Prompted to Act

Fear cannot touch me...
It can only taunt me,
it cannot take me,
just tell me
where to go...

I can either follow,
or stay in my bed...

I can hold on to the
things that I know...

The dead stay dead,
they cannot walk.
The shadows are darkness.
And darkness can't talk.

"To a Child Not Yet Born"

What fires burn the heart,
From which God did these agonies start?
Our cobwebs strung from death to death
Are too thin. Our lies the greatest sin.

I will gold you, child not yet born,
And I will tell you not to forget,
But not to know.
You will soon be dense with memory
And your memory dense with souls.
What fires burn the heart
From which God did these agonies start?

I hold you, child not yet born.
Yet I am not your god.
Ask me not to stop the pain.
The lies I'll offer
You need not gain.
I cannot tell you how or why.
I can only teach you
That this world calls for you to cry.

Both from A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice

Janie met Johnny
At the college computer lab
They hit it off at once
Meeting every night to gab

As time went by
Janie began to comprehend
That Johnny's affections
Were more than just friends

Late one night in her room
They sat talking on the floor
Johnny said quietly
"I've never told anyone this before."

"This is it," thought Janie
"He loves me most in the world."
He took a deep breath and he told her
"Janie, I really don't like girls."

Janie sat stunned for a moment
Wondering what in the hell she should say
She'd been so ready for one certain thing
Who would have guessed he was gay?



[Note: this has actually happened to me on a number of occasions, but not quite as described. Every time I had been prepared to gently rebuff the boy because I did not return his affections. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that he hadn't had a crush on me after all - and my utter amazement when it happened more than once! I have since accepted (with much amusement) that I'm just exceptionally bad at reading people.]

Prompt 4:

Okay, so things have been a little slow this last couple`a weeks. I need to apologize for not coming up with a prompt sooner but the last few days have been hectic. So this prompt is entitled 180*. The idea is to write about a time when what happened was the opposite of what you expected... like you just got dumped and expected the rest of the night to be crap, but then you just by chance meet someone who sweeps you off your feet. Or maybe you've had a day when you thought eveything was wonderful, and then your car broke down and you lost your keys and your best friend takes something you say the wrong way... Write about the unexpected...

i have one i'm starting, i'll post that in a couple of days :)

i am a flower
green petals like grass with yellow petals in the sun
my face tilted to the sky
receiving blessed light
nourishing might of the sun
wonderful helios

i am roots deep in the ground
rooting within the earth
feeling hidden things with my feet and toes
touching and learning
i am finding undiscovered treasures



-shawn

Prompt #3:

What color are you?

--or--

what number are you?

--or--

what animal/plant are you?

Describe yourself as one of the above. Start maybe by listing your favorite numbers/colors/animals/words and then reflect on what each says about you. I have used this one before and cranked out some interesting poetry...

she blows a kiss
thousands scramble to catch it
imaginary
symbolic
oh let it be me

they toil away
their fingers bleed
their brows sweat
pouring their hearts into their craft
tokens of their adoration

the crowd gathers around her glory
piling gifts at her feet
such wealth and devotion
heaped all around her
she stares over their heads, unseeing
and cries
where are my gifts
why does no one care
or notice
when i have given so much
deserve so much more
why must i suffer so
alone and forgotten

the masses still add to the pile
gold, jewels, riches, love
a few see her cry to the mountains
and slowly
turn
and walk away

breathing dirt
on the ground
a barren cage
bound
the cold cold metal
all around
screams and cries
the only sound

dig down with your nose in the dirt, rising growl
dig down where some sense of security can be found
dig down with your claws until you're weak and you're exhausted
dig down until you bleed
until you need to lay down

for just one minute
just one second
just one breath and then they take you away

dragged out of the dark and into the light
thrown on the ground, no chance to fight
back or bite back or bite down or look around
neck snapped, but still kicking
jaws open and teeth clicking
eyes wild and defiled by the sight of my brothers and sisters

dazed

hanging

skinless

suffering

250 pounds of force land on my stomach and the air leaves my lungs
a cold wooden club hits the back of my head and my eyes don't work quite right anymore
another cold chain wrapped around my legs and my feet don't really touch the dirt right now
my vision is blurry and i feel some kind of fury
rising in my lungs
rising in my veins
i try to cry out but it's silenced by the pain
of a knife in my side
in my legs
in my skin
near my bones
cutting
slicing
wrenching
me open
me
i'm alive
i'm alive
i'm alive
i'm alive
i'm alive
i'm alive
i'm a life

and this is how it ends
with my skin coming off over my head
it doesn't go easily but in the end they always win
and i get tossed on the pile
with those who came before
with those who hit the floor with nothing to protect them and no one to say
that in the end, it won't be ok

now it's time for me to write my own ending
for this rage inside to rise up
and overflow this body
to rush out of this cage
and down the hall
and into the streets
and into the cars and busses and sweep them off their feet
and carry them all on a crimson tide of bad blood
to this place where all of my rage has come from
so maybe they can see
so maybe they can try to comprehend
just why i brought them all here to witness my end

if they only knew
if they had any idea
then maybe they'd sit down and think of a way there could be a
world without chains
and without locks and without boxes full of animal life
full of love and of life
because that's what we are
really
just love and life

and we will not quit
we will not stop
until every last chain is cut
until every last cage has lost it's lock
and it might seem like some kind of fantastical dream or
maybe it's just a memory, times long gone remembered only by me
but i have to keep at it
i have to believe
that this world is possible
though it may be difficult to conceive

so that's my two cents
i've said what i had to say
now i lay down my head
on bodies i lay
bruised, broken, bloody we may be
but don't think you've won
no
don't think you've won
because we will keep fighting
there is nothing worth this
and we will persist
until no one suffers like this



not



one

Bullets
by azalea

with the weight of lead it sits
pain anger frustration lust
condensed
compound
a festering tumor
somewhere between lungs and ovaries
black oozing growing
murdering and draining
expanding waiting
cannibalizing other emotions
building toward an explosion
that will rip my body
shred my sides
send shrapnel
flying like bullets
impaling the drywall

when i blow i hope there are bystanders
to catch lead splinters of hate between the eyes
and watch me
lie there in halves
scooping together the pieces
having nothing but love left inside once again

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

okay so i have already used this one in a couple other things... but i've worked on it and cut a couple of things out....

Prompt #2

It seems that everyone i know is having a shitastic last few weeks... heaven knows, i have :P... but i found that if all this frustration and angst was building up inside, i couldn't accomplish anything constructive until i got it all out... so here is this week's prompt... VENT. Anger? Frustration? Lust? Unrequited Love? Whatever... write it down... type it up... let it out. Write until it is gone... write until you feel like you have just cried your eyes out and can't cry anymore... write until you feel like you've been screaming and your throat is too sore to swallow... write until you can fall asleep from exhaustion... force it all out... then post it....

i'm hoping for some sort of group catharsis here...

Azalea

Howdy. I write. A lot. And yet before stumbling onto this community I hadn't written a poem in years. Now I'm starting to think poetry could be an intensely satisfying way to stretch my creative muscles. Anything else, well, I have a journal and a homepage and email.

Because I'm dumb, I posted my response to Prompt #1 in the comments section, but I'll repost it here:

---
first impressions

how could i have known
you were from the first
friendly and kind
polite and witty
from the moment you saw me
wished we met earlier
was i such a fool
i thought i knew you so well
you had no blinking red sign
no scarlet A
no band around your finger
how could i unlock your secrets
when my only keys
were first impressions
--

Shrink-wrapped

at 6 am
possiblities
are unexplored
the future lays
like an new cd
on your car seat
unmolested
by greasy fingers
clean
unfettered
and still shrink-wrapped

Hello Kiddies

Prompt #1:

Since this is the beginning, how about writing about first impressions
--or--
beginnings, births, fresh starts... etc.

If using this prompt, make sure to write Prompt #1 in the Subject

In the future all prompts will have the project # in the subject for easy reference.

have fun...

Azalea *~})i({~*