The shortest month
is one you know
as that
during which we gambled
our independence
on hundreds of bills
and bartered
for each other
and while there bumped into the
former President and his
Secret Service (where was his wife do you suppose?)
and eavesdropped on elevator performers
and thier well-formed Cirque buttocks
complain
bemoan, bitch, and tongue-kiss
bewildered why so many
asses would choose
to watch theirs spin
and the painted ceiling clouds
were like nothing
but paintings
as everything but you
was nothing but a painting of itself
though time
buckled and raced and tripped
and fell
arms flailing
like that murder of children
chasing their mother’s
Pontiac as she pulls away from the house
to make a fool of some bitter
assistant today
just as she does
every day she wakes
dreaming of those painted clouds
how torrential the rain.
via: Red Wheelbarrow » The Shortest Month
The daily poetry prompt here on the Bain Books Daily Poem blog is now and forevermore known as the [drumroll] Daily Red Wheelbarrow because so much may or may not depend upon it. I do this primarily to motivate and activate myself, but there may be some benefit in it for the world (or even for you). So let’s get started.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow is:
write a poem about “the shortest month†(which may or may not be February, depending on what sort of poem you choose to write)
You may use the daily poem prompt as you wish. I do not hold you accountable for it, nor do I take any credit for you writing or not writing a poem (or other literary enterprise) that you should or would or can derive from it.
I would ask that if you write a poem (or novel or epic or help manual) using said prompt, and if you post your work to the inter-web, that you link back to this prompt’s permalink address, indicating that you found the prompt here promptly (promptishly?).
Want to make sure you never miss a prompt or other Bain Books Daily Poem goodness? Do this: Subscribe to the feed in a newsreader 
or by email [clicking the link will take you to a form where you can enter your email address that will never be shared with anybody ever ever ever, even if they twist my arm and offer free espresso drinks and generic Viagra].
If you’re feeling the love and you want to set it free, you can support the continued observation of daily promptishness and other daily poetry-itus by peeking at one of my books [You Are a Dog or We Are the Cat] or visiting or donating some cash here:
Thanks for visiting. The Daily Red Wheelbarrow is sponsored by Rain-glazed White Chickens, available at fine grocery and poetry supermarkets everywhere.
Quickly now
go
before
I tell you
I love
the smell
that smell
what is it?
Now I know
I know
what it is
that it is
the handsoap
from the public restroom
and I can’t
admit to myself
that I find it
intoxicating
intoxicating
in
toxic
my blood frozen
with the odor
on your hands
your neck
your neck?
Why your neck?
Nevermind.
Come closer.
Come
closer, so
I can breathe
you in, so I
can breathe.
via: Daily Red Wheelbarrow
The daily poetry prompt here on the Bain Books Daily Poem blog is now and forevermore known as the [drumroll] Daily Red Wheelbarrow because so much may or may not depend upon it. I do this primarily to motivate and activate myself, but there may be some benefit in it for the world (or even for you). So let’s get started.
Today’s Red Wheelbarrow is:
write a poem based on the word “promptâ€
You may use the daily poem prompt as you wish. I do not hold you accountable for it, nor do I take any credit for you writing or not writing a poem (or other literary enterprise) that you should or would or can derive from it.
I would ask that if you write a poem (or novel or epic or help manual) using said prompt, and if you post your work to the inter-web, that you link back to this prompt’s permalink address, indicating that you found the prompt here promptly (promptishly?).
Want to make sure you never miss a prompt or other Bain Books Daily Poem goodness? Do this: Subscribe to the feed in a newsreader or by email [clicking the link will take you to a form where you can enter your email address that will never be shared with anybody ever ever ever, even if they twist my arm and offer free espresso drinks and generic Viagra].
If you’re feeling the love and you want to set it free, you can support the continued observation of daily promptishness and other daily poetry-itus by peeking at one of my books [You Are a Dog or We Are the Cat] or visiting or donating some cash here:
Thanks for visiting. The Daily Red Wheelbarrow is sponsored by Rain-glazed White Chickens, available at fine grocery and poetry supermarkets everywhere.
My own dismal performance
affects my own dismal performance
wonders why
listens to the baristas
to their television conversations
to their lovelives
and my own dismal performance
reminds us of other
less-appropriate times
yes
even less appropriate
than these times
than times in public Starbucks
espresso latte fast caff
warehouses, where
the coffee reminds us
this is not a whore house
nor a place to nap
but we’re not happy
with our dismal performance
regardless, except we’re finished
now, and we’ve done this
and it’s not just masturbation
and it’s not the least of us
as you might expect at the end of
the day
and our dismal performance
entreats you
to pour a cup of cream
into your empty cup
and take it home for
your kids or your cat
or for nothing
no reason at all.
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 — Though parents know that their children will grow up and away from them, will love and be loved by others, it’s a difficult thing to accept. Massachusetts poet Mary Jo Salter emphasizes the poignancy of the parent/child relationship in this perceptive and compelling poem.
Somebody Else’s Baby
From now on they always are, for years now
they always have been, but from now on you know
they are, they always will be,
from now on when they cry and you say
wryly to their mother, better you than me,
you’d better mean it, you’d better
hand over what you can’t have, and gracefully.
Reprinted from “New Letters,” vol. 72, no. 3-4, 2006, by permission of the poet. Copyright (c) 2006 by Mary Jo Salter, whose most recent book of poetry is “Open Shutters,” Knopf, 2003. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
