This month Women Writing for (a) Change-Bloomington poets are participating in National Poetry Writing Month. Every day we will offer up a new poem by a writer in our community. Check back after 6:00 pm for the Prompt of the Day and the selected resulting poem.
Write a poem that incorporates wild, surreal images. Try to play around with writing that doesn’t make formal sense, but which engages all the senses and involves dream-logic.
Day 21 – Surreal by Tracy Zollinger Turner
In this thin layer of sleep
A wooded path leads to writhing bed of snakes
With hisses that smell of vetiver
And risk
The house is a jigsaw puzzle of every house you’ve ever lived in
Soldered to chalky brown tunnels and stark white rooms
The driveway is a bed of gravel and wild mushrooms
The back yard filled with
Weeping willows that cradle their limbs around you
Worry is a wagon wheel
With a secret compartment of bad evidence
It smells of smoking cedar
As it carries you over
Ditch after ditch
Leg over pillow
The dog is coughing again
You resist the urge to let the blue light in
Or tempt the moon with a hard stare
This is how it will be until it suddenly isn’t