National Poetry Month Day Twenty-two

Prompt:  Write a ten-line poem in which each line has ten syllables.  Try to include words or images that have to do with math, money, dates, or anything that includes numbers (telephone numbers, addresses, zip codes, etc.)  If you need an opening line, begin the poem with one of the following, “On a scale of one to ten…” or “Because the numbers say…” or “It doesn’t add up…”

Numbers Game

One person sat all alone in a room.

Two pencils and blank pieces of paper.

Three voices spoke to the one that was there.

Four others told her, “Give up, Basket Case.”

Five wads of paper lay in the trash can.

Six hours; a long time to stare at the walls.

Seven pages written, maybe this time.

Eight times she’d tried to share the story.

Nine times fall down.  Yes, but you can stand up

Ten.

National Poetry Month Day Twenty One

Prompt:  Write a poem that initially gives the impression that it is going to be a joke, that something funny is going to take place.  A twist, allow the poem to travel into a sad or dark place so that the reader is surprised where the poem ends up.

Revision

There’s something strange

Coming out of Uranus.

Looks like a cloud of gas.

Great balls of fire!

It’s an incoming asteroid!

The Third Rock disappeared

In a cloud of steam.

“Start over,” He said.

“Those naked apes were worse

Than the dinosaurs.

If I hadn’t stopped them

They would have trashed the place

The way they did Mars.”

National Poetry Month Day Twenty

Prompt:  Write a poem in which you incorporate two outlandish lies.  These “lies” can be untruths about you (the poet) or they can be historical or contemporary.  For example:  “The South won the Civil War.”

—But Maybe

The squirrels we see in park and yard

Seem hardly worth remote regard.

Fuzzy, cute and scatterbrained

They keep a canine entertained.

But in the trees they’ve hatched a plot

To vanquish us without a shot.

And so beware the evil squirrels

Because they plan to rule the world.