Saturday, November 21, 2020

November Chapbook Challenge Day 21: Another Two-fer

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer: Write a poem with the title "Tell ________".  I used the line as though it was a line of dialog, and the poem is the response. It expresses something I have missed since this pandemic began: the experience shared with a large audience at a concert, play, sporting event, even a movie. The last concerts I attended where an outfoor musical festival in Massachusetts in June 2019 and a couple of classical concerts in early 2020, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the student orchestra of which our former international student was a member. The last plays were "Frozen" on Broadway in December, and a high school's production of "Mary Poppins" about a week before everything started to shut down in March. I'm afraid we're headed into darker times again, but I hope that things get brighter next year.


Tell Me What You Want
 
a
concert hall
standing room only
 
our
favorite band
cranked to eleven
 
no
more distance
no more masks
 
they've
returned onstage
for an encore
 
we're on our
feet and screaming



And here's a bonus poem!

Tell
 
(after a Tweet by Edward Norton)
 
you
clutch cards
in tiny hands
 
probably
hiding aces
up your sleeve
 
but
it's reflected
in your eyes
 
your
hand holds
nothing but junk
 
we're all in
calling your bluff

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