First thoughts post Napo.

I ran out of gas just before our houseguests arrived, and I only got it back, in a very sort of kind of tertiary way two days ago. That was because I gave up any hope of accomplishing anything. Like Buffy learns in Becoming, when you have nothing left, all you have is yourself. In that I am proud of the last two poems. There was family news, which was difficult to process also.

I think I did a better overall job of writing last year. I think I had learned much more between Napo 1 and Napo 2 last year. This year I haven’t had the chance to read as much poetry as I ought to, therefore fewer gains. Between work changes and stress and other stuff, it takes a toll. It is reflected in the poetry.

I doubt I will annotate the poems like I started to last year. I got a few done, and then I never got back to it. I can’t even remember all of the poems I wrote. As with the last two Napo’s, possibly when I go back and read a few, I might like them. I think others will probably just scare me. We shall see.

I know that I have to work with revisions, obviously, but I do know immediately when a poem will work. I feel it. If I don’t have that feeling, the poem might be all right, but it doesn’t zing or hit me where I demand poetry hit me. On Loan, which was on loan from a blip I wrote in about 4 minutes sometime in the last few months, had that feeling the first time, as well as the day I wrote it. A few from the beginning had that feeling, because I was so inspired by the beginning of Napo.

Reading others poetry really shows me how much I have to learn. I knew that of course, but to see the production of others, really very good stuff, every day for a month, is humbling. Amazing stuff. I know I am nowhere near that.

I don’t mind that this exercise lets me find my place. It allows me to see weaknesses in what I write. That is humbling too, and very frightening. But when I feel humiliated or depressed about what I am writing, I look back to what I have written before, and see that I actually have achieved something over the years. As long as my trajectory is forward, and better, even if by plodding steps, I can deal.

I love the brains of some of the writers of the Napo poems at PFFA. I wish I could write like some of them when I grow up. Sigh. If I am motivated at some point, I will link to my fav’s.

Thanks to everyone who commented, made suggestions and generally kept me going. I appreciate that.

Vicky, who is going to rest now.

Day last, last

In The Garden: Post Freeze

There were no worms
or beetles in the garden
this morning. Their absence
sliced the dirt like the tending
holes I dug. The grass plugs
filled the spaces between the dead
roses, whose whiney thorns scraped
the house like dry chalk on a board.
The sunrays snuck
toward me, inching closer
with each wet clump dumped. I picked
the rainbowed lint from the dryer
vent above, releasing it to the breeze
with the hopes of nesting for the birds. The fluff
alighted in the garden, adding
the only colour there.
The wood mulch became the coarse blanket
for the made beds under which
there were no worms
or beetles


Done, done, done!
Vicky

Day 29

Abandon

At the party, the music
swelling, beer drinking,
cabana boy gawking,
(wearing only silver trinkets!)
party, we plan to fling
the month away, each
day heaved back, only
to be remembered
upon revision. The stories
amply described, like the fullness
of the muse to which we indulge
ourselves, fully under her
influence. She takes each of us
smugly, with the force
of the slammed down shot
glass, the gulp, the swallow.
The swoon to which we beg,
the champagne sigh for which we plead,
the hope that the month
of spring did indeed bloom.


Heheheh, we are scraping now my dear readers, scraping!
Vicky

Day 28

Notes To The Future

Everything I write
is a note to my future self,
a way to indicate
who I was and why.

..........A dance or a shuffle.

How my future
self reads that note
is yet to be determined,
but in a day or so
or more
I will know.

..........Scribed for the older.

Thanks, Vicky

I hope the coding works. Blogger sucks for specific coding. I may need to edit. Ha! We all knew that.

ETA: It won't allow a return after the last line. What a day this is going to be. Oh I will try once more.

Day 27

Because It Could Have Happened That Way

If the car had flipped,
and the four had perished,
and if their matted brains were in your lap,
or if the windshield sliced their eye,
or if their guts were spread on the gravel,
would it have been worth the reach?

I ask this because you
did not judge your request
to your daughter for her to take the wheel
and hold the lives of four
in her marker stained 3rd grade hands
like a little Atlas, confused
at the weight above.

You do not know to bear
her weight, a parental pulley
of relief. A swerve away
from the universe
you missed,
a curb, a lamppost,
her fright,
and mine.


I am not happy with this. I wanted it brutal, because your kid dying is, but it doesn't seem to work. Plus, I am still angry about this, and that doesn't help.
Vicky

Day 26

Chores = Poetry

I told my husband
to give me an idea
for a poem. I sang,

“Inspire me with your love!”
He continued to
load the dishwasher. I ran

to get some paper
to chronicle the moment.
This is the result.



I laugh every time I read this.
Vicky

Day 25

Wrecked

When the bulldozers pulled
up to the long abandoned house, no one
came to watch. The memories of who they might
have been were as far gone
as the birds and the squirrels
who once lived in the nests in the nearby rusted oaks.

The sidewalks cracked some
under the weight of those machines,
who brought it all down, and then danced
bouncingly in circles on the hoisted timber.
Its shovel held high like the arms of a prizefighter
cheering after winning a bloody round.

The interior was squeezed out,
previously damaged walls and beer stains,
on the sepia floral wallpaper, chosen carefully once,
for none to finally view. The jutting wood
floors snapped skyward, shards of window
obliquely mirrored the empty oaks.

All that remains now
is the gravelly foundation,
as the machines have pushed
the walls in and dumped the plaster out.
The view gone, trucked away
past the pit of once was.

Day 24

From an off-handed comment yesterday.

Poetry Lovers

Written on a lover’s back,
turned aside as a desk,
the poem allows
for the work; the fingers
press the pen holding
the paper down, the tracings
each a mark of desire.
Pressure points of the inking,
creative moments form
the shapely attraction.


I have had this idea for a while, am I am not sure this is how I want it executed, but this is all I got. Maybe later. Goethe supposedly wrote poems on his lover's back. I think that is so very cool!

Vicky

Day 23

Which are you?

The dribbles fall where they may, streaks
of sweet orange hunger, after the careful unwinding
of morning time. Tapped
like a beer spigot for the desperate,
the beverage glides down burning
a cold path awake. When the glass empties,
the surprised can fully open
their eyes to the day.

Or

One needs to grind, tear
it apart to steal the sun
from the night. Aromas
are like the keys to the castle,
but one that doesn’t open
the lock. Only the drench
of the mug’s moat will satisfy
the thieves who expect the day
to be given to them so violently.

Or maybe

The triplet becomes the shy
retiring choice. One which requires
preparation, and a solemn purpose.
Perhaps the most public of the three,
the day is steeped
gently, like a soft
kiss that becomes you, a ceremonial
observance of morning.

Vicky, drinking the second this very moment

Day 21

Imperatives

It is imperative that green
beans are snapped sharply
at one end. That tulips are
allowed their full opening, petals
bent back, bowing willingly.
That pages which are loved
are stained with that affection.
Proof of the care taken.

It is imperative for paper
flowers not to be allowed
to fade. Or chalk
circles on driveways
not be drawn
before the rain.

It is imperative that glass
houses believe
in the stones.

It is imperative that a metaphor
lies screaming like a baby
whose diaper is soaked through.

It is imperative that a poem
tries to save words.


Thanks for reading.

Day 20

I had nothing last night, so I turned to the Norton, and flicked through and found my first line. MacNeice.

Dinner Recipe

“The lady of the house poises” still
watching as her
kitchen comes alive
with the steaming of garlic.
the rising of bread, yeasty
with promise. The pasta boils true
soon to be zested red with lemon.
Swaths of cheese melt
into the crust of tomorrow.
The wine awaits its freedom
into the cool jail of glass.
We sit and have family
moments, stories spoken
as the coils of pasta cools.

And that fact that some of this sounds familiar to me is sort of freaking me out. Poem written by wine ...so I think I am going to check my old poems.
Vicky

Day 19

On Loan

I opened a borrowed book
to read poems
I thought would capture
me. Instead you used
train tickets to place yourself
where I could discover you.

Found tickets torn
from their journey
sandwiched like butter
between the pages. The clacking
of tracks between lines
marking time and pages.

I imagine silence
in the train car that night,
with the flutter of eyes,
across those pages. You marked
those poems that touched you,
to remind you of your place,
and your adventure here. No
whistles until morning
light, arrival causing the book
to fold upon itself, quieted
until found again.

Scene poised,
book on your lap,
eyes on the page, torn
ticket positioned
for effect, glamorous
rumpled, nary a book
mark in sight.

Thank you.
Vicky

Day 18

Sigh

The exhaustion gives
way to nothing
profound so
I watch flowers dance.


This was the second one I wrote yesterday. I could not make the first one work. At all. We will have house guests, so this will be even harder. I am curious what will come out of nothing. Thank you for reading.

Vicky

Day 17

Recent Questions

If the spirit of your boy can
be broken by a girl kicking
a soccer ball, just how strong
was his spirit before the game?

With arms spread, holding tight,
do pylons play skip with their wires
at night when we aren’t
looking?

Shouldn’t flags be flown
at half mast all of the time,
and at full mast for the special
somber reasons?

If the men write of their hard
won achievements and war,
and the women write of their children and wishing
true love, and the children write of future
fantasy, what does that leave for me?

If your poetry scares
me, does that mean I
frighten easily?

If your poetry doesn’t scare
me, does that mean
you haven’t done your job?

If my spirit, holding tight, flies
at half mast, writing future fantasy,
easily frightened, am I
doing my job?


Crack I say, crack!!!! Thanks for reading.
Vicky (you should have seen the other drafts, and yes there were other drafts. Scary!)

Day 16

Process

…I fill these words
with images, a watcher
that sinks into her chair
feeling the pull of the upholstery
of the paper that absorbs
the ink. Before I edit
the words into the white
that becomes black as

I fill these words…

Thanks.
Vicky, who wishes she was as thin as her poems
Ha!

Day 15

The Party Between Here And There

Promised flight simulators
garrison the children
into behaving quietly.

Tire rips and overpasses
cup the concrete ribbon
we scoon*.

The black marks
skidding off the road
tell small stories I don’t want to know.

The hills pretend to be
hills, but they are swallowed
by the stubbed brush cut prairies.

Trains of trucks head west
paralleling those heading to the game.
If you lived here, you would know what that means.

The ground remains taupe grey,
having not yet begun its cycle of colour.
It waits quietly, listening to the wind.

The brown trees and the green trees too,
shimmy to the prairie madness.
I hope they are having fun.

The Wildlife Safari I hear
caters to the bison and the foxes;
there is no Africa here.

But history is not far from here.
The abandoned cars, and the abandoned
people. They are quiet too.

*scoon is the supposed obscure Scottish word from which schooner springs, meaning skim along the surface http://www.answers.com/topic/schooner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_madness The entry doesn’t describe include the effects of the wind which was considered a huge part of the madness
The Game: http://www.huskersnside.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&SPID=22
Wildlife Safari: http://www.omahazoo.com/parkweb/home/home.htm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1646659,00.html?gusrc=rss

Thank you. Not sure if I should include these links as poems should speak for themselves.

Vicky

Day 14

Spoils

Spring has been stolen
from me with an ice crunch
and a shadow dusk
leafed limp like vein winged bats hung
in a cave, brown
greased slime blossoms.
Waiting to be pronounced gone, tulips lay
shell shocked, splayed
like an expeditionary force
in green, gutted, streaked with red slashes.
Infant viburnum’s tight fist flowers toppled. Spring’s
apparition has blackened the branches,
limped the bed
and brusqued the ambitious
flowers. What can summer be
if spring never was?

Vicky

Day 13

Transportation

It seeps over and around
in ways like blossoms
or milk. Left over after
you left, the signature
of holding, of voicing
your wishes. We
the scented, cannot cast
threads or ribbons
to reel or real
reality on the doorstep
of wishes. Footprints,
bouquets, bricked
or slathered sniffed carry
us for miles. Time
remains as the scent
decays.

Thank you!

Day 12

First Person Present Tense

It irks me
because if the clock of the fiction
is ticking now, but
the writer penned
it before, the credibility
of the truth of time is lost.

Thank you!

Day 11

Form Fitted Symmetry

pleated black silk curves
like water, luxurious
relativity


I had a hard time with this one's title. Usually titles are easy for me, but with a haiku, every word's weight increases exponentially. Oh well.

Vicky