Poem-A-Day Challenge: Days 16-19

India's Dirty Fingers by Salomé Gonzalez

I’m falling behind more frequently as the month progresses, but still trying to stick to the 30/30 goal instead of combining a few prompts into a single poem. Every one of my NaPoWriMo poems has been a first draft, but these four are especially so.

Prompt: Pick a color, make that the title of your poem, and write a poem that is inspired by that color.

Prompt: Write a poem with the following title: “All I want is (blank),” where you fill in the blank with a word or phrase of your choosing.

Prompt: Write a poem with an interaction of some sort.

Prompt: Write an angry poem. That is, a poem about someone or something that gets angry.

BLUE (for India)

It’s no surprise you favored
blue over pink from the start,
defining your own identity,
defying easy categorization.

Society prefers labels, though,
requires them to [dys]function,
loves to segregate with clever
wordplay and games of semantics.

When you chose blue and pink
nail polish, alternating fingers
that pick rocks as comfortably
as they draw dinosaurs,

I knew “special” could not contain you.

*****

ALL I WANT IS FOR SOME HEADS TO ROLL

MBAs did this.
Execs without common sense
are bad investments.

*****

THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE

There is no sweeter sound
than the convergence of ball and
glove, the moment heroes are
made, bodies are sacrificed for
the good of the team, no wall high
enough, no ground hard enough,
the crowd stands and roars
its appreciation.

*****

NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED

Malcom X understood people,
knew anger was the active ingredient
to making change, boldly experimented,
underestimated its volatility and
blew up the lab.

Barack Obama saw anger
about to boil over, let others
experiment, built a steam engine
instead, and guided the train
into the station.

*****

2009 Poem-A-Day Challenge: The inimitable Robert Brewer — editor of Writer’s Market and Poet’s Market, and proprietor of the wonderful blog, Poetic Asides — is posting a daily prompt and I, along with numerous others, are commiting to write a poem inspired by that prompt.

Every. Day.

Full rules and info can be found here.

Written by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is the Chief Content Officer for LibraryPass, and former publisher & marketing director for Writer’s Digest. Previously, he was also project lead for the Panorama Project; director, content strategy & audience development for Library Journal & School Library Journal; and founding director of programming & business development for the original Digital Book World.