2013 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 4

Hope the time change hasn't been messing with folks too much (in places that have it--like here in Atlanta). Somehow I get an extra hour, and it still feels like I lost one. How does that happen?

For today’s prompt, take the phrase "(blank) Sheet," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write the poem. Possible titles might include: "Rap Sheet," "Blank Sheet," "How to Fold a Sheet," "I Look Like a Ghost Beneath This Holey Sheet," etc. Feel free--as always--to bend and break the prompt to your will. The poeming is what matters.

Here’s my attempt at a “(blank) Sheet” poem:

“Lost Sheet”

The next American city with a violent crime
reported. I don't want to know if it's Denver
or DC, don't want to know if it involved a gun

or bath salts. I'd rather turn off the television
and burn my atlas. I'd rather go to a diner,
hold the door open for someone, and tip

my waitress more than she's been tipped
all day. I'd rather take a walk in the woods,
but then, I hear shots in the trees and wonder

if it's hunters or target practice for the next
American news story to file across my
media feed. Honestly, I'd rather not know.

*****

Publish your poetry!Click here to learn how.

*****

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and a published poet with three new poems in the latest issue of Otoliths, an online poetry publication out of Australia (click here to read the poems). He’s been writing poems with city names in the titles, but had to modify that plan today (oh well). He's also the author of Solving the World’s Problems, which has a poem or three about American cities and the people who live in them. He’s married to the poet Tammy Foster Brewer, who helps him keep track of his five little poets (four boys and one princess). Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.

*****

Find more poetic posts here: