Day 30: Endings

Endings

At times the end seems infinite, the corner
seems turned, the mirror to the reply
held tight, as the sorrow in sorry and hand holding
tightens the grip on the stop.

The flowers bloom, the glass
scented clear, the vision of various
what would have beens issue motionless. Essential
reverberations gut stems and sterns, a reminder
of the ephemeral, the sundry flights to fancy,
still, more than one supposes.

Thank you for reading.

Day 29: This is not a Love Poem

This is not a Love Poem

Gmail is offering
me $1,200.00/hr
for poems. They don’t say
if it involves reading
or writing,
analysis or breakdown,
and there is a survey.
They refer to me
as a consumer
and that suits me. I eat
poems lately.
I digest them into a slurry
that can be absorbed
and excreted
into something of my own.
Like this.

I know this isn't done, but it feels correct at this point. So for now I will stop. Thanks for reading.

Day 28: Digging

Digging

Silliest suggestion that secured
the gold was a poem
about belly button gymnastics.
Um’ing got the silver.
I thought
the Detroit giant (not Goodyear!) Uniroyal tire*
should have the bronze
but others decided
hay as we drove by a local roll.
Honourable mentions include
eyebrow lift skills and whales,
time warps to May and fringed
car wash brushes
that boogie all night.
I have succumbed
to family content
contests for this blooming month.

* http://detroit.metblogs.com/photos/tire.jpg
http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=198&category=life

Thank you for reading.

Day 27: Plain Winds at 3:32

Plain Winds at 3:32

Tulips shudder in shadow
under the red maples resistant
to green. Lawn
mowers’ summer song
greet suburbanites lined
under the rusted oaks
that remain, the little left
of autumn’s stain.

“Eve…ry…bo…dy...must... get... stoned!” the radio blares.

Cars pile swallowing children
like birds nesting, dancing
up and down the dial. Ground
covers the rest of the shadow,
groomed and trim, a lesson
in control. The wind
shakes it all, lets the still
press itself before
the seat belt warning
hums its cry.

Another 10 minute poem. Exact story. I don't know what this means other than that is a 10 minute undistracted block of time I have. Waiting for the kids after school.

I am tired of my noun verb starts. I find that is how I think poems, I need to change that. It annoys me. Thanks for reading.

Day 26: Secret Poetry Man

Secret Poetry Man

Secret poetry man, how do
you compose? Do you lie
on hills, looking between angels
at the stars? Do you rhapsodize
love, worship lust in sprung
leaves of spring sonnets?
Do the words tempt
tease use wind thrill
you to the loins?
Do you pen your words
like a girl leaning in
for her first kiss? Can your
rhyme bend time
on a path strewn
with the plucked petals
of form, the sweet
before the groan? Do you
take this lilt and make it
yours, knead it velvet tight
like you never have before?

Today's 10 minute poem, written between children school pickups and a blocked toilet. Thanks for reading!

Day 25: Bitch

Bitch

Swipe her face
until she cries,
the remaining crumbs
need removal, more self
satisfying than your granddaughter’s
soothing. Decorum weighs
more than her shriek,
the effort you expend, more
than the prescient deflection she perfects.
Manic remotion results in dirt
free despising,
your effaced obsession,
oh, the price of a dinner.

Thanks for reading!

Day 24: Caution

Caution

Those who position
themselves in the center, will
never glimpse the edge.


I really want to do more than a fall back haiku. Maybe another month than April would be better. So very busy!! Thanks for reading.

Day 23: Bib

Bib*

In sowing these words, tabling
them together like stitches
tiny, pursed, even,
inevitably strung white,
like hands squeezed, knuckles
tight, like pearls found, removed
from the shell, bloodied
and shucked to make a bib of words,
like a chestnut bur,
that the squirrel words hard
to unyoke, scrambled
in a struggle to write shirred
metaphors, to connect daily
as key strokes nimbly edit
and serve the quilted fabric
that has become my page.

*(because of the messes I make)

Thanks for reading, and please do not ask who Key is and why s/he is stroking Nimbly ;-)

Day 22: Imagine

Imagine

The bathroom stall
notice said staying awake
for 17-19 hours is like
a blood alcohol level of .05.

My sham daily
drunkenness protests slumber.
No falling down off high heels, pumps
of course, not too slutty in sequins, yes sequins,
that shiver besotted silver, not dancing on tables
nor inappropriate lampshade action.
No risqué jokes that promise
nothing and everything,
or glances across the bar over beer foam.
No shots upended in glee, slammed down
to decorate a bar like a crystal cemetery.

The poster
suggests naps to refresh, to protect
from the crapulent days. I would rather
imagine a drunken follied affair
of glitter, madness, and glee.

Slams down pen!


Thanks for reading!

Day 21: Strokes

Stroke

The brush dipped into the paint
of time strokes my morning
green. Orchids, placed
in the hothouse robustly stalk
the sun while shadows draw
from me, shortening the minutes
between chimes. Resounding
iris blossoms beckon the frill
to come. A canvas filled
while the moon arcs, setting.

Thanks for reading.

Newton update, oh, poetry commentary too

Newton is still hanging in my neighbour's tree. It was a dried sort of red, year old red, but now is glistening red. I am so very impressed and amused that he? is still present. Able to survive winter, and now spring. The white blossoms of this year's crop of apple flowers wreathed in the green is making for a spectacular backdrop for Newton. He? is watching his children (I guess more accurately, his? nieces and nephews) bloom. Something I can appreciate.

I need to contemplate a poem now. The past few day's offerings have really not been what I would prefer to give, but time, place and opportunity have all been working against my poetry goals. 9 more days. Given that I didn't think I had poetry to offer during this month, I am very pleased with my progress.

If Newton falls the last day of NaPoWriMo, I will not be sure how to evaluate that. I will have been happy to have him? along for the ride.

Have a great day!

Day 20: Cord Cut

Cord Cut

We find
each other,
you and I.
Not a look,
or a glance
but a yawning black
where the smile
used to be.


Found a title at least.

I feel I should annotate these poems. Sometimes.

Thanks for reading.

Day 19: Luxor By Night

Luxor By Night

I stare through the broken wall
into distance, bouldered
against the night, held pinned on my fabric wall.
The calendar is a year old, plus, pierced
on December 2005. Turning pages
golden, the Karnak Temple,
Sunday, Dimanche, Sonntag, Domenica
and an Egyptian script that I will imagine
signifies the same. Is there a counterpart
staring at her pinioned calendar
wondering her other life too?


Needs work, but thanks for reading.

Day 18: Sonnet?

Sonnet?

Now I fear April will be my magnum opus!
Useful comments have forced me to now adjust
the way I view this daily poetry I write.
This has given me such a derailing fright.

I go on producing each and every day,
hoping I don’t collapse before we reach May.
I have done red apples, and old men fishing,
I still need one for my daughter, I’m wishing.

This may not be the silliest you see yet,
not a clue what to write, this not a threat.
Please don’t count the beats, feet or iambs marching,
I fully realize I am over arching.

So with these lines, I shall end this fake poem now,
not a true sonnet, but what time would allow.

Thanks for reading!

Day 17: Cat Poem

Cat Poem

The pressure to purr your words
onto the white is like a morning stretch
delivered by your cat. Upon waking, you hear
the sounds of the (fe)lines, constant, not yet
sated. Unrelenting it is, until you deliver
the dish, set in the usual place.
Then you hope for the arching back
of praise, the ankle hug and the scratch
behind the ear, meows of delight.

Thanks for reading!

Nabokov on showing rough drafts

In Strong Opinions, the interviewer asks Nabokov:

Would you agree to show us a sample of your rough drafts?

I'm afraid I must refuse. Only ambitious nonentities and heart mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It is like passing around samples of one's sputum.

I guess he wouldn't have participated in NaPoWriMo!

Day 15: Narrative Bite

Narrative Bite

One profoundly red apple lay in the gutter.
One perfect bite, white, hollowed from it.
One narrative fabled away in that mouthful.

Snow White was deceived with that apple.
Eve defied with that apple.
Eris left a golden apple as a precious gift.
Freia cultivated its trees in her garden.
Atalanta ran and ran; it captured her heart.
They say it birthed Avalon too.

Apples flung, gifted, taken, cleft in two,
fruited in the verbiage tale,
a red flag for choice,
for wars, love and marriage. All
employed this fruit to gossip their story.

So some apple lay in the gutter this time.
It captured my attention like it enchanted
in days past. Core silent white,
Malus, malice, thy name is apple.



This needs work. Thanks for reading.

Day 14: Mystery

Mystery

You ought not underestimate
your effect. You may
know that your gift collated, riddles
like sand on a distant beach composed.
Who puzzles, endues
placement most charming.
You affect dreams, sift
And sow measures most mild. Sedimentary lives
are envisioned, like shale reborn.

Day 13: 5 Words

5 words

The schoolgirl ill with tangled pain,
lay sequestered on her sofa,
her lentiginous nose firmly annexed
in a book, legs draped
over pillows, Narnia
broadcasting its healing effect.
Iceblinks and umber topped lampposts
become the ceremony of the day.

Suggestion from Roge here: http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showp...9&postcount=128

My 5 dictionary words were schoolgirl, lentiginous, umber, iceblink and ceremony. Plus my daughter was home sick from school yesterday. It worked. Thanks for reading.

Day 12: Apostrophe

Apostrophe

Oh, you wield that pen
like a feather, to scribe my
ampersandian cursives, to punctuate
my lower cased outline, the tight grip,
write handed gives
rise to a tense diction.
Your writing tool
paragraph these glyptic words
yet my asterisk prefers to hyphenate
that which your exclaims mark.
Copular verbs can connect pen
to page, plume to the present perfect.


I don't know what kind of poetic crack I have been on lately, so please forgive this. Oh my LOL!

Day 11: The Apple

The Apple

I named it Newton. It has failed
its namesake’s autumnal observations.
It hasn’t plunged. Neither wind
nor ice nor other fallings have budged
it from its long embrace.
The red remains, intact but dimmed.
Spring has wreathed it in green,
the ornament long forgotten.
It sways, it leans but it hasn’t found
its way down. This vernal object
occupying this space hangs

its gravitas, bears witness
to spring.

Day 10: Depends Upon

Depends Upon

I bolted up when I noticed
him pulling his wagon
across the glazed road. His foul diaper extended
his bum, padding for the arduous
journey. His grandfather
called for him, but the boy, intent on the wind-
blown green, didn’t hear. I yelled to the man,
“He is crossing the street!” The man motioned with his hand,
casually thanked me, but did not quicken his step.

My visions were not of swaying trees,
or brave grandsons, or Spring conversations
in the newly seasoned neighbourhood,
but of sirens, phantom grave stones,
and a tattered red wagon put down to the curb.


Thanks for reading.
Vicky

Day 9: Hard

Hard

I want to feel it.
Hard.
As hard
as the bone found in the meat, overlooked
after having been picked through. I don’t want
to miss a beat, a pulse
of the abandon.
As hard as the cover of the book
that binds its pages.
As hard as the dried worm, lost,
after the summer sun beats down
on the black pavement, scorching feet.
As hard as the wind before the tornado, invisible,
inflexible like the diamond blade on the rock,
as hard as I type on these keys to write this poem,
and as hard as loving you.


Thanks for reading.

Day 8: Churn

Churn

Words whip like butter
churned onto the page like toast.
I hope they smooth soon.



Heh, day ate.

Thanks for reading. Not much today I am afraid.

Day 7: Caught

Caught

In the lawn chair he sat holding
his unbending rod. The waves
radiated from his line, rolling
away in circles that reached far.

He held the lures
upon his head, the linen crown
decorated like scales of a song,
each a note, a knot
in preparation for success. He sat.

His Converse running shoe vamps were cut away
allowing his toes to sing free. Dark
callused though they were. He was tall
as another supposed fisherman.
His pants hung low before
the fad, his t-shirts withered, thin
and bare. He sat.

Rarely a fish would be lured, tempted
by his song. But we above the water
upon the firmament,
heard. The toil, the long as filament line
stories, the slave grandparents, river
escape to Detroit, the lure to freedom
strong. He sat.

So he never reeled in any fish, never
took them from their lives
because he felt that crown, knew the hook
of being caught and pulling the weight forward.
He would not cast lots, just lines,
in the sun, on the river’s shore. He sat.



vamp: The front part of a shoe upper that covers the toes and part of the foot.

Thanks for reading!!

Day 6: Still

Still

Juniper berries hold
midnight year round but you
hold her less
gently, as a magpie
insists on place. Grumble grey
you say nothing
is wrong, but the double prong
tongue you silently lash
pits you tarnished, rough.
You collect
the memories past, steal
the requiem due and offer
your self as prize.

Thanks for reading.
Vicky

Day 5: How to "make a poem" (7 year old's advice)

How to “make” a poem (7 year old’s advice)

The poetry bells ring as my family chime
in their suggestions. My son just advised
me to use “Wow” words
in my daily poem.
He suggested proper
punctuation. His first grade
teacher recommended using “Voice”
to make a poem
exciting.
I ought to “Describe”
so a reader will understand
the story. He stated, “don’t let anyone tap
into your poem unless you give them
permission”.

I pen you permission.

Day 4: Hustle

Hustle

...memories of flares so wide
like sails aloft the dance floor; eye
shadow so glittery, pale
nova with each blink; tight assed pants pirate
jewels because they knew what was good
for them; midnight hustles for a Broadway
production simmer in polyester heat; hair
layered like a cake left out
in the rain; breasts Furstenburged, navigate the cross
steps of dance, leading with all their might...


Thanks for reading!

Day 3: Pissed

Pissed

Each daybreak I spy a dog that lives two houses down
piss the day into being. Before coffee
I greet this view out my kitchen window,
a challenge greater than one should demand of a morning voyeur.

Our presumably parallel waking schedules
address the approaching day.

His lush lawn with his well pressed path
harkens his perky dawn.
My yard is still cast in shadow, dark
like the coffee huddled thick in my cup.

I watch him claim
his spot
as I refuse
mine.


This poem had another incarnation before Word decided it shouldn't exist. This is the pheonix of that earlier, I think better, poem. So the title is indicative more of my mood yesterday than the actual content, but it does indeed work.

Thanks for reading!

Day 2, Place

Place

My shelves have evolved stories of their own.
The alphabetical placement
I achieve pales next to these idols I covet.
Proust divides Plath and Rushdie.
Henry Roth is falling on Ayn Rand. She assigns
no mercy for that rudeness.
Lolita is girdled next to Little Birds,
an erotic exploit arranged, spines
fractured. The Joyce stack, horizontal,
overlooks them all, one-eye winking.
The "how to" writing books front the A’s.
Nascent focus. Scattered
novels askew formed
with Evanovich pressed to Fforde
as close as a Jersey girl’s pink spandex.
I wonder if they will ever get
out and solve the mystery
of how my shelves have lived.


Thanks for reading!

First NaPoWriMo Poem: The Price of a Muse

Price of a Muse

The auction Will begin. The hammer Will rile
patrons whose sticky fingers of conservation
hawk his wares like a theatre troop
gussied up to impress, the price of admission cheap.

The pages are genuine they suppose,
this folio of literary time
the winds of heaven have blown open.
Would he would be pleased
by the actions of the moneylenders,
the collectors, the poets and the professors
mounting an effort to possess him,
like the muse he once seductively constructed?

Frail intention consumes
the canon now available for sale,
our Will
our muse, procured for the highest bidder.


Thanks for reading! We are off!