On the Cusp of, What?

I’m still very much enjoying this Poem a Day thing, venture, experiment, call it what you will, where I can use the prompt of the day, and use it to write a brand new poem. How awesome is that? Hugely awesome, that’s how much.

The poetry prompts are provided by three lovely people, Kathy Parker, Paul R Kohn and Laura Greaves, and the idea is that poets/people who may realise they are poets if they undertake this challenge, those people, all use the prompt for the day, and write a brand new poem. It’s that simple/difficult/whatever …

When I spotted this new poetry thing, on Kathy’s Twitter post, back before February began, I thought, yes, something to keep me writing more, yes, yes, yes! So I got involved, and thought about what I would do with the new poems I would write. The obvious answer to that question was to post them on this blog, which you are looking at right now.

And when this wonderful month of #poemadayfeb is over, I should have enough poems to put together a chap book of poetry, and may interest a publisher in publishing such a little poetry book … Or I could print it myself, perhaps if a publisher doesn’t appear to do that work for me …

I am a poet, writer, and occasional public speaker, and if I can get more people coming along to my writers website and blog, something magical may happen. There has been mention of rainbow unicorn butterflies happening, but I may be confusing that with something on social media. Probably Facebook, and there was a cute picture, but I digress …

Anyway, the poetry prompt for today, 16 February #poemadayfeb, was/is “Cusp”. I thought about what the word meant to me, then checked out the actual meaning, thought a bit more about my life, and the lives of others, and I came up with the poem below. It isn’t a rhyming poem, it isn’t a fancy pants poetic form, it is merely unrhyming stanzas of three lines for each stanza.

Enough talk of what it may be, here is what it is, a brand new poem for today:

 

Get there & jump!

On the edge, the turning point, the cusp,

the spot where things can change,

go from being one thing to being another –

 

child to teenager, teenager to adult

adult to, well to what? To whatever it is

at the ultimate edge for us all to face.

 

Bad to good, or good to bad, crossing

transitioning, becoming something else,

something other that what we were,

 

venturing into a new state of being ;

ugly/beautiful, unknowing/thoughtful,

become aware of a new and better you.

 

It can happen, but only if you are ready

to approach and cross over, move into,

metamorphose, as tadpole does to frog …

 

If you stay the same, unmoving, blocked

stopped, in stasis state, when all else

is changing – you’ll be run over, crushed,

 

never able to achieve a single thing

worth getting or doing, chances ignored,

achievement impossible, a life lost …