Poetry Prompt: Reveal Something Without a Narrative
My invitation today is to say something without actually saying it. To reveal something through a series of images, rhythms, and sounds that give us more of an experience of, or a feeling about, what happened rather than the actual facts, events and story line. The following questions are designed to help you get loose and wander into a scene or two in which you might want to include your reader.
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How do you pray? If you don't pray, what do you do instead – and how do you do it?
What should you have done?
What can a person die of?
What surrounds your house? How does it protect you or not?
Who left you?
How did they do it? What did their face look like as they left?
What were they moving toward, instead?
What do you want to say to God about this departure?
What do you want to say to the person who left?
Where did it leave you? Doing what?
* * * * *
Solar Wind
By Larissa Szporluk
I don't pray.
I just walk out there
where it's thin
with my bow and aim.
But I should have yelled.
I should have changed the world.
A person can die of balance,
just gleam like squid
and disappear.
The fence around our house
is soft with rain.
It can't stop my arrows.
It can't stop
what wants to happen,
the meteors I hear, power lines
blowing from the mountain,
or the girl somewhere
who reads you,
whose skin has memorized your life.
Nothing stops her fingers;
they swim with you at night.
Leave if you're leaving.
Leave plain mud.
I don't know what else
is on your beard.
It would be mercy, God.
I grow weird in the field.
* * * * *
I admire how this poem seems to be making simple statements, without much fancy language or fanfare, and yet the statements don't tell us one, particular thing. Instead, they open up a field of possibility, take us somewhere felt, offer a string of images to make our own. Toward the end, a sense of narrative starts to take shape. But, still there is plenty of room for the reader to make this poem our own. And I just love that strange last line, which seems like it shouldn't work, but somehow does.
