Two blue-hairs cheek to cheek,

benched at the sidelines

of the corporate sponsored transexual football championship,

work on a mix-tape, Elon Musk’s “Tesla”

& Nancy Pelosi’s’s “Chinese Investments,”

Read my lips. . . , it’s transnational

voices by turns quarrelsome, then deepfake-digitized,

Neanderthal, & frumpy

as the line-spaces of poetesses

sponging off federal grants,

painted lips on frappuccinos,

Meaningless lines snaring the reader

with—

Hi officer. What?

No, I just pulled over to read some poetry…

No sir, I don’t drink, I was just reading poetry like I said.

Yes. I thought I probably shouldn’t drive and read poetry at the same time, especially modern poetry with those weird line-breaks and spacing.

OK, thank you officer. Yes, I’ll be careful.

In her poem, Duet, Lisa Russ Spaar tells the story of two sisters making music together, based on two pre-existing songs by different artists. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that involves people making music together, and that references – with a lyric or line – a song or poem that is important to you.

Hark—nightingales sing songs of dawning spring.
The flitting bluejays banter in the trees.
A sparrow greets a dove, and both take wing,
While robins fight with cardinals. The breeze
Bears on its unseen currents feathered tribes:
The nutfinch mothers feed their new-hatched flocks.
Now crows appear: dark jesters squawking jibes;
The swooping blackbirds protest preying hawks . . .

Strangely, some younger birds attempt to moult
Confused in youthful avian revolt,
And cast off gender; cocks attempt to nest.
Chickadees chirp, proclaiming they are cats
And other fowl identify as bats.
(Their madness serves to entertain the rest.)

Birdsong is all around us – even in cities, there are sparrows chirping, starlings making a racket.
And it’s hardly surprising that birdsong has inspired poets.
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that focuses on birdsong.

PROMPT #23

As the second hand slips
When you’re coming to grips
In a thrilling ecstatic last gasp,
The spasms are treasured,
The nerve-endings pleasured—
An easy, yet hard thing to grasp.

If only the wife
Could surpass this in life;
Transcending mere conjugal motion:
This private emergency;
Slippery urgency,
Panting in private devotion.

On the hot stroke of one
It’s a second to none
Passing minutes on high alert.
When all prudery ceases,
The tension releases:
Alone, as you ready to—

PROMPT #22:

write a poem about something you’ve done that gave you a kind of satisfaction,
and perhaps still does.