Prompt #11: PostSecret
Today’s prompt brought to you by Shanna Germain and PostSecret:
PostSecret is a place where people create anonymous postcards of their innermost secrets. Which, to me, is kind of a poetry all its own. Today’s prompt is to visit the PostSecret website and search for a secret (or secrets) that speaks to you. Now, create a narrative poem based on that secret.
Alternatively, you can write a postcard poem (with or without the artwork) in which you share a secret of your own.
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Reminders for Participants: You can post your poem below in the comments, offer a link back to your site where the poem is posted, or comment about the experience of writing the poem (without actually posting the poem). If you’re going to comment on other participant’s poems, please remember that this is not a critique space — comments should be kept thoughtful and supportive. Lastly, remember you don’t have to use the prompt to write your poem — they’re here for your inspiration but they’re certainly not a requirement.
Let the Wild Poeming Being!
I’m cheating, sort of. I just finished my second poem of the day and now I’m headed to bed before a very busy morning. So I’m posting tonight, this last half-hour’s effort describing the extraordinary people in my Alzheimer’s caregiving group, most of them older than me, most of them farther along their journey with the disease, some of them now a year or two past the death of their spouses.
THE CAREGIVERS
Four years, every Wednesday:
the same scant dozen souls,
tumbling headlong downward
with spouse, sister, parent,
the descent universal, inevitable,
its pain particular and unique.
Some thrive at the giving of love,
some come near to perishing
of it. They are the intimates
of souls evaporating,
spirits diminishing without limit.
I tell you: extraordinary tasks
are done in the most ordinary ways,
day after day, alone a little more
every day. Each time we meet
I hear their struggle, and I think,
I could not do what they do,
these people a few steps ahead of me,
and each week I return home
to learn to do another small piece
of what I have learned is impossible.
Perhaps I should not tell you:
we laugh — gross potty humor,
morbid tales, cynical jokes —
sometime to the edge of exhaustion
or tears. Do you understand?
This room is the single place
where it is permitted to laugh.
And then we go back home,
to learn again to live with death.
April 10, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Hi, Bill.
I love your poem. It is important that the world hears your poem. I am not close to death, but I have a little boy with special needs, and you poem reminds me of what we Moms of Miracles laugh at when we are alone in a safe spot among ourselves. Nobody knows what it is like unless they live it, and sometimes we just have to laugh or lose ourselves in the tears.
Bless you, Bill. Thanks for sharing!
Anjie
June 16, 2011 at 8:36 am
Another great prompt. I’ve taken the postcard which reads: You are convinced that my driving improves “drastcally” when I wear my glasses. I have 20/20 vision. They’re fake.
My poem is not a narrative made from that secret but the card certainly was the prompt.
‘Ten lessons for superheroes’ at http://wp.me/pbg4K-3H.
April 11, 2011 at 6:14 am
Pingback: Ten lessons for superheroes « Tony Linde
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2011/04/physics-of-it-all.html
April 11, 2011 at 9:22 am
These are all so awesome. Mine is an odd one, but I had fun with it!
http://yearofthebooks.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/poem-a-day-11/
April 11, 2011 at 11:10 am
Limping in here with a confessional poem – argh!
kimagennis.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-am-terrible-liar.html
April 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Loved the post card
But really
Do you wish I was there
Nagging you to appreciate
the Mona Lisa
Forgetting my own memories of Paris
are triggered by piss
in abandoned exits?
April 11, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Good source for ideas.
Mixed your prompt and the one from Napowrimo
http://briarcat.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/new-document-of-41-lines/
April 11, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Out of Sight
Courage hides
in secret places,
under rocks and deep
water, where it is lost,
until one dives, breath
held, of necessity,
find the center space,
grasp it tightly by
slick and spiny tail,
and burst forth into
the sunlit air.
April 11, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Another one from AIPF rather than a prompt: http://dorlamoorehouse.com/2011/04/11/napowrimo-day-11-3/
April 11, 2011 at 2:00 pm
I’m not so sure this is a secret, but it definitely isn’t told to many.
http://lovesgoodfood.com/jason/posts/Day_11_2011/
We live on tightropes
with naught below to catch us
except each other.
April 11, 2011 at 4:47 pm
This was more from the general idea of odd secrets than a specific PostSecrets find–and it certainly wouldn’t fit on a postcard!
http://teresanoelleroberts.blogspot.com/2011/04/sometimes-prompts-take-me-in-strange.html
April 11, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Pingback: Poem#11 – Delusions « Black Satin
Great prompt, Shanna. Here is my piece for today:
Delusions
April 11, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Pingback: National Poetry Month Day #11
“To love in spite of all is the secret of greatness
And may very well be the greatest secret in this universe”
Ducked my head
going through the ancient portal.
The first face
lined, thin, calm
peaceful eyes looked at me
into me
a brief smile, so small
then a silent pointing finger
go that way.
the next.
the next.
the next.
each quiet face looking up
then at me carefully
then pointing.
Down halls, around corners
up stairs, through catacombs.
So many turns for what seemed
so small before entering.
Then the face looked up and smiled
and pushed a dark wood door.
It opened into a room,
open to a cloistered garden.
Impossible but full of life,
sitting on the edge of shade and light.
At the small beckon of my guide
I entered, alone.
I felt I meant to bow slightly.
Perhaps I did. She nodded.
The ritual repeats.
I rest on the cool floor
at her gesture.
She gazes at the garden
and speaks.
Mary Beth Frezon 11 April 2011
April 11, 2011 at 7:58 pm
“Space Ghost, my hatred for you is delicious!” – Locar
Portland, Oregon
Because I am not wildly dis-affectionate, I have the skin of a rum-soaked badger that has spent its life repelling virtual mind caves.
Inside the tumult I am astronomical. I cannot tell when a thought reaches in and spins the atoms of the hour.
Sometimes a hesitation will bring the instinct into my spine. The yellow fish falling on the bait floor are slick, beginning to maw each other out of their drifting ooze.
All the while I have known have-been beings by fog and the whelp crossing the dirge at night.
April 11, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Took a while to find the right postcard.
http://feedingthegeek.tumblr.com/post/4548139858/killing-me
April 11, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Here’s the offering for Day Eleven.
http://mizadventurez.blogspot.com/2011/04/postsecret-prompt-not-without-poetry.html
I’m running on fumes, having just finished a course and writing my exam last night.
April 12, 2011 at 6:31 am
I fell behind and am just getting to this now. I’ll do a catch-up post once I’m done with all the missed poems, but in the meantime:
Secrets
She has many. They fill small cards
that will never be mailed. Cut out
lines glued to the truth. Ransom.
Note. Thank You. Note. Dear.
April 12, 2011 at 11:50 am
Postcard from the Edge
Maybe it is easier to die
than fall in love;
Having fallen in love with
the wrong person
was so much easier
than loving the one
chosen to be
The Right One.
What is ever right
about love? Doubts
can’t be spoken,
despair is to be hidden.
Should I exit this conundrum
like I entered it?
Going dark, it
would be so easy,
but some secrets:
best unspoken.
April 12, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Dear Gen
In the beginning we paused
We held the possibilities hostage
Made a blood promise
Spit on the grave
And saw that it was good
We wished for there to be light
But the secret held water
We thought we might need later
If the rescuers failed
And the light was set aside
Then we decided that the land
Did not need to separated from the water
If we gave the fish toes
And the rhinoceros’ gills
But the insects refused to negotiate
Lastly, we invented ribs and tits
April 12, 2011 at 5:41 pm