Due to all kinds of things, this project is on an indefinate hiatus. Perhaps at some time in the future, I will pick this back up…so I’m leaving the site active for a little while. If you come across this and are interested or have any ideas to make it better, email me. Thanks to everyone who’s shown interest and participated thus far!

Haitus

For the month of November, I am attempting to participate in Nanowrimo and PAD Chapbook Challenge, so-

I won’t be posting prompts on here. The blog is still open to comments and you are still welcome to send in your responses, which I will then post in a timely manner (because that really takes very little effort on my behalf-it’s your response, you did the work!).

I plan to be back in December, posting more poems and recruiting more participants!

Until then,

Rebecca

Project 4 Prompt, Week 3.

What’s Really Missing From Our Saving Accounts (by Rebecca Chasteen)

Save the earth!
Save prayer in schools!
Save “Merry Christmas”!
Save our rights!
Save our money!

Save our asses!

Save business!
Save healthcare!
Save welfare!

SAVE OUR COUNTRY
from liberals and conservatives and socialists and terrorists!

Save the children! (in a third world country)
Save the memories!
Save the system on a separate hard drive!
Save animals!
Save your virginity!
Save your waistline!

Save your paint job,
your dye job,
your favorite pumps!
Save your corsage from your first dance!

Save your sanity…

SAVE.
YOUR.
SELF.

Because we sure as hell
aren’t saving each other.

Project 3 Prompt, Week 3.

Haiku (Bleed out) by Rebecca Chasteen

Sitting here with you

Is letting a wound bleed out

All the poision.

Project 2 Prompt, Week 3.

Mecca Tastes Like Coffee (by Rebecca Chasteen)

Cloud cover is heavy today
drive fast enough to outrun the rain,
make the pilgrimage to that place you’ve always liked,
where it never hits you, where you feel right.

I feel the fog clear when I walk in
the way absolution gets rid of sin,
I like everything I see and hear,
I feel my blood flowing and my lungs fill.

Kiss these necklace beads like a rosary,
touch the walls, drink the sound,
nothing here brings me down

Sacred, I appreciate
sacred can take so many shapes
and is only as sacred as we make.

I don’t speak prayers right now
not that I can’t, or don’t know how,
not that I need stained glass windows, or hymns-
because I don’t and I never did.

Once I’m here, I have room to feel,
sometimes just feeling feels like enough
and it’s all you have to offer up;.
there are some things words just can’t touch.

Sanctuaries exist
wherever little altars appear,
lifting precisely the thing you kneel;
perceiving creates, and makes them real.

Nobody said church bells had to ring,
Mecca can taste like anything.

Project 1 Prompt, Week 3.

Shine (by Rebecca Chasteen)

moonshine
sticky on your fingers…

what was lost wasn’t even real;
passionate
creative
fantasy
girls in women’s bodies choose to believe

and now you’re flat on your back
moon shine on your face and on your tongue,
it’s a different shine
and it’s not so bad

who knew you had it in you to take it like you did?

“Petition” Response

Following the poem, you will find the response

Petition (by Rebecca Chasteen)

I’m still
wondering why this is still so hard; managing, breathing
why there are still days I can’t get past survival

I’m still
wanting more than that

I’m still
missing something, it seems
to hold me together

still
cracked
glass
pilgrim

I’m still
petitioning for a stillness of peace to piece me back together,

for assurance, still assurance
glazing me, and filling in the cracks
to glorify every little fragment

to tint me, stain my purpose, arrange my story
and sit me, completed, in the light

so I am a masterpiece
and not a constant mess

I’m still,
waiting
I’m still
wrestling
I’m still

here

This is a series of photos titled “Promise”. The photos are Catherine Phillips’s. I felt Catie had a story, and photos to go with it, that connect with the idea of “Petition”, so with her consent, have responded with them here.

“Promise”

The Before submitted By Catherine Phillips, photo by Courtney Bell

Rain's Reflection by Catherine Phillips

Nineteen Weeks by Catherine Phillips