Deconstruction Ex Machina

...an erasure poem of a writing prompt by Marty McConnell

As always, this writing prompt is intended to be
a jumping off-point, so go where the impulse
takes you. Consider something inanimate,
from memory. Write down four characteristics
of a sentence that begins "Whoever made you..."
that includes a sentence that starts with "Why...?"
What does a specific part of this object reflect
or not reflect? Name this object of that name.
How does the Maker write a sentence
in which the object speaks to the Maker?
Where does the Maker go? Write a sentence
in which the Maker
is no longer

here.

St. Patrick's Day Haiku

substitute pagans
for "snakes" and switch genocide
for the "drove out" part

[No Translation]

If I had to be honest, I have never fallen
in love, so much as falling near longing.
The longing is to be a part of something
bigger than me, but that bigger thing is
the fear I don't belong anywhere. I can't

remember what it was like to be held
as a child. I don't mean the memories
are lost; I mean that I was never held
as a child. This was loneliness learned
before language. This is an emptiness

that never knew its own name, a pain
I don't know how to talk about. Alone
is the only thing that feels at all organic;
everything else is just throwing names
at feelings for which there are no words

One Leap Balances the Other

The way clocks are digital:
automatic updates advance
the numbers used to measure
the time. One minute it is this
time, the next? We are moved
an hour, one way or the other.
We spring ahead, we fall back.

There was no 2 am last night.
1:59 to 3:01 in a lone jump
without moving. I have heard
the origins stories, I assume
each forward/back balances
the scales and so everything
survives long enough, twice

a year. But of that lost hour,
who knows? No one speaks
of it for more than a few days.
It is forgotten but not gone,
an hour of the 13th floor; of
missing time pieces; we talk
around it, like it's really gone.

Haiku 3/8/17

if you slice the sky
in two, you get the whole sky;
you can't slice the sky

Hopscotching the Elephant

I said it wasn't that I didn't want to forgive myself

for my mistakes, it's that I never learned how to

separate myself like that. I am the Cognito ergo sum

of my mistakes, Forgiveness blunts the bitter edge 

I need to be hard on myself. I don't know different.

She said, Try approaching the forgiveness in steps,

in small pieces. Like eating an elephant: you're not

going to be able to do it all at once, never mind

even large chunks, so pace yourself; work a little 

at it every day. She said It's also like Hopscotch; 

you know the basics, everything else is moving 

through the motions you know. While I don't

hopscotch (I never learned), and I'm an ethical

omnivore (so elephant is right off the menu),

the rest makes sense to me somewhere deeper

than the spoken word. And while I don't know

the how, or the if, of forgiving oneself. Still, 

I recall a hopscotch song:  fire, fire, false alarm, 

I fell into forgiving's arms. Is this going to be

the one? Yes, no maybe so; yes, no, maybe so

The "Fire fire" chant adapted from a post on

Clattery MacHinery on Poetry
https://clatterymachinery.wordpress.com/category/hopscotch-songs/

Grateful for the inspiration.