Napowrimo PROMPT 13 A FISTFUL OF CONFESSIONS

Welcome back, all, for the thirteenth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2020.

Our featured participant for the day is Wiederholt Fallen, where Day 12’s triolet prompt resulted into a short-lined gem.

Today, our poetry resource is the archives of The Found Poetry Review. During its five years of operation, this journal specialized in publishing poems that were “found,” rather than written. What does that mean? Well, it means poems collaged from existing language, rather than newly created from scratch. A sort of borrowing from the universe.

There’s a pithy phrase attributed to T.S. Eliot: “Good poets borrow; great poets steal.” (He actually said something a bit different, and phrased it a bit more pompously – after all, this is T.S. Eliot we’re talking about). Nonetheless, our optional prompt for today (developed by Rachel McKibbens, who is well-known for her imaginative and inspiring prompts) plays on the idea of stealing. Today, I challenge you to write a non-apology for the things you’ve stolen. Maybe it’s something as small as your sister’s hairbrush (or maybe it was your sister’s boyfriend!) Regardless, I hope this sly prompt generates some provocative verse for you.

A Fistful  of Confessions Prompt 13

Long, long years back, a pig- tailed girl of five,
 had filched a handful of peanuts from the peanut vendor,
in the crowded alley of Bapu bazaar, Jaipur.
She   thought no one was looking, but her dad was looking
with laser eyes that never missed a thing – Not a thing.
Unclasping my tiny fists, right in front of the peanut vendor,
he had smacked the tiny tot, good and proper, for this daylight heist.

Oh, I forgot that giraffe shaped eraser
that I had conveniently pocketed [Was it in Kindergarten?],
lying unclaimed, looking ah, so forlorn, on my friend’s desk.

From the children’s library, I remember
furtively smuggling out a couple of comics,
with the intention of smuggling them back  the next day,
only to fall to the wrath of an indignant dad,
before the dawn cracked, [ how I was whacked!]
I was pulled back to the well- stacked library
with strict reprimands, as I dragged my feet
and wiped my tears, guilt – racked.

I forgot to confess how I stole a glance at that handsome hunk
of a boy of St. Xavier’s School, [who later got into the Civil Services]
from under the very eyes of the nuns of my school!
During an inter- school debate,
where I had brazenly lifted a paragraph or two
from the content of his extremely well -written debate ,
  he shyly told  me that he too had stolen a glance or two  
at me that day . [Ha Ha]
 Let me also confess, that, that stolen glance
was the precursor to many a stolen rendezvous.

Now, before things go out of hand,
let me steal out to steal a few silver linings from the clouds,
 to barricade myself against the frowns of my bitter -half,
when he comes to know of those stolen glances!