Thursday, January 05, 2012

And what will you do this year?

Where will you go?
Who will you speak with?
What will you dream?
How will you resolve any problems or difficulties?
What will you begin?
What will you give up?
Who will inspire you?

Write a poem that begins:

This year I will...

It doesn't have to be factual. It can be imaginary, or wishful, or fantastic too.

Write wildly at first. Worry about shaping and editing later. Keep going for at least 10 minutes without stopping to judge or change your mind.

I look forward to reading your final drafts of your year ahead.

Write well.
L x

6 comments:

Keith Wallis said...

This year I will speak words with meaning
not the hide-behind sentences
that cover feelings
with a cloak of disguise.
This year I will smile and cry
when I need to
not when it is expected of me
to suit another's agenda.
This year I will say 'no' more often,
'no more' when I have sufficed,
and 'no, more often' when asked to spare a moment with a friend in need.
This year I'll say 'I love you'
in a whisper to your ear
but in loud proclamation
to all.
This year I'll remember 'I will'
even more.
This year will be a year to remember.

Martin Cordrey said...

Ghosts

This year i will re-visit
dark graveyards

walk bare foot
through the sodden grass.

i'll lay dead roses
on every slab,

converse with ghosts
about forgotten deeds.

I shall run my fingers
across old names,

and, not finding my own
continue on my way.

Glenn Buttkus said...

2012

This year I will
shed an adolescent
off my ample waist,
organize my digital imagery
into dazzling pigeon-holes
of iconography, keep my latest
beard more than two months,
hoping my wife’s embraces
will return of their own free will,
finally make it to the zoo in order
to discover those elusive pieces
of the puzzle others overlooked,
add more lighthouses to my album,
scratch off that lotto number that will
provide those windfall funds necessary
to erect a dock for my ship to come into,
and anxiously send out my whelped poetics
into the literary chasm of Chapbookland,
pasting paper wings on each word,
and kissing each lingual forehead
before its journey.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2012

redjim99 said...

This Year.

I will go where the snow is,
where the wind rises and pulls at the trees,
where sunrise and the sunset are filled by the day we have together.

I will speak to you, of all I see.
I will speak out loud all the things I love,
about the world and about you.

I will dream of everything to come,
and I will dream of nothing while we are silent in the dark
where the closeness of breathing means we are together,
even in our dreams.

I will walk with you when the rain begins to fall,
I will cover you to keep you warm,
I will be your tree, bending in the wind,
where the sound of raindrops on my leaves will lull you to sleep.

I will start each day with an idea of love,
and make each one real.
So you know how real each beginning is.

I will leave behind the old year,
all of its triumphs and failures to live now,
only now.

I will follow you while the world turns,
while the sun shows the way,
while we smile as we walk through the park,
while we live.

Jim.

Is it February yet?

Anya Padyam said...

This year I will....


http://monthofapril2008.blogspot.com/2012/01/irresolute-resolutions.html

Lynne Rees said...

Thanks Keith, Glen, Martin and Jim for posting your poems. Lovely collection of determination and promise, humour and fantasy.

I think the new year affects us all in similar ways - the desire for beginnings, for change, for catching up with what might have been lost for a while. For returning to sources.

I have a new beginning: a book project which takes me to Wales for 10 days every month. Writing about my hometown, the place where I was born and spent the first 20 years of my life, is like returning to the source.

I am determined to keep in touch with you via AppleHouse with a monthly prompt but please excuse me if I don't have time to comment individually on your poems as the year progresses. Please know that I always read them and enjoy them, feel proud to hear your voices here.

Another prompt is coming at the end of the month.

Write well.
L x