No! (NPM ’16-Day 27)

No!

lower the ceiling
stop dreaming and get real
distract the appetite
.    with cold water and celery
wipe that smile off your face
snuff out the candle of “what if…?”
turn off the music
leave the room
.   and don’t forget to close the door

© 2016 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

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The poem “Yes” by Catherine Doty (Adele Kenny’s poem prompt for April 24th) gave rise to this contrarian response.

In her Tips on how we might use the poems she links, Ms. Kenny says:

1. Don’t feel compelled to match your content to the examples—in fact, do just the opposite and make your poems as different as you possibly can. The inspiration titles and the example poems are only intended to trigger some poetry-spark that’s unique to you, to guide your thinking a little—don’t let them enter too deeply into your poems, don’t let their content become your content.

2. Let your reactions to the key words and poems surprise you. Begin with no expectations, and let your poems take you where they want to go.

I guess that happened with “No!”