the Black Briefcase

I often wonder what
is in the brief

case the black secret
briefcase

that my wife
carries with her

everywhere but I
do not know what it is


Celebrating the 22nd Anniversary of Writing.Com, pack your briefcase with your writing tools and …
RULES:

CONTEST runs month of September. When clock tips into October, no further entries accepted
CONTEST accepts two poems per Writing.Com member
CONTEST accepts either BITEM or ENTRY format
Old and new creations are welcome, provided they adhere to SPECIFIC RULES of this month’s CONTEST. I’ll be more receptive to entries inspired by prompts
You can edit your entry anytime during the CONTEST period
SPECIFIC RULES


In honor of William Carlos Williams’ (WCW) poem The Red Wheelbarrow, I want the CONTEST to inspire poems that intone or parody the poet’s penultimate free verse inspiration. Poem LINK:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45502/the-red-wheelbarrow

1) write a poem with enjambment that stresses compound nouns as WCW did with ‘rain/water’ and ‘wheel/barrow’
2) poem length and format be eight lines written in couplets (that’s four 2-line stanzas). There is no syllable/line length requirement
3) poem must not use the phrase ‘so much depends on’ as WCW’s poem
4) no punctuation or capitalization (word usage and line breaks express this power)
5) I will not disqualify entries for any reason (I will be able to spot quality, effort)
THEME


6) To celebrate Writing.Com’s 22nd anniversary, the theme is SUIT/CASE or BRIEF/CASE and their presented color. It could be your own case color, or other. Here’s where you can do a second entry, if you want to explore a different case color, and/or the number TWENTY/TWO. You can be creative with enjambment with other stark, powerful nouns.

Enjambment
Definition of Enjambment
Enjambment is a literary device in which a line of poetry carries its idea or thought over to the next line without a grammatical pause. With enjambment, the end of a poetic phrase extends past the end of the poetic line. This means that the thought or idea “steps over” the end of a line in a poem and into the beginning of the next line. The absence of punctuation allows for enjambment, and requires the reader to read through a poem’s line break without pausing in order to understand the conclusion of the thought or idea.
Enjambment is often used by poets as a means of minimizing the difference between the sound of verse and the sound of prose, creating a poem that flows freely and emphasizes unexpected beats and words for the reader