PAD Chapbook Challenge Days 4-6

Catching up with my poem-a-day products, here are the poems I wrote for days 4 to 6 and the prompts from the Poetic Asides blog that inspired them:

[Day 4: A poem with the title "Night _______"]

Nightswimming (Deserves a Quiet Night)

Michael, you look back in your rearview

at an old photo, at passions, secrets and regrets

and memories that change with you.

As for me, I never skinnydipped,

but there was this evening on the beach

with a girl I'd met in bright sunshine

at a sand castle just hours before.

Here we were, after tramping the boardwalk

and sharing a Chinese dinner,

holding hands in the surf, watching nightbirds

skim the water for food.

We promised to write, and we did a few times,

and though it was centuries ago,

that moment burns like a photo in my brain,

and I see it again when I walk to the shoreline

tonight, under an almost-full moon.

My bare feet suck into the wet sand,

and white foam washes over them,

then pulls away into the dark water.

[Day 5: Write a "pleasure" and/or "displeasure" poem]
[This poem also used the word bank from the Sunday Whirl blog's recent word bank - the words provided were crisis, probe, card, silence, lies, disgust, cover, up, sully, hearings, fraught, resign.]

Burnout

I am tired of the crises

I am tired of the probes,

I am tired of the house of cards

and charlatans in robes.

I am tired of the silence,

I am tired of the lies,

I'm disgusted by corruption

though it's really no surprise.

I am tired of the cover-ups,

the deals behind closed doors

that sully our democracy

and get us into wars.

I am tired of the hearings

and the partisan tirades,

so fraught with animosity

that all decorum fades.

I'm venting my displeasure

at those who would malign

the bedrock we were founded on -

I wish they'd all resign.

[Day 6: Write an "opening" poem]

The Escape

we caught

the cat

in a carrier,

latched its door

after flushing her

with a broom

from under the bed

she'd been adopted

from the wild

by our friend

who was moving now

and couldn't physically

corral the rascal,

a feisty black cat

with one eye

so we helped

and thought the latch

was secure

till we got to the back porch

and she suddenly threw

her weight against

the front of the carrier

thrusting it down

popping the latch

darting through

the cat door flap

and through the back yard

a shadowy blur -

just like that she was gone