FEELINGS FRIDAY!! MARY’S POETRY EXTRAVAGANZA OF FEELINGS NOT FOR LITTLE BABIES!!

First off: YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!! Thank you for all of your wonderful poems last week, little lambies. Here are a few uninvented inventions that I liked:

1. “Perception Optics. We all could use them.  Being able to see yourself the way others view you.  Not just physically either.  To know what their thoughts are about you.  To feel the impact you had on them. Some people only learn hands on.  Maybe society would finally be willing to understand before they hate.” -Chelsea M.
2. “… What I need is something to send a buzz through my blood stream
   When I am writing love poems for someone who could never appreciate a strong stanza.
   I need a ringing in my ears when I am wasting minutes of my day on someone who’s brain does not tingle with my name…Name it what you want, I call it my own personal revolution.” – Morghan F.
3. “Tunnel Vision: A moment two souls can lock onto one another and see the truth behind our human form. We can reach each other from the purest, deepest levels of time and space. Crossing cultures, mountains, gender, oceans, the sun, and the reality we call home to see our soul, who we are.”  -Molly H.

Gorgeous, you guys. I loved every single submission. Thanks for sharing with me!

I am so so so excited for this week’s prompt, I can barely contain myself. This week, I want you to write a letter. Not a letter to your crush or your boo or your cute mom- this one is very different. And of course, a little complicated.

Instructions:

1. Think of an inanimate object. Something you like looking at, eating, touching, something that speaks to you, something that you, you know, would enjoy writing a poem about (a bridge, shoes, ceiling fan, a mango)
2. Think of a second object- one that interacts with your first object.  (Ex. Skyscraper to bird, coffee to MY MOUTH, ocean to cruise ship, gluten free pie to MY MOUTH, whoops I’m hungry)
3. Write a letter from one object to another.
4. If you want, write a response from the 2nd object!

I nabbed this exercise from a poem in Rose McAleese’s book “Strong. Female. Character.” The poem is “Match and Flame”:
letter from match to flame

“They told me this was a coming-of-age thing,

a rite of passage,

That this is what is supposed to happen.

But I am beginning to question the ways of the world.

Why must we both go the second you are born?

 

Our lifespan is too quick, not enough time to know each other.

First we are put under such pressure,

forced to spark.

 

Does this heat ever get to you?

Is this too rough for you?

Does this hurt?

Oh, love. The friction makes me so aware.

 

You are split from yourself and moved to wick

One that holds you longer, one that holds you tighter.

I can’t help but stare and watch you go.

Hurrying up the walls,

a wedding dress made of smoke.

 

I watch as you linger from my tip to the ceiling.

Where do you go from here?

Are you locked in the vents of the floorboards?

Do you soak the wallpaper with your sweat?

Press yourself clean to windows, head north for the valley above.

 

Such bitter partings, my beloved.

 

***

 

letter from flame to match

You are so young, weak at heart.

Made of wood,

Earth’s best creation, man’s worst conductor.

 

You are so naive. You wish nothing more than to be their soot, their chalk, their ash.

Don’t you see what they do with me,

what damage they make of me,

what harm I am capable of?

 

All you see is my smoke,

a veil fit for a funeral.

I hurry away not for the mystery but out of shame.

If only I could leave you faster.

 

There is no beauty in my creation.

My scream, a warning;

they should have listened to the crackle from my rush

My throat is raspy; it’s hard to breathe.

 

No need to sweeten this.

You are just my maker,

I met you with such disgust in mind,

arranged marriage.

 

I flicker out of struggle, not of dance.

 

******

Check out Rose’s stuff here! Also Shira Erlichman (“Uninvented Invention” from last week) has a neat website and SHE TEACHES POETRY!

Have fun with this prompt! When you’ve chosen your objects, make sure you give them life! Connect yourself to them. Give a personality to the 20-year-old couch in your parents basement.

As always, you can keep these poems very close to your heart and not share with a soul, or you can share with me, and I’ll pick my favorites next week! marylambertsing@gmail.com

Thank you for your bravery,

xoxo

M