"A Heart's Progress: Looking, Finding, Loving, Lost, & Fine"

Prompt Tool 4/8


“Mortar & Pestle”

Aerial acrobatics of winged spirits and
Wishful thinking swirl
Patchouli through the candlelight.

Scrape of stone on stone,
Round and round.

Rose petals for your heart,
Thyme is for commitment,
Clove, to open your eyes, and
Lilac for empowerment.
Willow, bluebell, and bay
Add power to my will.
Cherrystones for inner beauty and
Fertile currants to keep you.

Crushing.
Grinding.
Milling.
Pounding.

Round and round,
Until you love me.

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Prompt: Until ______ 4/7

“Until Friday”

On Monday you sat
Two rows back.
I felt your stare
Bounce off my shoulders
As we discussed the merits
Of Blake and the tragedy
Of Keats.

On Tuesday you’d moved
Up a chair and studied
My profile as if you were
Drawing a silhouette
As we deliberated Hawthorne’s
Treatment of sin, knowledge,
And the human condition.

On Wednesday, I found you
On my right, brushing
My hand as you pointed
Out a moving passage of
Melville.

On Thursday we were
Face to face, eyes
Locked and pulses
Racing in our impassioned
Debate of whether
Or not Thoreau was
Full of shit.

So, where do we go from here?



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Prompt: Love 4/13

“When You Hear I Love You, What I Really Mean to Say.”

I’d love to weave myself into your eyelashes and
each time you’d open your eyes you’d see only me.

I’d love to tangle myself like seaweed in your
thoughts until you thought only of me.

I’d love to bottle the taste of your lips and
hide it away so they tasted only of me.

I’d love to scrape a pen across a page and
spill my soul, but everything just comes out

“I love you.”


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Prompt: Death 4/16

“Death of Us”

I seemed to have lost your regard,
How careless of me.
Then again, you always said
I was the irresponsible type.
I blamed it on being a Gemini,
On feeling as if I were two people sometimes.
You laughed and said
You didn’t like either of them.



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Prompt: not looking back 4/20

“Choose Your Own Adventure”

I can hear your exit echo in the stunned
silence. The click of your dressy shoes across the
tiled restaurant floor, the whoosh of the door
As it cuts into the angry night air, your retreat
down the sidewalk, unconsciously avoiding the cracks,
hands in your pockets, not knowing what to do with them.

I can feel the people trying not to watch,
silently betting on whether I’ll cry or run after you.
This cozy Italian place, the backdrop for our first
date, is now our birth announcement and obituary,
the alpha and omega of us. Our favorite place,
that turned out only to be mine, never meant a thing to you.

Like one of those books we read when we were kids, that let
you choose the hero’s path, you’ve run away from the
quest and I’ve decided that this princess doesn’t
need saving after all. As I ordered a tiramisu,
I imagine I can hear the people applauding in their
minds and see the women smiling behind their white napkins.

Name

April 19th


Albert Einstein
I wish
I could have
been there
that morning
in the chair
beside your
sick-bed with
a German-English
dictionary.

Looking Back/Not Looking Back

April 20th


“Choose Your Own Adventure”

I can hear your exit echo in the stunned
silence. The click of your dressy shoes across the
tiled restaurant floor, the whoosh of the door
cutting into the angry night air, your retreat
down the sidewalk, unconsciously avoiding the cracks,
hands in your pockets, not knowing what to do with them.

I can feel the people trying not to watch,
silently betting on whether I’ll cry or run after you.
This cozy Italian place, the backdrop for our first
date, is now our birth announcement and obituary,
the alpha and omega of us. Our favorite place,
that turned out only to be mine, never meant a thing to you.

Like one of those books when you’re a kid, that let you
choose the hero’s path, you’ve run away from the
quest and I’ve decided that this princess doesn’t
need saving after all. As I ordered a tiramisu,
I imagine I can hear the people applauding in their
minds and see the women smiling behind their white napkins.

Death

April 16th

“Death of Us”

I seemed to have lost your regard,
How careless of me.
Then again you always said
I was the irresponsible type.
I blamed it on being a Gemini;
On feeling like I was two people sometimes.
You laughed and said you
Didn’t like either of them.

Deadline

April 1th


“25”

We said we’d just marry
Each other if neither
Was married by then,
Like milk pushing its
Expiration date and
We’d expire at 26 and
Never find anyone to love.

City

April 12th

“London”

Double-decker buses, Cadbury egg McFlurries,
and entertaining drunks on the Tube.

A pea-soup atmosphere that should depress,
but doesn’t.

Homeless in bus stations with tattered blankets, paper cups, hungry dogs, and loose change.

A scarf tied just so, long coats, and barely sensible shoes.

Museums and galleries, towers and bridges;
a blend of the old and the new accompanied
by the sloshing of the Thames.

Love/Anti-Love

April 13th

“If I Were a Poet”
If I were a poet, I’d weave myself
Into your eyelashes and each time
You’d open your eyes you’d see only me.

If I were a poet, I’d tangle myself
Like seaweed in your thoughts
Until you thought of only me.

If I were a poet, I’d bottle
The taste of your lips and hide
It away so they only tasted of me.

But I’m not a poet;
I’m only myself.
And you will never love me.

The Last

April 11th


“The Last Supper Reaction”

Generated from the words of Scripture,
the mind of da Vinci,
and the pockets of Sforza,
On a back wall in Milan, where
In the mystical Upper Room,
Jesus and Judas unknowingly reach
for the same loaf and the same doom.

Bartholomew, James the Just, and the fisherman Andrew-
eyebrows raised in their surprise.
The old man holds up his hands as if he can stop
the words assaulting his ears, as the violent knife
foretells his fate.

Clustered with the swooning John,
the ever-angry Peter,
no longer walking on water, his gestures heated.
Shadowed away in greens and blues, Iscariot
clutches his bag of coins,
the only elbow on the table.

Turned toward their inspiration,
a stunned James with arms outspread,
disturbed and doubting Thomas pleads with the man,
while Phillip demands answers.

The beardless taxman Matthew and Jude Thaddeus turn
to Simon the Zealot to satisfy their questions.

The trinity expressed
in three groups,
three men,
three windows,
the three sides of the messiah.

From right to left
the positions of hands and loaves of bread,
musical staffs executing
a song of history and myth.

Horror

April 10th

“420 Cemetery Road”

Encircled by the chintzy curtains,
I watch.
They call to me as they ride by.
A siren song of the dead,
calling out to the living ,
who must listen
whether they want to or not.

Through the hearse window I see
the coffin lid raise
just enough to show the
leery grin of the departed.

The words infest my mind,
“One day you will take this ride.
One day you’ll be one of us.”

Self-Portrait

April 9th

“Feathered Sky Blue”

Clipped wings keep me
Grounded though I long
To pry open the bars
Of this cage of obligation
And unbelievers-
To rejoin the clouds.

Spurred and inspired
By the words lining my floor;
Reminding me that there’s a world
Beyond this comfortable perch.

I long to soar up,
Blend into the heights-
To be feathered sky blue.