Today’s prompt is called “Twenty Little Poetry Projects”, and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. The challenge is to use/do all of the following in the same poem (below in Notes). I didn’t get them all since I came across a classic Les Misérables quote browsing the web and didn’t know how to follow it. Whatever, enjoy 🙂

But why are my feelings notes of Balinese coffee?
Light and wispy at times with an air of pineapple or caramel
And like a sharpened plum knife to the gut in the interim
Yet on the surface I am well composed, Roosh that’s correct right?
¿Puedes escucharme? Ah, no sé…
Goosebumps crawl down the back of my neck
Inching around the brim of my collarbone like a naïve tourist lost in Bronx
Forking across my shoulders and onto my forearms
All the while, the Spring Azures nestled at my fingertips are drawn out
Cascading up past my wrist on the collision course
They are scheduled to arrive at dawn, RIP
Why is the coffee pot so condescending?
It jeers at me without constraint
All it would take is a flick of the wrist
And it’s translucent, precarious figure would be no more than shards of glass
Sprawled across the tile, they would dash for the exit trembling with fear
And I just wish the cold granite below my elbows
Was produced by a holed-up, perspiring artist quivering after Redbull #4
It’s reflective nature nothing more than a pre-baked lightmap
For if we were in a simulation, I would tell her no doubt
No! I will tell her
No, I won’t… I shut my eyelids instead, imagining we’re together
I can almost see the white sand break along shimmering water
I can almost hear the hoarse call of the pelican above
I can almost smell the salt dancing in air
I can almost taste the mint, the bartender’s hidden special
I can almost touch rounded grooves of the seashell
“Aimer ou avoir aimée, cela suffit. Ne demandez rien ensuite.”

References:

• Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Notes:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.