April 9

napowrimo #9: your mission
April 9th, 2010
by the Read Write Poem Staff

RWP member Robert Peake has shared with us a prompt he used recently with one of his established writing groups:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to:

* Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker; (didn't do these)
* Include something that tastes terrible;(did this)
* Include some part (from a few words to several lines) of a previous poem that didn’t quite pan out; and (used Keats instead)
* Include a sound that makes you happy. (this got it going)



The sound of ultimate satisfaction, the purr,
designed so that mama knows her kittens are
receiving milk, does not always mean all is well.
A dying cat may purr. Though perhaps this does
mean that all is well, in Julian’s cosmic sense.
Which is why her icon shows her with cat.
Which is why she fits in so well with my family
photos, all of which show my mother, holding
various cats—gray, black, calico.
One can date the photo by which cat is held.
The last photos feature the orange striped cat,
just like the one she’d had when she was young.
When he died, she said no more.
When dying, humans do not purr.
They say all food is bitter yet they beg for it.
They groan and plead and say they are tired
of being in a body but we must leave them there
and read them “O, for a draught.” Keats’ song
the only “melodious plot” we can hear
within whirring hospital walls.



For icon see https://www.trinitystores.com/?detail=54&artist=1