Poems 17, 18, & 19

Now that I'm back from a week on the Big Island of Hawaii, I have to catch up on my poetry assignments. I actually lugged my laptop with me, thinking I'd keep up with my writing, but internet access was next to impossible where we were staying and before I knew it I was a poem or two behind, and now I have eight poems to write to catch up and the poems from yesterday and today as well. To follow are poems for June 17, 18, and 19th along with a few photos from our trip.


Prompt 17: Write a poem about the process of writing

Writing is…

Waking up with the birds
Sleepwalking into the kitchen
Turning on the teapot

Stumbling into the office
Flipping on the switch to my laptop
Whose processor takes about as long to warm up as I do

Pushing my inner critic out of the way
Giving the voice within free range

Setting an intention
Placing my hands on the keyboard
Waiting for them to move

Trusting that the words are there,
hiding like bees sipping nectar from spring wildflowers.

Prompt 18: Start and end your poem today with the same line, which must include the word "orange"

Pele

Bright orange lava oozes out of Kilauea and
Flows into the Pacific, a magnificent fountain of flames
Lover
Seducer
Traitor
Goddess of fire, lightning, volcanoes and violence
Licking the bark of the flowering ohi’a tree
Ruling from her home, the fire pit Halema’uma’u crater,
At the summit of Kilauea
Roaming the Big Island Mauna Loa, in one of her many forms
Dog
Red-eyed old woman
Young woman dressed in white
Magma as dark as night
Bright orange lava oozes out of Kilauea and
Flows into the Pacific, a magnificent fountain of flames

Prompt 19: In today's poem, cut in the lines from a song you like every stanza or two. The lines are from the 1981 song Working on My Tan by Tim Curry

Jan Tan

Going on Vacation
Time for a Holiday
Looking for great beaches
Hawaii’s the place we’ll stay
Surfing, snorkeling, hiking
There’s so much here to do
But the thing I want the most
Is to spend some time with you
Working on my tan. Oh man.
Working on my tan.

We toured the coffee plantations
Visited Akaka Falls
Stopped at the Waipio Valley Overlook
Ate Poke in the raw
Fumes from Kilauea
Surrounded us in vog
Thurston Lava Tube was an adventure, and
Although I was in awe, I wished I were
Working on my tan. Oh man.
Working on my tan.

The days we spent in Kona weren’t
Typical for June
The skies were mostly overcast
The sun was gone by noon
While other tourists hit the strip for
Shopping at its finest
My mission here was clear
I lay my towel in the sand and started
Working on my tan. Oh man.
Working on my tan.