Monday October 19th, 2009

The exercise:

Let's get the week started with: lost in time. I suspect you'll be able to sort out the inspiration for this one on your own.

Also: my deepest, most sincere congratulations to Greg on the occasion of his winning the Protagonize Autumn Poetry Tournament :)

Mine:

My wrist is light,
No longer heavy with time;
My thoughts take flight,
No hands pulling down my mind.

I'm free to roam,
To dream, to wonder, to play;
My watch at home...
Yet they still say I'm late.

5 comments:

Greg said...

Aw shucks, thanks! I wasn't expecting to win (and after I messed up who was judging I was sort of expecting to be kicked out for confusing Archi ;-) ) although I have been on tenterhooks for the last two days about it. (PS, Tenterhooks sounds like it could be a daily-writing starter.)

I guess I'll have to ask Archi what my duties as official Protagonize Autumn Poet Laureate are -- kissing pensioners and dropping babies I suspect.

I really liked the dream-like quality of your poem, with the way the last line pulls it down to earth with a bump. I can truly sympathize :)

Lost in Time

My hand skitters,
Erratic movements, sometimes pausing
For as long as two minutes,
Then frantically hurrying to catch up
With my mind again.
Somewhere outside me:
a real world where real people
Do mundane things,
La vie quotidienne,
...and I do not envy them.
My words describe another place,
Another age, another race,
And there I find that years can pass
In the blinking of my inner eye.
Cities rise, nations fall, people die.
And I,
I persist, floating on the currents
In the ether, narrating tales
and documenting histories
That otherwise would not be told.
Not just adrift in space,
But lost in time as well.

TAMmommy said...

Lost in time:

Lost in time,
somewhere between reality and fanasty,
somewhere over there,
but not quite here,
is were I long to be.

Lost in time,
the transition from now,
to tomorrow and back again,
not fully complete,
somewhere in the middle,
is were I am stuck.

Lost in time,
no focus, no direction,
aimlessly wandering to and fro,
Lost in time and place,
is what has become of me.

Marc said...

Greg - haha, I'm sure you'll be a wonderful representative of the Protag poet community :)

Speaking of which, that was a hell of a poem. I was going to quote my favorite part but then I couldn't decide which bit I liked best.

Tam - oh that's excellent. Wonderful final stanza, but the whole thing is great :)

Man, I'm so lucky to be able to check the comments every day and see such wonderful writing.

Monica Manning said...

I'm late ... sorry!

Lost in Time

Blades of sunlight slashed through the trees; brilliant swords that lit our way as we strolled in the woods behind our house. Though our conversation was rather mundane—work, kids—there was an inexplicable intimacy.

My breath caught when you reached over to brush my hair back; cupped a hand behind my neck and rubbed your thumb along my cheek. My eyes tried to tell you how much I miss you.

I know I can’t see you every day. And I know I won’t see you forever, but I will visit our woods and hope that I see you again.

Until then, I will visit you here. I’ll lay flowers by your stone and tell you I miss you.

Every day.

Marc said...

Monica - that's quite alright. In fact, considering the prompt, I'd say it's appropriate!

That's a very lovely scene you've painted there. So much longing in so few words. Great job :)