“And now for our (optional) daily prompt! This one comes to us from Stephanie Malley, who challenges us to write a poem based on the title of one of the chpaters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. The book’s table of contents can be viewed using Amazon’s “Look inside” feature. Will you choose “the poem squash?” or perhaps “grocery weeping” or “the blue socks”? If none of the 60 rather wonderful chapter titles here inspire you, perhaps a chapter title from a favorite book would do? For example, the photo on my personal twitter account is a shot of a chapter title from a P.G. Wodehouse novel — the chapter title being “Sensational Occurrence at a Poetry Reading.”
I chose the title ‘ Gas, Food and Longing’ from the book ‘Poemcrazy’
I wake up at the break of day
a gnawing longing
to go back to the past
and plug the gaping holes.
My feet take me to the kitchen,
my hands turn on the stove
the flames leap like a tiger in the dark
I hurriedly turn down the flame and it gasps desperately for breath
Then turning it up a miniscule, I let the gas in
and place the skillet on –
a few drops of water I sprinkle, to test-
they shimmy and disappear into the air;
the pain too much to bear
It’s time- to make an offering of batter
Round and round, I spread it; meditatively as a seer
It hisses and sizzles, and turns a golden brown
sunny mornings, fields of mustard flowers and picnics
by the lake; I’m hungry for the past
Smell of burning fills the air –
the pancake’s burnt brown!
Without another thought I toss it in the bin.
Disquieting memories, stifling past, pricking pain, unsealing hurt-
If only I could do the same;
and begin all over again.
My gnawing hunger would satiate,
this longing to fix the past.
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Eúnoia 
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