DAY 16: "Weather Report" Take today’s actual weather forecast. Use it as a metaphor or mood board to create a weather-themed poem about your inner life. Trying to catch up while storms simmer on the horizon. The weather report... Prognosticate The sun shines at the moment— bright enough to tempt the shoulders, to whisper of sandals and sudden freedom from hibernation. But the wind tugs like a half-finished thought, cold-fingered and quick to correct whatever warmth I thought I’d earned. It says: "Not yet. Hope slower. it's not your time." Inside— I am a layered contradiction, like my sweater, hoodie and windbreaker: the part of me that blooms nose pressed against the glass; the part that hides still clutching mittens of doubt. Five degrees of belief drops to minus-one with the whisper of memory. My optimism, like sidewalk salt, never fully swept away. Still— there is sun. And a path. And the urge to walk into unexplored spaces even if I bring my coat.

DAY 07: "Stranger Moment" Write down the last line you overheard in public or online (yes, even on a Zoom call). Begin your poem with that line and let it lead you somewhere unexpected. In the meat department At the grocery store, woman searched her shopping cart. The butcher touched her shoulder and asked 'are you missing something?' Their eye's met and recognition flamed. but I was not quite up to poetic nonsense at the time because... i woke with half a mind and no idea what the other half had gotten itself into if you find it laying about give it a good kick for me send it back where it belongs unless it's fully engaged you have my permission to add your unique flair cause this is a stranger moment and you don't want to miss the opportunity to burn along.

Yeah. The saggy bits.

Wow Mark! Thank you for the wonderful reply. I really admire your ability to add your thoughts with your feedback. I was trying to discern between automation and human, but where does it start and end? I aimed for the 'people' as higher forms of robotics? Well, it's all a metaphor. Aren't they all? Cheers

Day 15 "Mirror Glance" Look at yourself in the mirror and write a poem in second person ("you"). Be as tender or fierce as the moment requires. I couldn't decide between good image or bad image. So... I tried both. "Mirror, Split" [RIGHT] You lurching in again! With your same sorry ass and sagging, bloodshot eyes. Your ashen grief beneath the lids of a failed flame. You break my heart. Hear the faucet croak? Splashing water like a baptism too late won't away the doubt. [LEFT] There you are—the bright seeker, clothed in ink like an alchemist's beaker. But you're still standing, and I reflect a man not lost, but circumspect. Your brow is bare, your face renewed— I feel your fire, though ere subdued. You once chased stars through glass— this down-cast spell can't last. [RIGHT] What? Glaring at me, like I’m the liar. Like I conjured this shaven fraud beside me. His beard drips. You smell of sweat and disbelief. You seek the mastery of words, but your poems are not here. [LEFT] Your every pause contains a breath, and not all quiet portends death The voice that used to sing, but silence precedes the spring. Recall the forge of your dreams— from those embers, your words stream. [RIGHT] Don’t talk to me in prophetic rhyme. You burned the maps— your fire is lost, you type in circles, each line a noose like a failing slip-knot. [LEFT] And still you write. Despite the aching. That is no fall— that is the remaking. Your Sight still stirs, though dimly shown, the path you share where others shone. [RIGHT] I think you tire of choosing and losing. But... [LEFT] You have not failed, dear scribe whose soul wandered from your table's goal. Even at your lowest, you are not alone when both halves stare back as one.

* DAY 04: "The Object Whisperer" Choose a nearby object and imagine it has a secret. Write a poem revealing that secret from the object’s point of view. Another piece of Fantasy. The Chalice Speaks (from the mug in my hand) I was not born yesterday of brushed steel, nor shaped for your morning indulgence. Once, I sang beneath stone arches— brimmed with storm and starlight. They named me Chalice of the Lyon-born Seer, cradled by Mary Magda, whose Sight could bend dawn. I knew the blood of root and rite, held visions steeped in sacred suppers. My rim kissed lips that whispered spells, and I rang like truth in cold air. But the world forgot. Wrapped me in the age of alloy. Hammered sleek my sacred form— hid runes in the shine. You sip from me now, unaware of the stir beneath your touch. Each grasp leaves a trace— each breath an echo she once knew. I feel it. Do you— a ripple in your pulse, your fingers hesitating, twitching as if they’ve remembered how to cast. She is watching. The Seer who never died— who donned the name Merlyn to stir the world once more. And you— you are not who you were before this morning’s relief. You saw it, didn’t you? That flicker in the reflection— not the kitchen light… but the glyph behind your eyes.

Day 03: "Found Words" Pick up a newspaper, leaflet, receipt, or any piece of text around you. Choose 7 random words and use them all in a poem. It's just that kind of day when 7 little words turn into a protest... maybe just a satire. When I read the Day 03 prompt, I picked up the nearest book—The Malahat Review, Issue 229, bookmarked at 'Behold' by Paula Turcotte. Seven words called for my attention: registry wipers clipboard crackle bumper fingernails flower I hope you enjoy my Speampunk fable. Form 27-B A blossom pinned to the lapel of war— white, wilting, artificial— authorized in triplicate beneath the flickering gaslamp registry squinting through clouds of incredulity. The clerk’s wipers smear condensation from the sky-window; outside, the sun coughs steam into the gears of another morning, he scribbles another cog in the wheel. He flips his clipboard with the crackle of bone-dry parchment, sweat dripping from his brow, checking boxes beside “Floral Justification” and “Cultural Integration via Parade.” Boots tap like metronomes on cobbled iron floors. Fingernails stained with carbon ink sign the clause permitting redecorating the capital in imperial tones. The air smells of burnt letters, a bumper bent by ritual collisions as brass-hulled vehicles from the March of Efficiency line up outside the Ministry of Assimilation. No bullet. No bomb. Just form 27-B— filed, stamped, and notarized by men who whistle through copper lips as the borders redraw themselves in script too ornate to bleed. The March of Efficiency clatters by— clockwork limbs in perfect polished protocol and the brass grin of triumph, parading down the Avenue of Staples. The clerk's child waves a flag of rationed sleep. Past banners stitched with metric pride, as citizens cheer in uniform cadence, watched from smokey balustrades by the Agency of Imperial Gaslight, illuminating all—except intent and truth.

I like how you formed the four seasons into the four stanzas, each carrying their own voice. Your poem reads with many layers. Leaves whisper, the tree is “cursed,” the wind “carries news.” These devices give emotional life to the natural world. “crunchy underfoot,” “howling winds,” “dappled light” evoke tactile, visual, and auditory experiences. Though written in free verse, there’s a flowing cadence that feels organic and reflective, lending an elegant rhythm to the poem. Well done!

Well done C.L.A.S!

I love it! Thank you for sharing this, I need to stick your poem on the mirror.

Day 14: "Something Missing" Look around. What’s not there that you expected to be? Write a poem centred on absence or invisibility. My head engaged in a free-fall from lofty altitudes today... and this is the result of such folly. One word summed it up, but it's missing. Missing Pieces like a jigsaw puzzle tossed by the draught, through the window the pieces drifted to a tableau on a dark, quiet forest floor fates deigned that I would find a rabbit and a squirrel placing them in an abstract Matisse landscape a metaphor for complex ideas pulled from an over-stimulated mind over matters of the heart I tossed each piece i pulled from a thought onto the verdant backdrop— gobbled by smiling rodentia the never-complete image baffled the inquiring minds— a roll and a shake, missing the entire point.

Well done Genevieve! this is pretty much how my brain works now.

Day 13: 'A Letter Unsent' This is part 1 of Day 13. I'd like to think I can get to part 2, which was the original focus of the day—when her husband finds her letter, after her death. Stay My darling love— I write this with shaking hands, though the house breathes silence and your coat hangs by the door. Your eyes smiled when you saw me this morning, your gentle and unthinking kiss, still tingles on my temple— like an unquenchable question. Last night, he sang again— your friend from another era, whose name I dare not say. His voice spilled from a playlist— as if it had never left the room where we first danced in shadow, too drunk on futures to see the fault-lines underfoot. I almost wrote I love him, just now. But what I meant was—I remember. I remember the knife of yearning that made even shadows feel full. I remember, no— reflecting if I had chosen too soon— or not soon enough. I remember, he made me feel alive. You made me feel love. There is a difference. I learned, and continue to learn that love doesn’t always begin with fire— for us, it started with a quiet hand resting near the coffee cup, after a near-fatal quake— your steady voice in my shaking dark. Even now, this ache— a rush of chemicals I feel when I hear him. I thought I could fold it away, but it stirs in me on long walks, in music, in the way you laugh, or not. I sometimes see him in you, like you captured the best of him. I had thought about leaving, in the early days. I even packed a bag once— I left in the attic, hidden under the other remnants of long-ago lives. But I didn’t walk out the door. Not because of uncertainty. I sat on my side of the bed and looked at you sleeping, for hours. and a voice said: 'stay'. Only that. 'Stay'. I remember his brash to your quieting presence. I remember possession and your open door. You let me fly yet... with you, I feel complete. I am writing this not to open wounds, but to free this ghost so I don’t carry it forever. You will never read this. But I needed to write it, fold it into the creases of the moments between us— that you always trusted to be enough. Always, —

Thank you Mark. I appreciate your comment. It is really 'a wolf in sheep's clothing' story.

Day 02: "Soundtrack of Now" Pause. What’s the loudest sound you can hear right now? The softest? Write a poem built on those two contrasting sounds. Me and the Muse experience a discord, yet gain. With no music playing, the house felt unnervingly quiet. Yearning Thunderstorms I whisper silent prayers to the ghost of my muse the computer fan drapes a blanket of purr inaudible breaths fathomless beats the fan cuts off, the heat fades, for now replaced by the incessant monitor's static drone a slosh of water... bubbling and gurgling, coffee drips into a vacuum pot she used to arrive on caffeine clouds of thunderstorms— not a static rustle a vacuum of words where verses roared— no timbre, no tone, only hollow chords. the trees outside hang still a far-off peep from an unseen cardinal. a car whirs by winter tires on dry road then silence filters through double-glaze. my eyelids pressed the slow draw of air my pulse slows the ocean echoes. in my woven silence i wait for her return my ink rests warm for her arrival

Wow, Carah! Beautiful.

thanks Gallagher

Day 01 Prompt: 'Today is 1st April — the day of fools, tricks, and mischief. Your prompt is to write a poem that deceives, disguises, or delights in misdirection. A poem that wears a mask.' Trickster I pull the wool blanket over my damned bleary eyes aching to run over the crocodile glen where sheep graze in complacent indifference on nascent spring clover shoots unaware of the craggy audience surrounding the pastoral arena's tranquillizing construct pangs remind me of my temporal mission drawing me to the copse fringe under cover of my invisibility I steel their naivety the meek ripple heads alert the bleat beats I stiffen they cast off their clothes fangs glistening

Day 12 White Magnolia by Bernadette Connors popped on my music today. I had never heard it before and turns out I kind of like it. We have a Magnolia tree near the house. This is her poem... White Magnolia grass lies in a sullen bed not awakened from slumber— brown meshed sweater magnolia lifts her pale face to drift in golden silence bidding adieu to winter who planted this delicate blossom— does she linger at the edges of the abandoned porch?

Well done CLAS! Embrace