Whispered Wanderings

Today’s prompt, called “Twenty Little Poetry Projects”, is a doozie, my friends! This one took me awhile and I’m not too satisfied with my effort; nevertheless, here it is. (Also, my apologies if I got the Italian wrong – had to use google translate for that part of the prompt.)

My Longing Is An Empty Well

My longing is an empty well
bottomless, unable to be filled
drops of intimacy I allow to sprinkle in
go unseen
unheard
unfelt.
This wanting, smells of silent desperation;
Helena in the forest outside Athens,
still chasing after her Demetrius.
The bottom of this empty well
a sponge, greedily consuming all…
but I digress
this longing must serve a purpose, I think; yet
the other side of my brain yells ‘Psych!’ with glee…
I mean it’s true you know
that if I somehow forget to worry incessantly
I will cause bad things to happen.
I hear the wheels of fate grinding even now;
taste the bitter fruit of a life not fully lived.
And crouching alone in the cave of my fears
I watch as the sun casts cold and quiet shadows
across a barren landscape…
Before they can stop me
I am flying low and with increasing speed
across the desert.
Sparkles won’t live here anymore,
you see,
No, someone new shall return from this hapless flight.
She will rule, an ephemeral Goddess from a glistening throne:
è amareggiata e sola
as the desert whispers that it can no longer be the home of
this empty well:
dark, bottomless, greedy and
refusing to be
filled.

klm
4/8/23

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Here are the projects from the prompt, if anyone’s interested:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.