Unless you go too far
in your catamaran
and fall off

the face of the earth,
drifting like a balloon,
a star, a star-shaped balloon.
You never meant to disprove

a theory that makes the world
go round. You never meant to
take us back to the Dark Ages,
when we feared dragons and

edges, all the perils
that await us when we
push off from shore.

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For the PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 21. Prompt: Write about a direction on the compass.

But someone like me always says
there’s no explanation for any of it,
nothing owed to us and nothing to be
expected, that life is a random bag
of facts and occurrences, many of them
ugly and completely unjust, because
there is no justice, no traffic cop.
Sometimes I really hate myself.
Sometimes I sound so smug, so much
like others of my type, the clichés
tumbling out of my mouth before I can
call them back. The truth is, we all
think in stereotypes and patterns.
I am no different. Neither are you.

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Catching up. Last one for tonight. PAD Challenge, Day 16. Prompt: an explanation.

Today, I remembered
that the kids in my high school
used to play a card game
called Egyptian Rat Fuck.
The name popped into my head
while I was trying to remember
something else, though now
I forget what that was, and it seems
like there have been other times
just like this, though now I forget
what I remembered while I was
forgetting something else.
The net unravels even as
I patch it. It catches only
the least relevant fish, bony
and inedible, ridiculous. I didn’t
even intend to go fishing; I’m just
holding this net and need something
to occupy my hands while I try to
remember what I came here to do.

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Catching up. PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 17. Prompt: an afflicted poem.

Sweetie pie,
you are just made of
candy, aren’t you?

Rock candy on a wooden stick,
no flavor to speak of.

Just sweet.

Never anyone’s favorite
(that I know of),
but always there,

easy to enjoy
because

candy is candy
sweet is sweet
you are you.

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Catching up. PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 18. Prompt: Write a sweet poem or a sour poem.

Did you wait for me there,
and did I never show up?
Are you still waiting,
after all these years,
with a rock in your hand
and a small grief, a
a small, hard grievance
against me? I’m sorry.
I had places to go
and people to be;
I wasn’t in control
of my going and being,
and besides, you only
half remember me, and I
half remember you. We
each invent the rest,
filling in spaces with
a dusk that we create
where really there was
only streetlight pollution
buzzing as you stood,
holding your rock
and waiting for me.

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And we’re back! For the PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 19. Prompt: Write an excuse poem.

We don’t have a lot of options left,
he said. But I said, There’s always
room at the end of every road.
The sun went down while we were
talking; I sketched a map in the
gravel with the toe of my boot.
I was trying to show him something.
I was always trying to show him
something, in that time before
the moon came up and I knew
the only option we really had.

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For the PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 13. Prompt: An optional poem.

Also, please sit tight and do not panic. I’m leaving town for a few days, and from past experience, I know that I’m really terrible at writing poems in hotel rooms (or worse yet, hotel business centers). So, there will not be a new poem here until next Wednesday. But never fear! Once I’m back, I’ll catch up on the prompts I missed. Yes … there will be double poems. So, try to hang in there, and I’ll see you on the flip side.