PAD Day 21: Erasing and Defining

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo:

(1) Write a "what you are" poem and/or a "what you're not" poem, and 

(2) Write an "erasure" poem.

The erasure poem is a found poem of sorts, where the poet takes an existing text and cuts it down so there are many fewer words that create something quite different from the source. The words are often left in the position they occur on the paper originally, giving the poem a sort of "concrete" feel. I once did an erasure of Billy Collins' "Victoria's Secret" that I think came out pretty good, but I haven't really many others till now. This is actually an erasure of my Day 17 blog entry, including the two poems I posted that day. Actually, this would have fit well with NaPoWriMo's earlier prompt to write a "social media" poem.  I don't know if this one is totally coherent, but see what you think. (I did compress the layout of some of the lines for aesthetics' sake.) The title is a partial "erasure" of the letters in the title of the blog entry - otherwise, it doesn't mean much.

Pay Another

I'm not entirely happy

I don't th but I guess I'm more satisfied with this one, which

                             the Poetic 

                   Playground

They dedicated it today on Capitol Hill
so the kids of senators and congresspersons
can learn what their mommies and daddies do.
Here, they can seesaw up and down on the issues,
slide down from integrity to scandal and shame,
spin on the merry-go-round without getting anywhere,
sit in a seat on a chain and kick their feet Into the air,
and depending on which way the wind blo right.  

 second one was an interesting exercise if not wholly successful.  I decided to take every tenth word that I've posted I'm not the mos Facebook, it wasn't a

ridiculously longmore common, throwaway words like "the", "in" and "for" as well as                                                        repeated words (though I kept "try" and "pot:

And here's the poem, using and so is my persona
, to a

n I unfriended you yesterday

In the beginning, we were soulmates,

sharing our poetry and offering critique -

I liked your honesty. We also had a mutual love

for music - we discussed favorite CD's and great albums,

even reminisced about our first stereo.

We both liked a Billy Collins' poems,

Roseanne Cash's songs,Sporcle quizzes and Candy Crush.

Then you started to swing to the Right.

I may never know why you

That was my warning bell -

maybe we weren't so alike after all.

I'm just an average 

I can't stay           with you 

grab me 

We can post and exhibit anything, we want

but even when we take down our notes,

remove the tacks from the surface,

the afterimage 

We need to think of     repercussions;

we're neither blameless nor anonymous anymore.

Online friendships are tricky 

can bring it all crashing

And here's a "bonus" poem written just for Robert's prompt:

Mezzo

I am not your best day ever

or your worst nightmare.

I am not climbing the corporate ladder,

nor am I heading down a slippery slope.

I am not Spartacus or Legend, the Walrus or Groot.

I am not Tinker, Evers or Chance,

nor am I Dewey, Cheatem, or Howe.

I am not Who's on First,

but I am Who Wanted to Be a Millionaire.

I don't have all the answers

because I don't know all the questions.

 I am not Iron Man, but I am a Pepper.

I am not Walt Whitman, W.C. Williams, or Billy Collins,

nor will I ever be. There is no way I will be

Elizabeth Bishop or Mary Oliver, either.

Maybe Ogden Nash, if I could come up with more clever rhymes.

I am not an animal;

I am a human being.

I am not the first to ever,

nor will I be the last.

I am not the world's foremost authority,

or its last hope.

I'm not the best or worst.

I'm somewhere in the teeming hordes of the middle,

and though I would prefer more privacy,

I like it just fine.