HOW TO GET BEHIND THE 8-BALL

HOW TO GET BEHIND THE 8-BALL

When life throws you too many fast curves,
and the road to nowhere is treacherous,
you must put your shoulder to the burden
and shove it off the cliff into the sea.
That’s the advice part. Seems simple enough.
But when you’re crippled by grief,
because the pool shark of an ex wants something,
you’re not sure what, it leaves you snookered,
your thoughts are scattered like a bad break-shot,
and that sandstorm of despair comes riding in
like a sweaty apocalypse hellbent on revenge,
so you can barely get out of bed, then what?
Do you abdicate? Rack it up to experience?
Or sink the 8-ball into the wrong pocket
when the money ball is no longer on the table?

1/11/2020


Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center New Year’s challenge
Prompt #26 (for January 9th, 2020)
Less than a day after writing yesterday’s prompt, I watched a CBS Sunday Morning segment on David Byrne, the principal songwriter, singer, and guitarist for Talking Heads. In it, he discussed one of his current projects: an online magazine called Reasons to Be Cheerful. Here’s some information on the magazine, and website itself:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/david-byrne-online-magazine-reasons-to-be-cheerful-876091/

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/

Write a poem with that title—“How to Be Cheerful”—in an authentic voice—or an ironic one. Here are some other options:
Write a Part II/conclusion/continuation to the poem you wrote from yesterday’s prompt;
Write a poem entitled “How to Be _____________,” a “recipe” or pedagogical poem with you—or your narrator persona—as the experienced expert. Maybe your poem is “How to Be a Middle Child,” “How to Be On the Right Side of History,” or “How to Be Quasi-Apathetic.”
Write a poem about a time when someone told you to “just cheer up,” or “walk it off,” or “turn that frown upside down.”
For extra credit, write your poem to music that seems to “harmonize” with the tone of your poem—or whose melody, rhythm, or genre is entirely antithetical to the flow of your poem. So whether it’s The Piano Guys or Arnold Schönberg, Beatles or Bebop, “meditation music” or Metallica: play and write on…