by 
“You don’t just want to sit in a chair.
You want to experience it!”
Everyone should have a chair
A big brown teddy-bear of a chair
Monstrous huge
To hold you in a gentle teddy hug
While you, poeming and bookworming
Sip steaming oolong and
Nibble petite madeleines
© 2008, Jamie Dedes
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
THEME: Do you have a favorite chair or a favorite place (maybe a café) for writing. Tell us in your poem/s and …
- please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
- please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose
PLEASE NOTE:
- only those poems on theme and shared in the comments section under this post will be published.
Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, September 16 by 8 pm Pacific Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check The Time Zone Converter.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
ABOUT
Jamie Dedes. I’m a Lebanese-American freelance writer, poet, content editor, blogger and the mother of a world-class actor and mother-in-law of a stellar writer/photographer. No grandchildren, but my grandkitty, Dahlia, rocks big time. I am hopelessly in love with nature and all her creatures. In another lifetime, I was a columnist, a publicist, and an associate editor to a regional employment publication. I’ve had to reinvent myself to accommodate scarred lungs, pulmonary hypertension, right-sided heart failure, connective tissue disease, and a rare managed but incurable blood cancer. The gift in this is time for my primary love: literature. I study/read/write from a comfy bed where I’ve carved out a busy life writing feature articles, short stories, and poetry and managing The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Testimonials / Disclosure / Facebook
Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications Poets Advocate for Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! , September * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 
Here’s my response Jamie and I do hope you’re feeling better. I do hope I haven’t pasted it twice!
The Rocking Chair
It gleams
genuine teakwood I’m told
so smooth
ideal for dreaming through a tv show
contemplating voices in my head
staring at finely worked saptaparni
leaves past a money plant
frothing the window ledge and
a white metal flash of car roof
reflected in the pumpkin soup
in my white ceramic spoon
and carved too
ideal for leaning into the pillowed
back, cancelling muscles and
joints completely
heavy-set
rocks gently
not the best place to work alert
at anything remotely productive
and yet it can be
durable
for I carry its numbing ease
through the day
enduring between thoughts
that flow between the glazed
slats imprinted on my mind
so durable
one day it’ll carry mine
without me
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No worries.
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The Rocking Chair
It gleams
genuine teakwood I’m told
so smooth
ideal for dreaming through a tv show
contemplating voices in my head
staring at finely worked saptaparni
leaves past a money plant
frothing the window ledge and
a white metal flash of car roof
reflected in the pumpkin soup
in my white ceramic spoon
and carved too
ideal for leaning into the pillowed
back, cancelling muscles and
joints completely
heavy-set
rocks gently
not the best place to work alert
at anything remotely productive
and yet it can be
durable
for I carry its numbing ease
through the day
enduring between thoughts
that flow between the glazed
slats imprinted on my mind
so durable
one day it’ll carry mine
without me
LikeLiked by 1 person
A Strawberry-Red Sofa
Give me the warmth
of a padded sofa
where I can cat-curl
with pen and notebook.
I could ink my poems
at a mahogany bureau:
a gift from Mum and Dad
when I passed my 11-plus.
A place to read books
and write essays
for English homework.
The Haunted House.
A Rainy Night
and later, A-level critiques
of The Windhover
and The Wasteland.
I could replace
the bureau’s worn hinges
and search old words
locked in wood-memory.
But give me comfort
and today’s open page.
A family living room
with deep-pile rugs.
A strawberry-red sofa
with three plump cushions,
wide windows
onto my garden
and a view of treetops,
T.V. aerials, satellite dishes
and cotton-wool clouds
dreaming across the sky.
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greetings and gratitude from LA ❤
you buy we fry
my favorite chair
are the sidewalks
those in the 20’s and 30’s
edge of downtown streets
a mix of rustic houses
shacks and alley ways
some with flowers
some with trash
my favorite chair
is not comforting at first
it affords me front row view
to the less palatable aspects
of genteel society
exposed vaginas cocks
twisted tongues
defecation out of
hundreds of orifices
then there’s the strip mall chair
with the upright and honest
vendor my favorite one
is Donicio from Panama
he has a way of telling
funny stories
across from there
is another chair
‘you buy, we fry’
it’s mostly busy
on the sabbath
my eyes their
veils of formal education
lifted and the life of life
exposed to all my senses
there is something thrilling
about hopscotching through
dog shit in a city
that treats us all the same
my favorite chair
in the bars of the people
although people aren’t
what they used to be
my amiga Casimira
has the latest I Phone
when i want to look in to
her deep brown eyes
and have her Oaxacan accent
transport me to another land
especially on jury duty day
to no avail
i lost my friend
to the latest pop up store
at the end of most days
when the journey’s done
i go home to my derelict
dog and two jaded kitties
with caffeine in one hand
Phoebe Ann the cat on my lap
the memories of my rest stops
deposited silently
in the removable data bank
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Old, young, he or she
Everyone shouts after me 😀
because everybody likes
happy to be
While you are human being so
Everyone should have a chair, a poem requests
Old, young, he or she
Everyone shouts after me 😀
We are human beings 😊
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Hi Jamie… here’s my poem in response to today’s prompt:
The Mountain
The mountain calls
Draws me to her slopes
Overlooking the world below
Above, my perspective changed
The solitude is freedom
A peace and rest
To forgive
Begin again
Mind clear of every expectation
My thoughts flow
Responding to the mountain
© 2019 Jason A. Muckley
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Welcome here, Jason. I can certainly see where sitting with mountain would inspire the pen. Lovely! Please don’t forget to send photo and brief bio for your introduction on Tuesday. thepoetbyday@gmail.com Thanks!
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I emailed it to you… I think I sent it in one time before when I had posted on a prompt sometime in 2018… it has been awhile 😉
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my response:
Everywhere is my favourite place to sit and write.
Every weather notes made in the pad of my brain.
Sat on metal forms in cemeteries gusted by autumn, deep in leaf litter.
Sat on metal forms in towns while Dippers dip around, and shoppers hustle their lists into bags.
Sat in my garden as the pears blush with the last few days of rain,
ready for the fall and separation from their mam.
Sat at home in the leather armchair my muse curls up in my lap after a good scratch, her small heart taps and purrs a rhythm on my thigh.
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13 years ago I wrote….
“Don’t be scared of the empty chair.
Sit on it.
Don’t be scared of the empty chair.
Stand on it.
Don’t be scared of the empty chair.
Draw it”.
this chair has since been in exhibition; now one of my favourite chairs…..
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Thank you Jamie
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