Poetry. Bragging. Spaceships. Suns.

EXERCISE 086: BE PEDANTIC

a poem that knows everything

Write an unbearably pedantic poem, a poem that knows everything and wants you to know just how much it knows and wants to teach it to you too. A poem that you want to run away from, it’s such a know-it-all blowhard. Make it the absolute worst!

A POEM OF SHOULD

Should is the absolute worst word in the English language. It moves neither forward or reverse at the speed of inertia. It reeks of judgement and condemnation. It grapples with nothing as it drives into certainty’s ditch. It builds monuments to ignorance with bricks of cotton candy sustenance. It destroys curiosity under fear’s steel toe boot. All this happening behind smoke and mirrors. Platitudes and niceties. Bumper stickers and krab stick. Tinker toys and beach glass. It breathes gas fumes while coughing up blood. It sings painful arias off key and a capella. It smells like the last time someone heated up fish in the microwave at work. If it were your brother or sister, you hope it lives far away and never visits. I scream, “Don’t should on me!” 

I shake the shoulders of all that should be and ask why not now? Why not here? I stare in the face of evil and demand we should do better by our children and their children and their children’s children. It is not strong enough to say we should protect our earth. If I could I concoct a should antidote — an action elixir, a reflection serum, a bigger-than-life possibility mirror — that explodes the shape of what is toward something more beautiful and perfect. 

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EXERCISE 087: BRAG ON YOURSELF

something mundane

Think about something mundane that you do exceedingly well, e.g. parallel park, trim nose hairs, clean litter boxes. Write a poem that brags to the world about your skill.

STARTING OVER

I have world class starting over skills. I start over again, and again, and again. Starting over is different from simply starting. Starting over implies a start, a stumble, and perhaps a fall. It also means that at some point a decision is made to get up and keep going. Starting over indicates a “just watch me” impulse when told something is impossible. Starting over indicates a stiff spine and fixed gaze. Starting over at its best turns failure on its ear, indicates reflection (and perhaps a plan), and allows growth.

Though I am great at starting over, sometimes I get mired in the start. I make plans that I never implement. I buy ingredients that I never prepare. I look at situations and stay stuck in the paralysis of analysis. Sometimes fear stops me in my tracks. Sometimes I lack motivation because I never wanted to start to begin with. Sometimes I start too many things at once and never make it to starting again or ever finishing. 

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EXERCISE 088: ASSUME GREATNESS

make a spaceship

You are told (and as far as you know it is true) you can make a spaceship out of ordinary things available in your room, your home, your block. Describe yourself gathering materials for your spaceship. If you can build the spaceship, describe yourself building it. Or draw it. Or both!

I want to build a space ship from bubbles and candles and expensive face cream. From Chantilly lace and diamonds and comfortable shoes that look good and still feel amazing. I will fly to that place where desire soars and time smells like magnolia or chocolate chip cookies or pizza. My space ship will have high thread count sheets and mashed potatoes made with sweet cream and gnocchi filled with ricotta cheese. My space ship will be piloted by humanitarians and scientists and poets who have safety and health and creativity as their guiding principles. Building my spaceship will include sewing, tending, watering, cooking, creating, building, and inventing. My imagination will be the only limitation.

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EXERCISE 089: SAVE THE SUN

haul the sun up

The sun might not come up tomorrow! Write an urgent note of at least 100 words to all your friends with a plan to haul the sun up over the horizon in the morning.

A 5-Step Plan to Haul Up the Sun In the Morning

Right now, hauling up the sun up over the horizon might seem too heavy a lift. Hope might seem too much to hold. Empathy might seem too weak. Grace is no longer amazing and day just might break us. 

We need a plan. 

Step one in a plan to haul up the sun — breathe again and again and again. There is no strength without breath. Step two in a plan to haul up the sun — be like plants. Hauling up the sun requires we head to the light like plants growing toward the sun. Step three in a plan to haul up the sun — decide toward morning again and again and again. Hauling up the sun requires decision muscle exercise. Every. Day. Like working out in the gym. That requires strength, too. Step four in a plan to haul up the sun — celebrate light and dark. Hauling up the sun requires moving between light and dark. Hauling up the sun requires living through light and dark. Hauling up the sun requires thriving in the light and dark. Step five in a plan to haul up the sun — fall apart and back together. Falling apart and back together — invoking the work of Pema Chōdrōn — is the heart of the haul. Mornings are series of aparts and back togethers, pushing the boundaries of light and dark to a next level experience of choosing breath and tomorrow and life. 

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EXERCISE 090: COUNTERPOINT

interrupt yourself

Write 50 things that you authoritatively believe to be true. Interrupt yourself 50 times.

Fall is the best season and Spring is cool. My bed is the best bed and the beds at the Merrion are amazing. Life was better before cell phones and it is easier now. Coffee wakes me up and makes me anxious. My foot is healing and it still hurts painfully at the end of a busy day. Cats are loving and deliberate with how they share their love. Pepper jelly is sweet and spicy. Drinking water is vital to life and you can’t live only by drinking water. Joy is simple and complex, hard and soft, agreeable and rebellious. Lightness is darkness. Our minds create and destroy. Our bodies live and die. Strangers can be friends. Secrets weigh a ton. Sweat and tears are the sacred. Hearts break and expand. Money is energy and scarcity is fear. The tides are constant and powerful and understood by moons and fish. The stars guide ancient navigators. I bleed and cry and snot runs out my nose and I make eye contact with Gospel singers. 

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