PAD Day 26: Dots & Scythes

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write poem with the title "Last ________," and (2) write an "ars poetica" poem (a poem about poetry).

I've written quite a few ars poetica poems in my career. The first section of my full-length collection The Bungalow of Colorful Aging contains several of them. But this morning, after a busy and tiring day yesterday in which I was still able to crank out one of my longer poems of the month, I decided to be brief, although I've produced two short poems for today. Here's the first:

Last Line of the Poem
 
There. The pen inks
a final period.
It’s perfect.
Nothing more
needs to be said.
Except, maybe
it’s not really the end.
Three more dots….

My second poem adds a third prompt that has always been one of my favorites. I was inspired by Thomas Alan Holmes, who shares a blog with my friend Vince Gotera (The Man with the Blue Guitar), and wrote a poem today which employs song titles from the band R.E.M.  The third prompt is to take a music playlist (from a streaming service like Pandora, Spotify or Amazon Music; or an FM radio playlist, a CD, etc.), shuffle the playlist program, and write down the titles of the next five songs. Then incorporate those titles into the text of your poem. It's interesting how those words an phrases may take you in a direction you may not have thought about, as they did for me here. So here is my "Last"/ars poetica/ playlist poem:

Last Poem
 
Knock, knock.
I’m here. You weren’t expecting me?
Wasn’t I in your dreams last night?
What about the night before?
No, you can’t finish that poem.
It’s time. ‘Tis the damned season
for harvesting—
well, every season is,
as long as I have this scythe.
Don’t fear the reaper—
but don’t beg another chance,
a plea for starting over.
I’m just doing my job,
with the tool of my trade on my shoulder,
just as yours, filled with ink,
is in your hand.

The song titles were:

(Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon

(Was I ) In Your Dreams - Wilco

The Night Before - The Beatles

(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

'Tis the Damn Season - Taylor Swift

Interestingly, three of the five songs had parentheses in the title, which I felt gave me the option not to use the parenthetical part (as in the Lennon song.) Also, I changed the title of the Wilco song from "Was" to "Wasn't",  and changed the Swift song from "Damn" to "Damned", because it seemed more appropriate in a poem about Death.