Today’s constraints from Two Sylvias: write about something complicated, restrict line lengths e.g. four words, three words, two words, no words etc. and number of lines to between 8 and 12.

Here’s my attempt, which started as a found poem, then I played with it:

Origin. Intelligence.

Mystery. The parts don’t
make sense. The visual
way back, the reptilian.
Balance. Territory. Sex.

Snakes stare back, thinking
Is she lunch?

Monkey emotion.
Social hierarchy.

Prefrontal.
Rational.
Where am I anyway?
You? Behind your forehead.

Carol A. Stephen
April 7, 2018

Have not been able to do the prompts every day, so in the spirit of catch-up, for Two Sylvias prompts:

Day 6 was to build something in the sky or on another planet

The View from Here

nothing but sky: to the left, to the right,
and sky in between. Unending
palette of deep blue.

There should be poems, longhand, written
in cursive across the horizon, each line rising
upward like the scroll of words in Star Wars.

Every day a new selection. Every day
a poem by Robert Bly. Each poem would scatter
seeds down, and from the seedlings, flowers.

Each petal inscribed with lines of verse.
Today I read from a dark purple tulip,
tomorrow, a  periwinkle campanula blossom.

Between the flowers, pink granite rocks,
cut from an outcrop of Canadian Shield.
Wet and sparkling under a different sun.

GARDEN

Carol A. Stephen
April 6, 2018