YOU CHOOSE
Hey, y’all.
For Day 26 of National Poetry Writing Month, the prompt is to:
Write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Traci Brimhall’s poem “A Group of Moths” provides a great example of these poetic devices at work, with each line playing with different sounds that seem to move the poem along on a sonorous wave.
Your poem doesn’t have to be as complex as all that, though. Just pick a consonant or two and a vowel and dive right into the wonderful world (hey, there’s some alliteration/consonance/assonance right there) of sound.
Here’s my poem:
YOU CHOOSE
By Farah Lawal Harris, 2024
I rudely request, require and desire a refrain from chronic pain
because this belligerent, bony, buss-down bundles to her buttcheeks b*tch
is insane, bringing broken bridges and invisible incisions,
insisting, persisting, resisting
and fisting?
Knots nag annoyingly near my knobby knees to my nectarine sleeves,
sailing slowly and sullenly from sore legs to tightened chest.
Most days lately, pain makes me a mucky mess, I confess.
My mind mystifies me,
meanwhile intuition never reviles, defiles nor lies to me.
In staccato, She sings sweetly:
“Sit silently and listen to me, sweetie.
Nearly every nothing-ass nagging knot in your body
holds old soul stories you swore you forgot.
Sillily, you unwittingly fused fictitious facts—
that’s what causes pauses in peace and creaks in your back.
Frankly, it’s fake news, Farah.
You choose if life is a ruse,
a petulant, puny, pistol-whipping pimp
who punishes and abuses you,
or you brew a new stew,
or better yet, sit and sing sad spirituals in a pew.
“Or you could do what you ‘sposed to do:
coyly call on the clever, cunning alchemist you are!
Yawn until nature lifts the resistance of the heavy pinkish
tongue behind your gums,
and drop the dumb persistence to prove anything to anybody, baby.
Assume absolute and astute authority always!
Control the golden pen—
in cursive, rewrite the ridiculous, revise the end.
Spin the sordid story til surprisingly, you succeed with sexy ease
again and again.”
