

when he gets to the Hell he so
fervently believed in

that none of the people
he condemned to be there
are residents

Won’t he be surprised to find

nothing but friends and familiar faces
his whole beloved congregation there
and not a bank to deposit his earthly gains