General Poetry posted August 7, 2020

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A poem written in less than fifteen minutes.

A Request

by Mary Furlong

Here's what you can do

for me ...

Write a letter on

a sheet

of paper -- perhaps a fancy note

card or perhaps a lined

page torn from a notebook. Use a pen

and ink. A dip pen would be good,

for then,

I'd have some blobs and blots to

contemplate as one does with fine

imperfect things.

Write the date at the top and

add to it, in parentheses,

a summary

of the weather -- (a sunny day), ( it looks

like rain),( record lows) -- or some

such thing.

Then write a thoughtful salutation:

Dear friend, or

My beloved, or just

Dearest Mary.

After that, the body -- that's

what they call the main thing,

the meat, the essence of

the message. Give

lots of details. Refer

to people we know and things

we have

in common so

that it's clear the letter is

for me. Or

If it's a thank you,

tell me how you'll use

the gift I sent, or

how my favor made

your day or

how you'll add it to

your collection.

Then, sign off in the usual way --

Yours truly,

Sincerely yours,

With love,

With great affection.

Add your name or

nickname or

both.

And then a P.S. or two.

Put it in an envelope that's too big or

too small so that you have to fold and refold it.

And for stamps, use one that says

to save the wilderness or

honor baseball or

something that seems

to be a message of its own. Or

better yet, use a row of oldies that

add up to more than the cost

of postage today. Then

put it in the mail.
Your part

Is done.

When the letter comes, my heart

will lift. I'll read it and

reread it,

and put it in a drawer to keep

until I have enough of them -

,,of letters -- to tie together

with a string so that

'when I'm gone, someone

will find them and say, "Look.

There are letters.

Handwritten letters! Oh,

she was loved!"

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Fifteen minute free verse writing prompt entry

Writing Prompt
Choose any clean subject for your free verse poem to write in 15 minutes.

It took just a few minutes to write the poem by hand and transfer it to my computer. Thus deciding on line length was completely intuitive. I didn't count the time it took to correct all the capital letters that my compute 'helpfully' provided. If I had, I wouldn't have qualified for this contest. So much for modern conveniences.

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A poem written in less than fifteen minutes.

A Request

by Mary Furlong

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