A Bad Poem, A Skip Day, & A Cloudy Memory
CeCe’s Musings
Day 16
I attempted to scribble out this atrocious poem Saturday while riding shotgun on our short trip back up to our hometown. After some editing and revising, here it is. My apologies.
One Poem a Day
Castle Point Books, 2019
Prompt: Write a poem that brags about what a good poem it is.
I don’t like to brag,
but…
These stanzas of mine
are quite delightful.
Awash in poetic eloquence.
Similes bloom like spring tulips.
It is not hyperbole to admit no one has ever read a better poem.
Even Shakespeare would bow down to my lines
singing iambic pentameter.
These quatrains may dance
on with meter and rhyme
but often blank verse
better serves the narrative.
I am alliteration and assonance,
astounding and artistic.
Above all,
the queen of antithesis,
for this poem
will live on,
but only as it withers and is forgotten.
Day 17
Sunday was a skip day. If athletes can do it, so can I.
Day 18
Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas
AARP Sterling Press, 2008
Prompt: Write about a fading memory - something you have to squint to see.
Back in my mid 20s, I dated a boy who was 6 feet, 7 inches tall, a full foot taller than my 5 feet 7 inches. Six seven Kevin, my friends called him. Last night Rock asked me what it was like being with someone that tall. I paused at the question. I couldn’t see this young man’s face. The description, along with the memory, has blurred out of focus. At first it irked me. Shouldn’t I still have a clear picture in my mind of Kevin, a person I dated for almost a year, who was a significant part of my Dallas life? Why couldn’t I conjure up even a vague description that went beyond his height?
I considered all the people who have wandered in and out of my life the past 65 years. Friends, school acquaintances, roommates, colleagues, boyfriends, bosses, students, and even family members are characters in my story, yet many have been tossed aside through youthful indifference or significant life changes such as job changes, moves, and divorce. These fuzzy, fading Polaroid faces still occupy cranial gray spaces, but like Kevin, they’ve retreated to the dusty recesses of my brain, only to be pulled out every few years when prompted or probed.
Not conjuring an old boyfriend’s face or voice does not disturb me. I am content with the occasional dim memory of him, yet also glad he doesn’t fill precious disc space. Time to send six seven Kevin back to the cloud. Whoosh.
(I am not posting on social media through this challenge, but if you’d like to share my scribblings, I wouldn’t unfriend you:))
😊👍