prompt 200 young mysteries

This week I have been thinking about brothers, sisters, things unknown and unsaid, black and white photographs become sepia old. And mystery – where hardly the question is even known. The seed for this week’s prompt comes from Kim Stafford writing about his brother Bret. (100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do, How My Brother Disappeared)
 

When Bret was nine, in January of 1958, back in Oregon, he told our father he was writing a story: “The Mystery of a Gun. This gun, when it shoots, says a word – the sound of the owner’s name.”

 
Call that your seed. Call that your starting line – ready, set…
Please title your poem “The Mystery of a Gun“, although you may or may not follow as with Bret’s idea, but however you do, take some leap. No conventional bullets allowed. No one gets to die. It is not that sort of story. Step away from the ordinary, away from the expected. In other words, go wherever you want to go. But listen first. Listen beyond immediate thoughts.
 
What are all the elements here? Left-handed turns, danger, expression, unexpected alternate understandings, what? What might you be able to add into the mix? Do we want to solve small mysteries or leave them unknown? What’s it mean if a brother or sister says this to you? It is a leap – of wondering.
 
And you know, whenever we make a prompt less defined, less specific, that puts more of the work on you! Not every poem arrives with a thud. Some come gossamer silent, just a whisper of whistling air. Sit and stare at a wall or a far away hill, do finger-painting, make a cup of tea and drink it alone. You know, let words gestate.
 
Then, when they arrive, trust them.
 
neil

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