Now what

I have to say that finding and discovering characters is relatively easy for me. They just appear. I came up with an idea for a story, that takes several character's views of an event. Poof, I had 11 characters vying for my attention. I have already figured out their approach to the event, how they will deal. This I think will stretch me, because I almost might find writing their voices challenging. They are very different, but I hope their voices don't blend and blur. It will involve some research too (which I love) because they live all over the globe. I am going global!!

I think I have a title too, but that may change.

I have written no poetry except for a few blibs and blabs since April. No surprise, but I have been reading more.

Mostly the classics. My son is addicted to the game Age of Mythology, and because of the actual content in that game, he has been talking mythology non stop. We have been researching all those gods and goddesses which got me reading the classics I already had. Which were not enough. I picked up a copy of The Longman Anthology of World Literature, Volume A: The Ancient World for $4.35 used. Perfect condition I might add. Anyway, I have been drilling through the centuries. I am preferring the Greeks I have to say. Although the beauty of Gilgamesh is unsurpassed, even by today's standards. Or a fabulous translation. Either way, excellent. And now I want to learn Cuneiform script, not that I know a thing about it. But it worked for them.

Have a good evening.

Napo questions

These questions were posted at the Poetry Free For All so after I answered them there, I realized I should put them here too.

1) What made you want to do it? This was my fourth Napo, so like Donner, it has become my April tradition. Now I feel if I don't do it, somehow I am failing. April forces me to write. That is a very good thing, because otherwise I tend not to focus as much as I need to waiting for the poem to arrive. Napo makes me go looking for that poem.

2) What do you feel you got out of it? Minimally 30 poems. Over the four years that is quite a stack. I feel some sense of accomplishment just for that. I also feel that I occasionally hit the mark that I seem to have set for myself. I am proud of and surprised by a few of the poems. I like that feeling.

3) Do you think the poems you produced are necessarily worse what you would normally write? I am not sure. I tend to be all over the place because I still consider myself new to writing poetry even though I have done it off and on since high school. If nothing else Napo gives me a place to start for the work of revision.

4) Did it prompt you to write different kinds of poems to the sort you normally write? In what way? I generally stay away from rhyme and meter because I know I don't do it well. It doesn't come to me as naturally as it appears to do some. Napo gives me a place to try these. I feel I have stretched toward forms I normally wouldn't feel confident enough to try. I tried to simplify some of what I was writing, to keep it small and close. I also tried writing from another character's POV. That was strange.

5) Do you feel it goes against any principle of writing poetry, or definition of poetry, or somehow cheapens poetry or anything like that? Oh not at all. If you are writing, and I think Napo bears that out, the sheer effort will produce something, and from that something might come something better. And if not, hopefully you had fun trying. Poetry, with the big P, is big enough for all of us. It can bear the weight of Napo.

6) What are you going to do with the poems you've written during the month? Well right now they are stacked in order sitting quietly on my desk in a folder. In a few days, I will look them over, and remember those I have forgotten. (A weird side effect of Napo.) If I am pleasantly surprised by any of them, they will go onto the "to be dealt with" file. Those that were commented on by others in a positive or hopeful manner will go in that stack too. Then the real work begins. Because I truly believe that is where the poetry is crafted. This is where it gets difficult.

I am doing this everywhere so I might as well do it here too!

::passes out more post-Napo drinks::

April 30

Can You Play Today?

Can you come out today,
can you come to play?

Don’t want to play today,
I don’t want to play.

Who do you play today?
Should you play today?

Maybe you shouldn’t today,
shouldn’t come out to play.

Some days aren’t meant to play,
some days aren’t to play.

I can play tomorrow,
that what I can do.

I will play tomorrow,
that’s what I will do.




Thanks for reading and commenting all month. I was going to say "And in closing...." but I might keep them going. I don't know. It doesn't feel like stopping, so maybe I will play tomorrow. Maybe not. I will see how it goes.

April 29

Autopsy

The pages bent over
like the skin flaps on his chest.
They revealed a troubled
heart, broken
and swollen with effort.
Incised and gutted, diary
lessons were deemed
as failure to thrive.
Reading it seemed like stolen
charity. Nothing was given,
from the empty soiled pockets
of regret.


Thanks for reading.

April 28

Is this a chicken poem?

Pigeon prodding
ought to produce
practical pay-offs
that provide
for a pristine
path, rather than a patchy
penance positioned
on a person’s pump.

If anyone ever tells me I write cr*p poetry, I can proudly agree and point them to this poem! LOL Also I considered using "poem" as the last word, but chose not to.

April 27

“Daughter of Fornication”

Galileo birthed astronomy and opened
the skies like a wanted book.

He opened
Marina, who birthed his three
illegitimate daughters. His legacy for them, infinite
unmarriageability. They were later convented,
never to leave the nunnery,
their heavens closed forever because the sky high
cost of dowries are expensive
for an explorer only looking up,
not looking out.

[Marina was rumoured to be happy with this arrangement but then later married someone else. The daughters couldn't marry because of their mother's situation, and Galileo couldn't afford the dowries, so the only option was the convent. They could never leave the walls of the nunnery. Completely unsurprisingly, it appears the church had no opinion on this matter, as they did on his other more astronomy related actions.]

April 26

Headlines

Mother never said
she liked camping.
She always preferred
working indoors.

So when we were cleaning
out her house after her death,
the discovery came
as quite the shock.

The police officers took us
in for questioning. We had nothing
to say. The body
in the closet spoke volumes.

Even though the autopsy showed nothing
suspicious, you have to wonder
why the dead woman in the closet
was wrapped carefully in a sleeping bag.

Mother used to say when making the beds,
that tidy corners meant the world.
The police report did note
the admirable wrapping on the body.

April 25

Woman in Pompeii, I Want To See Your Poem

You paused for a moment
like a butterfly on a wall
to consider your words
before you flew on.
Placed pen to lip to page to artist
you stared down and measured
the length of your line,
and reflected on
what you would rest there.

I don’t know if the weight
of your words lasted, like the painting,
or if you got the words just so,
but your consideration
of the moment reached me
and I could at least poem your attempt.

April 24

Bothers

Now that I have seen Death
I don’t imagine him anymore.
He isn’t the billowing gust, or the drama
queen on stage, he is the quiet blink
of gone.

When I was eight, I used to imagine
my grandmother’s death. I would cry
in bed alone, hearing the dry
windows creak, knowing she would
be gone one day. That day
didn’t happen until I was
thirty two, while expectantly absent.
It was sudden even though it had been
coming on for years. Slow, no
drama, just a stopping I missed.

When I finally looked Death
in the face, his eyes
were closed. Death wasn’t
even looking back. He couldn’t
be bothered. We provide
the live drama, he is the absent director.

So I don’t imagine
him any more. I can’t
be bothered.

April 23

Tending To

My knees are stained with pollen,
my finger nails are trashed,
Spring will never be scrubbed clean,
no matter how I have washed.

The grass edge is almost trimmed,
though not to Bob’s high standard.
Perfect, I’m not accustomed,
it’s hidden in his back yard.

Snapdragons still not planted,
they’re wedged in my minivan
to be taken for granted,
as I have a back up plan.

Flowers nearly have blossoms,
so I will bet it will be soon,
then I will have a garden,
where I can sit down to swoon.

April 22

She Said

Desire just shows her
all she does
not have. The stripping away
of want, bared nude
like Aphrodite rising
from the sea. Veiled tides, idealized
moments exhibited,
now shelved in the museum
of the ancients.

April 21

Reveille By Request

My son greets me in the morning
singing in sun rising operatic tones,
“Good morning to you!”
He descends the stairs, his notes clearing
my early morning fog with each step.
His arms stretch to the musical
heavens, ruffled hair not
slicked back like the tenors
on TV, no tux or cummerbund
awards event, but the encircling song
of my boy’s hug.

April 20

Tribble Double Dactyl

Star Trekie, Star Trekie,
"The Trouble with Tribbles",
Quadrotriticale,
worrisome grain.

James T. Kirk, James T. Kirk,
buried up to his chest.
Cyrano Jones tries for
financial gain.

April 19

Mining the Dusk

Seeing the giants lined up
having tossed paint
like Finn did rocks, the splash
haunts forward so I can hide
in the waves of your grey
stare. This washed world
of blurry frames, eyelashed
by night, harbours in the shadow.

In 1877 the critic John Ruskin denounced Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875; Detroit Institute of Arts), accusing him of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face", and Whistler sued him for libel the following year. from here. It also reminded me of the time I was in Northern Ireland and went to see the Giants Causeway. I don’t know why it reminded me other than the flinging.

The Nocturnes, this one above in particular In Blue and Silver, are also some of my favourite paintings. Gorgeous.

April 18

We Went Uptown For Lunch on Saturdays.

The lunch counter at Woolworths
had twirly stools upon which my skirt pleats
dangled, umbrellaed over my crossed ankles,
primly balanced, no elbows allowed.

I always selected cherry pie,
from the glass-domed case, and a small pepsi.

Behind the metal rib-edged counter,
the waitress’ uniforms were ironed
onto them as if a seamstress were present,
tucking and pinning a mannequin.

Hamburgers, liver and onions
were oft prepared, the waitress
flipped them onto their raw backs,
sealing their nakedness instantly.

Toasted buns sat neatly pressed
together like lips, posed
on white china, edged in green,
with a smile of tomato, and lettuce wedge.

Later a streak of red
stained the teacup rim, and the napkin
wrung tight on the plate,
next to the double quarter tip.

April 17

Sevenling (Writing Group)

We three women eat deeply:
fruity drinks and assorted dips,
ravishing prose-stacks for play.

We swap houses and stories, green belts
for Mojitos. Banking words for tomorrow,
amongst collected recipes and spouses

at work, we carry home more than words.



My first sevenling. For B and L who did these word things with me!! *g*

April 16

Atmospherics

The wind greases my hair with dust. It skip
ropes around my face, my eyelids twitching
from the whipping. Not of my doing, the forsythia
branches bow down before me, residents
of their own yellow bouncing halo.

The daffodils can’t stand
spring’s floral pressure.
As soldiers of delight
they rise up against
the power that decries
their fanciful freedom.

When the battle pauses for the shortest time, swallowing
the wind, the warm invades again
and shelters up against me. My tentacle
Medusa hair lies down
until the dizzying wind flames return.




Normally I love the wind, and even wrote this poem yesterday in a sort of windy tribute. But it literally kept me up all last night with blowing and banging windows and neighbourhood lawn furniture, so now not so much. I am tired.

Vicky

April 15

Upon Reading Tablets 1-7 of The Epic of Gilgamesh

Through the hegemony of time, those intervals
of broken sentences and [box brackets]
speak the liminal epic of the god
king and wild man.
Uruk’s brother pair.
Into the forest of giant cedars, their Eden,
they played their traveling
dream, struck with swords, restless
hearts in council. Punished
for destiny, deprived
of light, shattered clay tablets
from their Bronze Age door
are rivered to my hand.


Thank you. I am going to keep at this one.

April 14

This is Not a Cat Poem

Charged with a Napo mission
and meowing ambition,
this poem will not be feline.
So I must sadly decline

most gracious offers of such.
Each of the others, I’ll vouch
Olympian in their catlike scope,
will be more amusing. I hope.

Apologies to PIL who would hate this.

Vicky, purring

April 13

Good morning. I am feeling somewhat better so yay!

Bus Tour

All that remained were the sidewalks and front
porch steps after the flood. Green had returned
vesturing gullies smooth. People, houses

were gone. My bus tour took me past bleak
cemeteries of all kinds, both living
and the dead. Quiet sniffles and ruffles

of handkerchiefs announced the gateway trust
over the berm, crying stayed in the air
tight bus. The orange line broke the cracked streets

but was marked new on the next empty block,
tone deepened to rust, each square block tied New
Orleans tight. Sharp even stitches, quilted

a patchwork delivered from the near past,
to a city now holding our future.


Thanks for reading.

ETA: Just thought of a better title: No Rhyme, No Reason.

April 12

Points

watching the scalloped
wood unwind, pencil shavings
as unwritten poems

April 11

Keeping History

My body labours under the impression
that holding onto the years
will work, that the taint of time
will slide past concealed. Looking
up and down, the stroke of each
line appears like the wind
in the waves. My monologue
lives, the fate of me behind it all.

Thanks for reading.

April 10

Titans

Saturn is ringed with all we dream
but I see satisfaction in the eruptions
of Enceladus fountaining the fortune
of what lies
beneath. A miniature reflecting
all sunshine, no glory, hidden
icy behind the alien shadow
of the larger, its story small, spouting
off unseen. Its plumage,
unlike that of a peacock, or a milliner’s
darling attempt, moults
ice chips and paths cold.

Me, another child
of Gaia, watches.



Thanks for reading.

April 9

Words between the Chores

The blanket doesn’t keep me warm.
It lets in the cold like cats pawing
at an opening door. I should be cooking
as dinner time furls in the hungry breeze.
Ranking and flagging meals, this time more tired.
The oven crackles with imagined expansion.

The poems are flying off of me like lice.
They are hopping and hoping, dancing
for their lives. Now raw meat
is smeared across the page; writing
in the kitchen is wrought
with butchering and rendering, the fat
bucket fills. We won’t speak of the broken
carrot peeler, snapped off in an orange haze
of peels and roots, adjectives and verbs,
or the deluge by the sink, the curse of Noah.
His wife did not have a name. But I bet you
she cleaned up after the flood. Two of every
animal! You know she did.

It is quiet now. The blanket is resting,
the kitchen is calm. The cupboards are closed,
and words have a place next to the folded towels.

Thanks for reading.
Vicky
[all true except for the flood and the lice, but there needed to be a flood]

April 8

Archimedes’ Crow

Flying black, the parched desert
crow found her pebbles, each one a weight
to gain. Into the garden she flew
and released her pebbles
into the blank clay jar. The water rose
stone drop by stone drop,
a monument to thirsty effort. She drank
deeply. The brimming weight of the myth
required the pebbles to lift,
a flush of wings that fly.

Thanks for reading.

April 7

Bob’s So Called Garden

As the warden of the leaves
and the snow, Bob oversees
the neighbourhood with the strict
plumb attention of the 6 foot fence he built.
Self appointed arbiter of snow
blowers and the paths they draw,
the rakes and the green carpets
they tidy, Bob is as resolute as the dirt
he dutifully cultivates. Trimmed
trees and twined shrubs gather
round to watch the transmutation, the flair
to the common, the weeded retreat
from individuality. Edges sawed,
colours rationed for the season,
always rationed for the season, Bob
works for the invisible seeding
and the undetectable campaign
so no one will ever be inspired
to say “Oh, how unique!”

Not a poem

Not a poem, but an observation. I am always boggled when I find a new blog to read, someone who is writing astounding things, and when I click the Sub blog button to add it to my Bloglines, I discover no one else is reading that person. Boggled. The one thing about the intarwebs, is that they are so vast, so wide, that huge voices can't be found easily. But that is the joy of the intartubes, is that those voices are out there waiting to be discovered. Well maybe not waiting, because they are going about their business, but then they are found.

Awesome.

Oh, and a note about writing group the other day. It was *so* helpful. I got pointers on POV on the story. I sent chapter 2. I need to tweak my POV because it was bobbling between third person omniscient and third person limited. As the writing has gone on now (for too long, something I have learned about myself), it has changed, and the earlier versions really show the noobiness of the writing. And some of the chunkier rewrites show the difference too. That is obviously a good thing, but it does require checking out the old. I think I have learned that I need to plop it all down in a timelier fashion than I have. If only that the threads stay together, and the story doesn't become repetitive because it has taken so long, and I have to reremember for myself. The reader doesn't need to see that.

Anyway I am very grateful for these critiques, because otherwise I would never get out of my head. I saw a comment the other day elsewhere, speaking about how writing for this person is like translation. To get it from what is in her head, to words on the page. Like translating mediums. That would be me. L commented about a specific bit of dialog, and I said that Trapper was thinking this and this, already clear in my mind. That is what I need to add. The story is already there, and I just need to use words now to get it on the page.

I am avoiding today's poem if that isn't obvious ;-) Have a great one.

April 6

The Capris of Middle Age

No longer the resort capris of Laura Petrie
dancing past her husband forever flat
on the floor; she espousing her deception
in the 1960’s trope of sly hoodwinking
for gain, with luscious undercutting
smiles of perfectly drawn lips,
but the capris of refuge and repair.

Capitalizing on placement, the middle
aged capris sit hiding, taut three quarter length,
failing to reenact what was, forever
pedestrian. Their properties gather
emerging history
and dispense calves still
shapely, fractioning up the whole.

April 5

Morning Medley

I went walking to day-
dream a poem this morning.
As my feet dug
into the gritty doused sand,
the water birds
dove plunking for a morsel.
On his boat, the fisherman’s profile
stood like a cameo against
the neck of the lake.
He flung his line. Breaking
the waves, more birds
took flight. A runner
ran his hill, I nodded with ease
as I passed. A seed
in flight winnowed
onto my now gravel path, never knowing
all was lost. The retriever
pulled his defeated person into the water,
paws and boots sloshing up
more brown. Sounds
of the birds tinseled the morning
annulling the sloshes and the splashes.

Thanks for reading.
Vicky