From Robert Lee Brewer:
Wish me luck! I’m going to run a 10K later this morning in Austin, Texas (not affiliated with the Austin International Poetry Festival). If I go silent for Day 9, something went horribly wrong during the race.
For today’s prompt, write a panic poem. There are any number of things a person can panic about, including severe weather, military invasions, or what to wear to an event. And while some may be more life or death than others, that feeling of panic is just as real for a person who has to get up and speak in front of a crowd of smiling strangers as it is for a person hiding in the basement of their house as a tornado approaches.
I was dressed in grampa's clothes
ReplyDeletemy heart was beating a mile a minute
my hands dripping sweat
I was shaking from head to toe
I kept staring at my partner
in the skit
she kept staring at me
did we know our lines?
could we do this?
was the skit really funny?
the audience was full
I could see them through the curtain
I felt my bowels churning...
oh no, did I have to go?
We were on!
Bonnie Lawrence sat in the cardboard
ticket booth
I walked on stage
just like grampa walked
bent over, shaking my cane,
real shuffling steps
the audience cracked up!
but we hadn't done the skit yet!
I shook my cane at the audience
they laughed even harder...
I had a rush of calm come over my being
I started speaking, I could hear myself
the audience grew quiet
we did the whole skit
and they laughed on cue!
we bowed
curtain closed...
poor Bonnie had wet her pants
DeleteBonnie JohnsonApril 8, 2017 at 6:42 AM
lmbo! this is great! I remember that! I guess Bonnie Lawrence was just a bit more nervous than you. Was this junior high or high? it was funny then and it's still funny now. and you did a great job describing how panic feels!
Funny. I remember doing skits and things in someone's backyard. Was this part of that or was it in school?
DeleteThis was for Y-teens. Parents came and everything! It was really scary. But I enjoyed it! It was High school.
DeleteI remember those kinds of thins and you did such a nice job of you experience. What fun to share.
DeleteFunny, and the panic is real. It's real enough that maybe you don't need three lines in the first stanza to say essentially the same thing.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletebut what was the skit? i've forgotten
Deletewhat time does the train come through. About 10 minutes
Deletewhat time does the train come through. about 8 minutes
what time does the train come through. about 4 minutes
what time does the train come through. it just went by
oh good now I can cross the tracks... Lol
Up Where We Belong .... and hen down!!!
ReplyDeleteWe were going higher than I had been before
the ground disappeared below us as the chair lift moved
up....and up... and up.... suddenly the fear hit!
I didn't want to get off the lift but the end was here.
We all slid off onto the soft white powder
my friends turned their skis downhill and off they went
flying like angels or maybe demons down the mountain.
That was what I loved about skiing. You knew how a bird felt
I was always excited and frightened at the same time.
My instructor told me once that when you lose your
fear of the mountain that's when accidents happen.
But this was a different fear! my legs were paralyzed!
I couldn't breathe and felt as if I would pass out.
The mountain hadn't looked so steep when I looked up
but now as I looked down it looked impossible.
Then a voice whispered in my ear... hold onto the fear
and let your self fly the way you like to!
There he was! my instructor - my encouragement!
he turned me so my skis faced down the mountain
and with a chuckle gently shoved me and off I went!
My poles guided me - my skis turned as I pushed my
knees from side to side and the world flew by me.
the snow was like soft sugar beneath my skis
and then suddenly there I was...back at the bottom!
I had done it! the fear and the excitement still
combined and yes, I had to do it again.
the chair life moved up....and up... and up....
Awesome experience. And what you had is courage. Courage isn't being fearless. Stupidity is be being fearless. Courage is having the fear and going ahead and doing what you need/want to do anyway.
DeleteWow!!! one thing I have never done and am too old to try now!!! you had such courage. Victoria is right about courage! And you described your excited fear very well! enjoyed
Deleteand now i see two typos! i read i over and over and still missed them...aaarrrggghhh! the last line of course is the chair lift..not life..sheesh! although i do like the title saying and hen back down again it really is and then back down again. not an auspicious start to the day :-)
DeleteA fun ride, thanks for the lovely time!
DeleteI kinda like the chair life, but of course it doesn't really fit. Nice the way you guide the reader through the whole experience.
DeleteWhere are my glasses? Where can they be?
ReplyDeleteNot where they should be. I looked!
Not under the bed, I think. I can't see.
Oh ouch! I kicked my book!
OMG, what will I do
if I don't find them soon?
There's so many things I need to do.
I could look all afternoon.
I hear something crunching under my shoe
and panic sets in full force.
I know they are broken, way beyond glue,
crushed into small pieces of course.
A mangled cat toy is smashed on the rug.
I'm relieved but its mixed with some dread.
Where are my glasses? Then I feel something tug
and they fall on the floor off my head.
lmbo!! omg! that has happened to me too many times! I could feel the panic building and was right there with you through the poem and then ... well... i snorted when i read the last line!
DeleteOMG!!! I guess it's a family thing. I've done it too. Gramma Hines uses to do it and so did mom!!! At least I was around to ease their panic by laughing at them and telling them their glasses were on top of their heads!
DeleteBtw the poem was well written. The rhyme and rhythm were perfect. I read it aloud and it kept a beautiful beat!
DeleteA familiar feeling, and beautifully and entertainingly limned.
DeleteEnding is inevitable yet surprising at the same time. Rhyme works well throughout.
DeleteA Moment of Panic
ReplyDeleteThe cry of the loon
echoed eerily in the twilight.
I swam in the lake
feeling the water glide
past my summer tanned skin.
I was one with the lake and the sky,
one with the moment.
Swimming gently in the now
I glimpsed a dark shape
with a long neck.
The cry of the loon
echoed again.
My heart beat hard.
I was close to the bird,
perhaps ten feet away.
Whence came this panic?
I did not know, and yet
I felt it strongly. I turned
and swam for the dock
my heart still pounding.
Was it the wildness of the bird
echoing in my chest
or did I feel somehow afraid
in this primal moment,
swimming in the twilight.
very well penned, Tasha! I enjoyed your panic session. It was possibly both the closeness of the loon and the fact that you were swimming alone at night that caused the panic attack.
DeleteSometimes eerie sounds can trigger something inside. Your imagination can be worse than reality.
DeleteIt was a very strange feeling and had no real reason for being as I was not consciously afraid. Thanks for the comments.
DeleteThis happened one summer in Lake Magunticook in Maine where my parents had a cottage and I was visiting.People said it was unusual for Loons to come so close.
ReplyDeletePANIC
ReplyDeleteI fall asleep secure, but wake
Listening to words I can't read
For darkness, and I'm not about to turn
The lights on. I haven't figured where
They come from, but if it's demons
I won't exorcise them. It could be demons--
Who else would feed me porn, husbands
And wives seduced by a tour guide
At Carlsbad Caverns, both going down
On him, orgasms rising over
Screeching bats? Why else would I wake
In a dark closet, naked, clutching
A wool cashmere Chesterfield, bought
Online, in another night sweat,
Shipping free with Prime?
nightmares cause some of the worst panic attacks. "in another night sweat" tells it all. Enjoyed
Deletenight terrors! omg! they are the worst and you let us feel them and see them so well. and the little things that don't make sense and leave us confused as to what they meant if they had any meaning at all. turn on the light :-). they are demons but the demons are in your head. been there!
DeleteLOL. I love the disjointed feeling of dreaming, and the end, buying something online, maybe in your sleep.
DeleteI had night terrors as a child! Never forgot them. I remember waking and thinking fearful thoughts. I can still remember the triggers, too. Ugh! Great poem!
DeleteThis was one of those "get halfway through the poem, then look at the prompt, then figure out if they have anything to do with each other" efforts. As it turned out, they did. It wasn't hard to turn in the direction of panic.
ReplyDeleteI started with a poem-starter gimmick that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't: taking a poem by someone else and writing the opposite of everything that's in it. In this case, I started with a beautiful and heartbreaking poem, Robert Hayden's "Middle Passage," which is probably sacrilege, but poets are evil. These were the lines from Hayden:
"8 bells. I cannot sleep, for I am sick
with fear, but writing eases fear a little
since still my eyes can see these words take shape
upon the page & so I write, as one
would turn to exorcism. 4 days scudding,
So I invented someone who can sleep, is not sick with fear, then wakes up (not an opposite to anything, but he had to wake up if he was going to experience the rest), who reads instead of writes, but his eyes can't see the words, so what does he do? He listens. Then I had enough to follow my own twisted mind, so I left Hayden behind. Feeling? Nothing like Hayden or the opposite of Hayden. Just words to start with, and let them guide me to the feeling.