Emptiness is a staircase
a shell enters the snail
slowly we descend
our soles slippery
retracing steel treads
listening to the darkness
cold upon our eyes
a moment in Girona
a photograph remembers
our ascent along Roman walls
I still close my eyes and
taste the metallic clang of
Sant Doménec’s bells —
it’s noon, time for nosh,
Cafe Le Bistrot,
pig cheeks braised with gluttony,
a penny-wise
table d’hôte
provecho
every time I foodgasm,
a chef gets their wings,
my taste buds
starve for the attention
of whipped lemon mousse,
oh, I would have sex with my spoon,
clean it, satisfied,
you Dirty Boy,
till a violet strawberry
sunset makes blueberry
swirls upon the stillness of
Onyar’s pulsing artery
and
descent into memory
and night.

∞

Submitted as part of “National/Global Poetry Writing Month” (#NaPoWriMo #GloPoWriMo).

Today’s prompt:  Day Five: Write write a poem based on “Twenty Little Poetry Projects”:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

30 Poems in 30 Days

All text and photography © Dale Schierbeck

…. more of my original Poetry on EatsWritesShoots here.