W3 Prompt #43: Wea’ve Written Weekly

Intro

Dear friends,

Welcome to our W³ Poetry Prompt, which goes live on Wednesdays at The Skeptic’s Kaddish.

You may click here for a fuller explanation of W³; but here’s the ‘tldr’ version:

Part I

The main ingredient of W³ is a weekly poem written by a Poet of the Week (PoW), which participants read before participating in the prompt.

Part II

The second ingredient is a writing guideline (or two) provided by the PoW. Guidelines may include, but are not limited to: word counts, poetic forms, inclusion of specific words, and use of particular poetic devices.

Part III

After five days, when the prompt closes, the PoW shall select one participant’s poem as the W³ prompt for the following week, and its author becomes the next PoW.

Simple enough, right?

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Okie dokie ~ Let’s do this thing!

I. The prompt poem:

‘Changes’, a ‘Puente’ by Kerfe Roig

On an empty block west of Central Park
rose twelve houses–not a dead end street,
not wild, but quiet–perfect for the well-to-do.
They proceeded to fill the line of brownstones
with their unquiet and disorderly lives.

~Time changes the faces and the facades~

Homes are bought and sold and sold again.
Doors are replaced, stoops deleted, details erased.
A school opens, caters to the well-to-do.
Only the guardians remain to trace the years–
older now, but still fascinated by human folly.

II. Kerfe’s prompt guidelines

• Compose a haibun that contrasts past and present;
• From Poetry.org:
  • In How to Haiku, Bruce Ross writes, “If a haiku is an insight into a moment of experience, a haibun is the story or narrative of how one came to have that experience.”

III. Submit: Click on ‘Mr. Linky’ below

In order to participate and share a poem, open up this blog post, outside of the WordPress reader. At the bottom, just below these words, you will see a small rectangular graphic with the words ‘Mr Linky’. Click on that to submit.

Submissions are open for 5 days, until Monday, February 27, 10:00 AM (GMT+3)

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Last week’s W³ poem

This week’s W³ prompt poem (above), composed by Kerfe, was written in response to last week’s W³ prompt poem, which Tanmay wrote:

‘I Reap What I Sow’, a ‘Golden Shovel’ by Tanmay Philip

My solitude has made me sick
There’s no one to lay my heart on
It’s always been I, me, and my
Would be nice to share this journey
But when I fall asleep… oh my!
The strange folk I meet in my dreams
If only I had that same will
During the day when I wander
To meet people and bond like this
Asleep I thrive, awake — desolate
But moonlight can’t help me grow my field

Tanmay’s “shoveled” poem: a haiku by Matsuo Bashō

Sick on my journey
my dreams will wander
this desolate field