2014 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 1

Wow! Is it really time for another poem-a-day challenge? Feels like we just finished up April. Well, all I’ve got to say is…bring it on! Let’s poem! For today’s prompt,…

Wow! Is it really time for another poem-a-day challenge? Feels like we just finished up April. Well, all I've got to say is...bring it on! Let's poem!

For today's prompt, write a game over poem. Our family spent a couple months putting together a haunted house in our garage for Halloween, and now that the holiday passed, I've got a bit of that game over feeling. People who play video games know about game over. And people who play other games, whether baseball, Monopoly, or poker. There's a moment in every game at which it is game over--except maybe Minecraft, which may be why it's so popular for so many.

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Here's my attempt at a Game Over poem:

"Game Over"

He read the screen, hung his head, and departed
the arcade feeling defeated and buyer's remorse
because those were his final quarters. But then,

he remembered what the screen asked after
informing him the game was over. It requested,
"Play again?" And darn it, he thought, if I won't

play again. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,
but I'll be back, and I'll be better than ever. I'll play
until the game doesn't end, or if it does, it will

have to say, "You win! You win! You freaking win!"

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of the poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He edits Poet’s Market, Writer’s Market, and Guide to Self-Publishing, in addition to writing a free weekly WritersMarket.com newsletter and poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine.

This is his seventh year of hosting and participating in the November PAD (Poem-A-Day) Chapbook Challenge. He can't wait to see what everyone creates this month--not only on a day-by-day basis, but when the chapbooks start arriving in December and January. Fun, fun, fun.

Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.

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Find more poetic goodies here:

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.