April 30, the month is done!

I am going out not with a bang, but with a whimper. Bits and pieces now. I have swept together these bits and have nothing whole left. So with that I give you bits and a filk.

The prairies whisper
Its beauty to those quiet
Enough to listen.
….

Carving the stone
Of my life
Releases me.

Each chip away
Reveals the shape, the lines of experience,
Statements of skill.
…

For something rather
Insubstantial, it can sink
To the bottom fast.
…
My son likes to climb on the backs
Of faux dragons. Summiting the buried tires to claim
The princess, he holds his expected role
Firmly tempered by the playground.
Assuaged, His Honah Lee.

…
And a filk, because all good parties end with a song. Apologies to Bay City Rollers. I didn’t think filks were allowed, but I have seen a few. I think. Wrote this on the 19th.

NaPoWriMo night!
NaPoWriMo night!
NaPoWriMo night!
NaPoWriMo night!

Gonna keep on writin' for the
whole long month
NaPoWriMo night, NaPoWriMo night
Writin', trying and its only the nineteenth
NaPoWriMo Night, NaPoWriMo night
I-I-I-I-I just can't wait,
I-I-I-I don’t want to be part of the attrition rate!

At the good ole poetry show,
I gotta go
NaPoWriMo Night,
NaPoWriMo Night
Gonna post it all, rhyme it up
Do it all, have a ball,
NaPoWriMo Night,
NaPoWriMo Night
It's just a NaPoWriMo Night
It's just a NaPoWriMo Night
It's just a NaPoWriMo Night

Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. I have enjoyed this tooth pulling process very much. What that says about me is up to you to decide.

Almost thirty, I could quit now and be 29 forever

I just have one more to go. One more and I will have written 30 poems in 30 days.

I am tired. I have a huge blank in my mind. I am having trouble remembering words, thinking of anything concrete. It is restful in a way, like a blowing cloud. But I do prefer me with words, words flowing. I like the busy meter of my life with words. I feel very empty. I prefer the fullness.

I think I will use May to fill me back up again. May is hard for other reasons, but that refilling might help with that too. We shall see.

I had no goals in this other than to finish. On the good days I was floating on the phrases I made, the twist of life that is poetry. On the bad days I wondered whom I was kidding. Why the hell would anyone, including myself want to read that drivel? But I did see that there is a seed there. I have only been writing poetry again for the last year or two. Writing other stuff since the fall. This intensifying has changed the way I think. Not how I feel, but how I think about words, about connections, the poetic twist, turn of phrase, the lifting of life that poetry offers. NaPoWriMo has forced me to do this. Normally I don’t like to be forced to do anything, but this is only a game with myself. Me daring myself. I don’t mind that. I only cheat myself if I fail.

I still have one more poem to write. I haven’t a clue what yet. My kids keep offering suggestions. My son wants me to write a poem about a chicken-eating spider. Some giant spider that kills chickens and drags them off to their hole in the ground. Ha. The chicken theme has been taken up elsewhere so I doubt I will do this. My daughter just wants me to write about her violin. Did that. I have mined nature, spring and a few other things. Poets are miners. Instead of hard hats, we type words. We light the way in the dark cave of life. Laugh now. I need to think of some bright well-lit idea for tomorrow. I would like to do something worthy of the time I have spent. I have no idea. The absence of words does not make for very worthy poetry. Trying to describe that absence is too hard for today. So I will open another Word file and stare at that for a while. The white absence.

Thanks for reading.

Good Morning

April 29, the end is in sight.

Good Morning

Blind, the morning began
Vertically challenged with a jamb.
The door that founds its place
Upside my face.

“Mommy,” I hear,
So I rush out of our room in fear,
And ask, “Who’s calling me?”
I can never tell without my coffee!

“It’s me, Sean!” I hear as I ram
Pretty hard into the doorjamb.
Clutching my face in pain
I toddle into his room to obtain

The reason for this shout.
“Mommy, my covers are (remember breathe in breathe out)
Are all mixed up!” Ack, Ack, Ack.
I think this not a good enough reason for a smack

Of a door in the face.
I straighten his covers and embrace
Him, and say goodnight in shock.
I go back to bed and look at the clock,

5:10

Thanks for reading.

Mortal

April 28th

Mortal

Every once in a while
You can fathom your children grow.
Rules measure the coil
Of time opening. Its spring
Makes way for the debutante.
The old one is smeared lost, in the reflection
Of the newer.

Reaching back, like nesting dolls compressed,
I wonder where all of the little children
Gather, kidnapped by the prior?

Maybe the parent packs up and goes
With the old one, the cocoon continues,
You uncover the new you unspun.
This alloyed parenthood peened
With every uncoiling of the new.

Thanks for reading.

In Concert

In Concert

At 6:45 we were waiting for the violins
To begin their well-behaved songs. Bows straight,
But anxious darting eyes showed us
When the moment would begin.

At 7:00, a concentration over
Took the musicians that ended
The darting notes.
Eyes. Focused.

At 715: Happy Dance was followed by Pluckels.
Later, my favorite, Furiouso gave
The audience a taste of the feedback
Spine tingles at the half way mark.

7:30 brought the slow shock wave
Of Surfing USA. Crashing sound waves were tempered
By counting notes. One two three
Four.

8:00 ended. The violins
Made their way
Into their cases, locked
For summer, returned and marked Paid in Full.

Thanks for reading. There isn't much left here. There really isn't.

The Fettered Stories They Tell

The Fettered Stories They Tell

Facing one another
Straight and tall, feet firm
The empty chairs might talk.

They might speak of sitters past
Who left them disordered,
Spun up down and around.

They might speak of burdened heft
Eavesdropping closely,
Peering through enunciation.

They might speak of basking reflections
In the twilight waiting
Room to the future.

They might speak of parents
Reposed in the darkness,
Vexed with progress.

As they speak of sounds
The children may never realize,
The empty chairs might talk.

Thanks for reading.

No More

No More

OUR GOD, OUR HELP IN AGES PAST - Isaac Watts
“The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.
Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.”

Rinsed wine bottles
At daybreak force scented reminders
Of draining chalices,
At the sacristy sink
After mass.

Once, Janus faced altar girls and boys
Sneaked wafers and wine
Blessing our selves with forbidden measures.
Pious prayers and hidden desires
Quenched with red faith,
The drink of ages past.

But now, sacristy secrets
Turn future benedictions
Into an ever rolling stream that must wash
The feet of the innocent. Incensed justice,
Must be unlocked from the tabernacle of shame,
Drained from the emptied
Chalice allowing redolence reborn.

Thanks for reading.

Dandelions under Moonlight

Dandelions under moonlight

For Brian, who thought this could be a poem, and his sister. The dandelions are smiling at you both.

Yellow cups stretch to midnight
And draw the light.
When petals sleep
Nestled in green sheets reordering
Yesterday’s memories,
They know that tomorrow’s breeze
Brings flight.

Thanks for reading.

Commonly Known as Barr

April 23

Commonly Known as Barr

I once had a cat named Barmitzvah,
As pretty a Maine Coon as could be,
We found her on a hill,
I wish she were with us still,
But alas, there are no guaranties.

True story, very long true story.
Thanks for reading.

Hopefully tomorrow's poem will have just a little more substance.

Forced Construction

April 22

Forced Construction

Our front porch has been interrupted
With the womb nest
Of a robin who does insist
That the porch light can be accommodated.

Caching straw and crackles and blooms
To clutch its brood, this robin thinks it is the one.
I hesitate to permit this addition
As we don’t need any more bedrooms.


This is so very hard today. Thanks for reading.

I Want

April 21

I Want

I want to write a poem with topics diverse
And hopefully it may turn into something like verse.
Lima bean cairns, a lovely stonewall,
Sunshine lighting the last leaf’s fall,
Over there, an empty red bench,
New shoes that make my feet clench,
The opprobrious midnight sky,
The blue-black bird with one beady eye,
The sprung coil of a vine’s fate,
All of these I want to create.
I’m hungry, Peameal Pete’s BBQ,
These are about me, what about you?
So many more, I am not yet spent,
Now to find the words sans harsh torment.
Like woodchips flung around a tree,
I wonder what each of these says about me?

I want to write a poem out of this world,
Each day a new one is politely unfurled.
For the month of April is seemingly long,
And a few of my poems have just been plain wrong.
There are nine days left for us to work,
Nine days left before we go berserk.
I am hoping beyond hope that this will end well,
But somehow I think it may be the death knell.
Of poetry you ask, well that would be mistaken,
For once imagined, a poem is never forsaken.
It may be edited, it may be revised,
But the kernel of truth it contains is ever so prized.
This one is replacing a filk I wrote earlier,
This one seemed just a little bit healthier.
It began very differently, you should have seen
The lines I removed, the lines that I made less routine.

To make this symmetrical I will end it now.
Thank you for reading. I hope time does allow
Me to fit in just one more line,
Now I am off to edit and … refine.

Thanks for reading. So silly today!

Interior decoration

April 20

Interior decoration

The apple blossoms are scenting
The house pink today. Bunches thread gladness
From the thwarted apple branches.
I devour them this way sliced
Like pie from the front tree
Where still thriving nests reside.

Thanks for reading!

April 19

A Walk in the Backyard

As the night pours over my eyes
And the light dims, I twist
And turn and go forward into the awning pitch.
The rising glimmers of distant streetlamps like moonlight, shade the trees
I round the two recently married play structures,
(The kids tied the swinging ropes on them into knots)
Christened by rutting squirrels.
Ceremonious gifts of neighbours now surviving the teenage years,
Their kids discarding play for fast cars and mall chicks.
The wind blows the empty swing, weighted
No more, with my heart that needs unpacking
Like the new sandbox toys under the deck.
Brushing hair from my eyes, seeing
The moon ascend skyward,
The shadows grow longer
Stretching to play on the swings themselves.

Thanks for reading!

Anniversary

18th day!!!

Anniversary

Champagne is poured. They each share
A glassful offered from his
Warmed hand, a tidy celebratory toast.
She brings it to her trembling lips
Sipping its dry contents.
The candles flash refracting
Cracks and lines and etchings
Through each of their glasses.
He never sees her sags.
She never sees his wrinkles.
It seemed the years sped
Past, in truth
It was they who had gladly slowed.

Thanks for reading.

Dark Corners (lame title I know, but I had nothing else)

April 17th

Dark Corners

The corner’s darkness awaits
My time as the clock
Circles to the crook that tells
Me proceeding is foolish
And the light switch is faulty.
But darkness is light’s other face
Ticking heavily, made up,
Mascara laced to illustrate me scared.
Rubric lips stretch vacant,
Stepping into the cornered echo
Baring the asunder behind.
Looking as spectacle,
The veil is taken up careworn and wrung
Most of the time.

Thanks for reading.

Recruitment Fair

April 16th

Recruitment Fair

I scribble words covertly
As expectant faces pass
With shuffling feet, versed
On drafts scented by candy
And weathered conversations.
Their suitability determined with coffee refills,
Fueled by flashing brochures and cash and donuts.
Location is everything, cornered
Pouts and windowed smiles.
Banners waive concern
About what to do when grown.
Payoffs and decoy bribes
Coated in chocolate,
Fantasy realms, wisps
Perished. I try auctioning
Outcomes but end up writing a poem instead.


Thanks for reading.

Summer Vacation, I Know Now

Summer Vacation, I Know Now

My grandmother used to say
Her rosary every day before teatime.
She would ascend the stairs
Not wanting to fall far
Behind on her daily habit.
Mom used to shush us
But we would sneak
Up and peak obliquely, little fingers around doorjambs.
She sidesaddled the guest bed, fingers fluttering
In time to her murmuring lips,
Skirt centered, pleats straight,
Ankles crossed daintily,
Whispering tacit dreams,
Piety unbroken, in silhouetted light.
But now I know she just wanted
To escape us kids for a bit.

Thanks for reading. I wrote this in 20 minutes because I didn't like what I worked on yesterday.

Isthmus

Day 14

Isthmus

My grandfather’s carving tools
Were widowed when his craft ended.
Future violins became shadows
Of bows silenced, never drawn.
Paper notes unread
Scored through family history.

My daughter’s violin never sings either.
Harmonic squeaks when threatened
With timeouts. She hears
The silence of her ancestor’s song
Transmitting from the echo, hollow
Strings of time.

Thanks for reading!

Lucky? 13

Lucky 13 (and using a few suggestions too!!)

The spaces between
The words grow larger this month!
When does May begin?

If words were like wine,
The sips would be more fluid
Off my fingertips.

You stop throwing plates!
A discontinued pattern!
(I Love You) Stop it!

Insurrection at
An Iowa Laundromat.
Does anyone care?

Regis! Might. I bet
He’ll host a millionaire
Gig for the victims?

When Suddenly I
Realize All the Ads during
ABC's Ali-aak

Are Directed at
Women, cuz the rest of the
Show is now for men.

Evensong, Chickens
and Guns are other’s talents.
I will keep this short.

Just five more haikus
And these thirteen will be done.
My fingers are sore.

The first two haikus
Were for separate days. But
I needed them now.

I haven’t’ written
A chicken poem but I did
Use the word pluck once.

I am enjoying
This NaPoWri Mo challenge.
I am learning much.

I modify more
Than required. So now I’m
Concluding this poem!!!


Thanks for reading!

Songs

April 12

Most Welcome Song

The viburnum nubs
Green pearls, its squeezed fist
Extended to me, like my child with a prize
Whispering “Mommy look!”

Possessions inform while magnolias weep
Their silky notes, but now an occasion
Is composed for the viburnum.
A holy song of spring fills
The spaces between the trees.

April 11

Same Time Next Year

The Christmas cards have posed ready since November,
Their dispatch not to a mantle but a floury counter.
Seasons proceeded around them, and even short-lived
Cookies flaunted completion.

Two boxes cast side by side,
The fruit bowl their headstone,
The apple blossoms their tribute wreath.
Fossil acquaintances sealed, buried in a failed undertaking.

This morning, between words, I carried
Them down for interment with yearly décor,
Near bundled ornaments given by friends, palled in promise
To ply disposition and be exhumed

Same time next year.


Thanks for reading!

Day 10

Ode To An Ash Filled Urn

I play in the ashes
Doodling the specter of what might have been,
Pathways to the ruin’s walls.
Little heaps of you
Decant from a plastic baggie.
I try to pick you up, the dust of the ground,
With ash that never works.

Only imagining, I grab hold
Caning the ash and tears into clay,
Conditioning what I am able.
Hungry to devour and bury you back in me,
This is not Lamia’s garden.

The curtains flutter in the Zephyrus breeze
Blowing freshly cut jaded gusts.
The urn faces west aside our fertile bed,
With photos near. How sharp
The ashes, gritty and shard filled cinders,
Wrought with expectation, not what they supposed
You would be. Bones, structure, splintered

Carried home, unlike you,
Accessories in a little green shopping bag.
Not black like I imagined, but gray,
Not much either, though weighty,
A wraith that is left to clutch.

Odes are Greek to me so mine isn’t complex or elevated,
And the stanzas are flawed I know.
It doesn’t rhyme. It is not dignified.
But baby’s ashes are wrong too.

Thanks for reading.

April 9th Medusa

Medusa’s Dinner With Him

She sits solidly, packed
Into the vinyl booth stubbed
With family. Ketch-up
Packet igloos contour the tabletop.
Leaning forward to capture
Her husband’s winged
Noises behind the menu, she hears
Nothing but the ice
Crackle under
The rut of his pallid breath.
Her pink pearls wilt forward
Like a drawbridge scaling her sober breasts.
His stone tight eyes seem blind to her
Frosted charms, a passing wife.
Running shoes vibrate her silent song.
The chili arrives in paper cups, to be gummed
With pursed jaws. The crackers sound off
Each spoonful, with a concaved grateful
Silence. The French-fries, a mass
Of tangled prayers, like them, are salted in time.
Lastly, the licks calved with tension, each hard set,
Conjugated in plastic dreams, cleave
With cherry and chocolate.
Apart
They meter the days,
Wishing.


Thanks for reading!

Day 8

The Car Didn’t See Me

Unceremoniously,
My husband is able
To pluck me

Out of the street
When I am lost
Wanderlusting my daily poem.


This happened yesterday. I almost called this Daylight Savings Redux. Heh.

April 6th

DST

Daylight, saving time,
Just pushes hands and ambition forward
But does nothing for the nascence of poetry.

Kids are still awake, bouncing
Exhaustion at mom with energy
She has never celebrated herself.

You know DST has never
Had kids as it would
Know to possess the dark for much longer.

The blanket over time
Tucks winter in for the summer
And mocks new words with its light.


Thanks for reading. This is now officially getting hard.

Rodan, Day 6

Picnic with Rodan (age 6) at the Playground

“Don’t eat my food!” he demands
With a son’s breath.
Later, down the mountain
He feigns the most dangerous burden.

In his mind, he commands
The scoops and awakens
The swings over Tonka Tokyo.
Pushed by the hand of speed,
He soars between the contrails
Screaming white
And the entrails of foes
Laid low in the foot printed mud.
Regrettably, dire threats send us
To our car like those to the subway
Tunnels in aging movies.

Thanks for reading!

Meta, Day 5

Meta (or, I am working on it)

Past
Modifiers take back the night!
Rage and claim your right,
Trumpeting April
Like the barbecue’s smoke rising
From the punctuated loin.

Present
These forced pickets misunderstand
Lyrical might.
Tossed after the election of words,
They are the purgatory of a writer’s sin,
An anthology of kindling timber.

Future
Dangling in the post position,
The heat scouring absolutely,
You qualify as a device of my making.
But alas, the writer’s win
Is to submit, to the fire.

From Choriamb

Breaking news: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050404/nym208.html?.v=4 Cool! Yeah Kooser!
This was a tremendous volume of poetry, so great news.

Modifications

My life this month. I woke up and wrote a poem. I went to the park for a picnic and wrote a poem. I wake and sleep poetry this month. Challenges, challenges. Ha. This will either kill my love of poetry or maybe help/save me. I have learned more in 48 hours about writing poetry than I have in years. Years I say. I modify too much. But I am challenged here because I want to add depth and texture, I want to sink into my words, and I feel if I cut and slash too much, there won’t be anything left. That is telling. My fears come true. I am learning. But the other side of that slashy sword is the fear that my poetry will become what I call talky-talky poetry. It is just talk. It means nothing else, it goes nowhere else, couldn’t find a metaphor if one hit it on the head and I don’t like that kind of poetry and I don’t want mine to become that. Run on sentence stop! OK. Fears do that too me, on and on I go.

I am challenged but luckily not deplete. So I will continue. We are at day five. I warned you all on my first day’s silly poem that this would happen. I foretold and now am saying so. Don’t ever say I didn’t listen to myself. So I have two poems I am working on for the challenges, tomorrow’s and maybe, tossing one around for the next day. I don’t think this is cheating, because I am splitting my time for each, therefore less than a day’s worth will be put into each. And it will probably show.

But mostly I am impressed with those poems and people I have found because of this endeavor. They take this very seriously and I am daunted by that. I hope that any frivolity on my part does not belie my gratitude for their help and suggestions. This is fun and this is challenging. Bring on day 5. I already said that today. April may not be cruel, but boy, it is going to be long.