PAD Challenge Day 28: Remix Time

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "remix" poem based on a poem or poems you have written this month, and (2) write a poem that poses a series of questions. The first prompt is a favorite go-to of Robert Brewer's at Write Better Poetry, so I've done the exercise before. It can be interpreted in a number of ways, including using lines from different poems and cobbling them together into a new poem. One of my favorite ways to do it is to take the last line from several of my April poems, and make a new one, like this one:

Challenging the Gods

Dust,
bright enough to cast shadows
in the thin Martian air,
can flip us at any moment.
I tread lightly.
 
Yes,
Anyone can fly
to their ultimate heights
in the universe,
challenging the gods
with a promise
of new adventures,
where there is still
much more to believe in,
and then we'll sit
and marvel at the view
with quiet wonder
and launch our downy seeds
into the wind.

[List of source poems below]*

My second exercise (and frankly, I consider it more an exercise than a good poem) combined both prompts. In reviewing my poems and lines from the month, I noticed that were a total of twenty questions throughout them - two poems contained four questions and one had six. This one only has three, all used in prior poems. I also used three lines (in order) from a senryu I wrote, not in April, but late March as part of Write Better Poetry's "warmup" prompts.

At the Door of 4B
 
What have you done?
 
What I should have said
long ago. I told her I was leaving
 
Was I supposed to be your next affair?
 
I thought that was what you wanted.
Since last week, your remark
echoes like a cruel spirit
in my head.
 
Will you let me in?
 
I never wanted this.
For all I care you can rot
in the stairwell.

[List of source poems below]**

I'm also offering up this older poem, because I think it's a different take on a "question poem." This was previously published in the print journal U.S. 1 Worksheets. (Try reading it out loud and see what happens to your tone of voice by the end.)

Trivia
 
Who was the first
How many
What is the word for
Who won
When did
Can you name the
Who is the only
In what year did
Where would you find
Which of these is
How many times
Where in the world did you
When did you think
What is the matter with
Why in God’s name
What kind of question
How dare you
Do you expect me
Why should I
How am I supposed to
Who do you think you are?

*Challenging the Gods: I only made minor changes to some of the original lines, but I did split a number of them into two lines because, for some reason, this poem wanted to have shorter lines. This is how they break down:

Line 1: Despot (Day 7)
Line 2: "owl waits patiently..." (tanka, Day 17)
Line 3: Ingenuity (haiku, Day 19)
Line 4: Laurie (Day 8)
Line 5: The Next Day (Day 5)
Line 6: Questions about Aging (Day 24)
Lines 7-8: Up on the Met Roof... (Day 20)
Lines 9-10: Beethoven and Disney in Outer Space (Day 12)
Lines 11-12: Appointments for the Heart (Day 23)
Lines 13-14: At Four, She Believes in Unicorns (Day 27)
Lines 15-16: Up to Fifty (Day 2)

Line 17: Backyard Fox (Day 7)
Lines 18-19: Bursting (Day 6)

**At the Door of 4B: Here are the sources of some of the lines.

Line 1: Earth Day (Day 22)

Line 4: Misappointment (Day 23)

Line 9: It's Me, April (Day 1)

Lines 2, 7, 12: "what I should have..." (senryu, posted March 30)

The other lines are new for the poem.