This is why I refer to these (optional) “prompts” as assignments. But I do them and I learn from that—sometimes about poetry, often I learn about me. I’m realist to the core, but I tried. This poem is a weak-bunt attempt and might be more weird than surreal.

I was supposed to pick words from a list and write questions. I did. Then, for each question, I was to write a one-line (image/surreal) answer. Finally, I was to place all the answers, without the questions, on a new page and make a poem of just the answers. I did that, too.

Words I picked: thunder, generator, river, artillery, cowbird, quahog, and song. I did not use every word, directly or explicitly, in the poem.

The Question to the Answer

When he saw her, he was thunderstruck.
She wasn’t. Thus, rain.

Generators take over worlds
by growing resentments in simple expectations.

Rivers replenish, carry, produce, flood, and feed.
Women, too. So yeah.

Heavy birds with bullets and blivits
—Boom-boom!

White members of the blackbird family watch
as catbirds sit and
the shitbirds go –
somewhere leaves are falling.

If you’re hungry
do that sort of thing
when nobody’s watching.
Just clam up.

Old is forever but
not young time,
so sleep well.
That’s the way I’ve always heard it looked to be.

Look both ways when searching for answers.
Find your tribe but mind the gaps as you live into the questions.