A Poem a Day, Week 40, Oct 1 to Oct 7, 2022
Welcome to Sifting the Rubble's weekly blog and podcast of my poem-a-day challenge for 2022. I am your host, and poet, Emily Gibson. The poems for the 40th week of the year, October 1 to 7, found their origins in poetry prompts I gleaned from various sources, plus bits of nature and unfolding world events throughout the week.
I would be remis if I didn't explain for those new to this podcast that these are 1 or 2 day poems, which have not gone through the grist of revision. That comes later, something I truly look forward to doing. For now, they are new, not quite steady or solid, but each has something to say, so I share them, uncensored. It is part of my challenge.
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And now, for this week's poems!
Poem #274, Primal Drug
by Emily Gibson, Oct 1, 2022
My sweet, despite my resolve,
How you lure, how you tempt.
You scream from advertisements,
Your image beckons from displays,
You fill shelves with gaudiness,
You connect to a childhood memory
So vivid, my tongue still tastes you.
Yet I know, if I answer your call,
If I waver at all in my “No,”
If I set one foot on your slippery slope,
After one bite, tastebuds will saturate.
The rest of you won’t measure up.
Overcome with greed, I will eat
Every bit, then bury myself in regret.
Oh, sweet treats of empty sugar,
you are the first drug.
About "Primal Drug": From the prompt "write about a temptation" I wrote about sugar, which has been my primary drug of choice throughout my life! October brings visions of Halloween excess to mind, of course. It has been critical for me to give up sugar as part of my healing with MS because sugar is extremely inflammatory. Thankfully, natural sugars found in fruits are OK. It's just the added sugars, like what is found in candy.
Poem #275, Udder Illumination
by Emily Gibson, Oct 2, 2022
After birth
a calf’s life
branches
to meat or milk.
Once powered
a lamp’s purpose
switches
to light or dark.
About "Udder Illumination": This poem comes from a poetry prompt "Write a poem with two stanzas about two different things that only tie together by the title." Mine doesn't exactly stick with the prompt but I appreciated playing with the words and ideas, especially my use of the homonym udder/utter.
Poem #276, This Color
by Emily Gibson, Oct 3, 2022
An unnatural hue
only shown by a few
like particular canaries do,
or many a tropical fish or two.
Seen in an orchid deep in a jungle
and a salamander ready to rumble.
It is not what any might call humble.
As camouflage it is not passable.
It makes your eyes sting
at a bicycle race wingding
when every jersey does sing
with a stripe or two, like bling.
Packs of crayons are a score
if this piece of the spectrum has four.
Highlighters sans this color eyesore
would cause a furious uproar.
Poem #277 Nonsense of Threes
by Emily Gibson, Oct 4, 2022
Fly, big hog!
Lap mad nog,
nap oft, ban
do’s for zzz.
Why wax the
odd leg pit?
Act all wry
yet wit did
die, cry, and
lie. You led
one cow ohm
and two emu
ahs. Bam! Our
fig got icy
jam for pay.
The ink jug
lid was old,
and tea mug
toe new, yet
six ads for
low dew cut
the day off.
About "Nonsense of Threes": The poem started with a challenge of writing a poem using only 3-letter words. Of course, this required reading a long list of all the words of 3 letters in the English language. I quickly realized I would need to know this list better in order to write a poem that made sense. So, a nonsense poem was born, with three words per line. It may be pure nonsense, but making it make sense is poetic joy!
Poem #278, Sky Artists
by Emily Gibson, Oct 5, 2022
Sky filled with tangled webs
stretched across the zenith.
Worm holes of funnel weavers
trap creatures in lost dimensions.
Cobwebs for errant planes
and turkey vultures that stick
their red necks too high.
Sheets of silk beget
lightning and thunder.
Swelled lenticular egg sac
lozenges will burst,
rocketing eight-eyed infants
off to seed the universe.
No spiders in sight
until night, when their eyes
light, and celestial dew
illuminates each web's strands.
About "Sky Artists": I was inspired by strands of clouds mimicking cobwebs one afternoon this week. Long strands, like the fake cobwebs people put up for Halloween decor. I had this vision of invisible sky spiders weaving webs, so I explored that idea with this poem.
Poem #279, Cubist Quatrain
by Emily Gibson, Oct 6, 2022
Inspired by this stock photo:
A streetlamp, unlit, waits for darkness.
Green shutters border a cheerful window.
A brick-lined arch remembers the past.
Blue hued laundry evaporates in the sun.
A riot of flowers erupts from window boxes.
A laundry border erupts in a riot of blue.
A streetlamp evaporates cheerfully in the sun.
An arch of flowers shutters unlit darkness.
The past remembers green window boxes.
Hues of bricks line unlit windows and wait.
Boxes of windows shutter the darkness.
Laundry remembers a green riot of bricks.
Blue streetlamps border flower evaporations.
A cheerful unlit arch lines out the past.
Hued windows wait for sun’s eruption.
Bordered in green, flowers remember other hues.
Eruptions of bricks wait darkly for laundry.
Lines of windows in the sun evaporate.
Blue arches of unlit riots fill the cheerful streets.
Under a lamp, window boxes shutter the past.
About "Cubist Quatrain": This is one of my favorite poetic forms at this time, though examples are difficult to find. With this form, you take an image and write a stanza of 4-6 lines that describes the image with sensory detail and active verbs. Then you re-arrange the elements in the first stanza in new ways in three more stanzas. Like a piece of cubist art, such a poem can give many perspectives to something that seems static.
Poem #280, Sing it, KBJ
by Emily Gibson, Oct 7, 2022
Blackout Poem of the 14th Amendment, Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No (;)State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor snhall ay State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
About "Sing it, KBJ": Listening to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's master class on the 14th Amendment in court this week inspired me to do a blackout poem of the section in question. KBJ was magnificent. The sputtering lawyer from Alabama, trying to argue that the 14th supported Alabama's "color blind congressional districting," was in over his head.
And that concludes Sifting the Rubble's poetry for this week! I hope you enjoyed this collection of poems. Perhaps some of them spoke to you, or maybe you found one begging to be shared with someone else. If so, I hope you will pass it on! Either way, thank you for listening and reading. Hope to see you next week!
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