Let me sit a moment in this silence, reduced to the hum of a machine, at rest

It's bewildering, at best, this database, the way predictive text paints a poem with someone else's words

or maybe inked of our own, you never know - some scraps of writing past might now be nestled inside the box, boomeranged back with a prompt

But I won't even recognize myself, reduced to numbers and noise;

What's long gone gets gobbled up, and the future, still a pencil mark away

for #openwrite

Her name was Katie, with the last name of Killer, and I'm not kidding, either, and she wore leather pants like a young Joan Jett or Pinky Tuscadero, and I swear, oh, I was tongue tied whenever we sat next to each other in math class, and when she asked for some help, I'd yelp, until she turned away to talk to someone else

for #openwrite

There is indeed a note not named, singing in the hole between B and C

and while its place is neither flat nor sharp, its voice is borrowed - half step up, half step back -

we fall into the space where there seems a gap; the ear hears what the piano lacks

for #openwrite

Brittle Grass

This deep thirst I have goes beyond quenching, I'm yearning for the rains, the drenching of a sky, falling, for how can you not hear my quiet voice calling, this broken cry of dry Earth, a song for myself and the creatures, below

for #openwrite https://www.ethicalela.com/14040-2/

Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap Step Step Step Step Step

Snare drum crackling on translucent skin the fife band gathers where the streets begin the drummer raises stick in her leather gloved hand then they step out as one, as syncopated band

Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap Step Step Step Step Step Step

for #openwrite

https://www.ethicalela.com/transforming-art-into-words/

Take Five

Headphones and downbeats: Dave Brubeck in five four as Paul Demond rhymes through a solo, singing, for all time

for #openwrite (syllable poem) https://www.ethicalela.com/making-it-count-syllabic-verse/

(A) Composition (of Anagrams)

in sonic topics (with) moon potions (add) soot spit pots on top/stop/ oops: omit – omit – omit - moot point position

for #openwrite https://www.ethicalela.com/anagram-poems/

This world's awash in a music, if we listen to what we're hearing

birds dogs wind leaves engines electronics imagination

Pluck the string to make it sing; the melody's a memory in the open key of us

for #openwrite https://www.ethicalela.com/word-association-poem/

Things You Might Do With a Single Match

Ignite it, for sure, with scratching friction that scorches wood and bone and earth

or turn it into an imaginary friend, with a phosphorous head and single-footed body, dancing on the table top

or hold it up at deepest night, a firefly levitating in darkness off outstretched finger, painting ink-light on air

or place it back, gentle, into the book from which it came, where fellow stories wait at rest for the chapter to close

for #openwrite and #mastoprompt (inspired by https://www.ethicalela.com/things-you-can-do-with-an-orange/)

If only he'd let me keep looking for peepers and frogs

instead of home, I'd stay, peeking beneath forgotten logs

but no, it's time, he tells me, it's time for us to go

I wave goodbye to the woods and stories I'll never know

— for #openwrite about shifting to a different perspective https://www.ethicalela.com/perspective-poem/