Month: April 2018

NaPoWriMo – Day 10

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Got a late start today to the poem creation, and when I finally got there, I let my tired mind experiment. I attempted to follow the NaPoWriMo.net prompt calling for a poem of  simultaneity – in which multiple things are happening at once.

 

Mind Exercises

 

Imagine a mahogany dinner table, a family of five around it.

Forget it, if you can, the nightly rituals you’ve seen and lived.

 

See the pea green plates, a wedding gift to the parents

The dull eyes of those parents who once made each other

 

the wife has always hated, but they are good quality and not

tingle, who used to bite each other’s lower lips during kisses.

 

yet cracked or chipped, even after 18 years of use. Funny, right?

There was once an entire month where they didn’t touch at all.

 

How the things we care least about can be so steadfast? Like the

Shell, it was like a shell, growing over each of them. House beetles,

 

meal the husband made, because it’s Monday, and that’s his night,

black and prone to hiding in their own corners. Quiet, creeping

 

so the kids expect something simple, mostly pre-packaged — spaghetti

life. After awhile they didn’t have to try to forget, it boiled away

 

with a jar of bought sauce, or hot dogs with a side of carrots because

on its own, down to the dry bottom of a saucepan, the sickening smell,

 

you gotta have some vegetables, right? And after they’ve eaten,

smoke, clouding up the kitchen, choking down the hall to the kids’

 

it will be the wife who cleans up, while the others take to screens

rooms, though the parents didn’t notice because it was all so grey.

 

or books, for the daughter. In the kitchen the wife will sigh, and

The windows didn’t open anymore, or no one thought to try them.

 

the cat will meow, almost in response, but mostly because he’s hungry.

Fish, in an aquarium, floating limp at the top, but inside the tank, green

 

Tomorrow, or 6 months, imagine it again, but cracked, chipped and with

real plants, the son insisted on it. They swayed when the filter glugged.

 

a gleaming blade, because reality can slice you in half if you let it.

They started to flower, bright red buds everywhere, if you can believe it.

NaPoWriMo – Day 9

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Today I tried to combine the NaPoWriMo.net  prompt to write a poem in which something big and something small come together, with the Poetic Asides prompt calling for a “Battle __________ ” poem. Took a conversation with my Dad as inspiration, and used the writing to help tame my own burgeoning worry.

Battle the Weather

 

Morning phone call.

You start with the temperature,

-5 still, but better than yesterday. Supposed to

be in the pluses again by the weekend.

This damn province.

 

Then you give me the real headline,

preface of Don’t worry, but…

 

It could be nothing. Seeing the doctor tomorrow.

Probably lots of tests. We’ll know when we know.

 

I parrot it back, you don’t worry either.

Child counseling parent, or maybe

both of us

just saying what’s said. Rote words.

Learned eventually.

 

But I know

how even a small worries

bloat so big

fueled by the constant hot puff of

whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif

 

Mine’s already growing. I feel it,

hollow balloon in the chest, rising.

Little brain ember, taking hold,

starting a fire that will keep me burning

all night long, working to throw

drops of reason

on a fear inferno.

 

But hope builds too, or can.

In quiet places. The same spot

softened each day with silence.

Faith flourished, not with expected words

like Don’t worry, but with something true

and lived.

Remember six years ago, Dad,

leaving the hospital? December.

-31 with the wind chill.

You told me the sky

looked too blue to be that cold.

Damn this province! If the cancer didn’t kill me

this weather surely will.

But I saw you take a breath, deep,

zing of cold filling your lungs.

You shut your eyes and smiled.

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 8

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Today’s NaPoWriMo.net prompt asked for “poems in which mysterious and magical things occur. A spell, for example.” I liked that example, and mashed it with the Poetic Asides prompt asking for a “family” poem. This one was strange and mysterious for me, as I so rarely attempt to write anything with rhyme.

Endurance Incantation

Strand of hair shines
with mother’s mothers’ whim
Strength of fifty golden
mothers before them.

Drop of carmine blood
we grow, share and shed.
Dancers in the shadows
of a full moon, red.

Never silent, mother’s mothers,
even shackled voices swell
humming in the pulse
stories born to tell.

Glint in daughters’ eyes,
lines etched on their skin.
Mother’s mothers’ journey
unbroken, within.

NaPoWriMo – Day 7

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Mixing the Poetic Asides prompt to write a “senses” poem, with my local, Stroll of Poets prompt to write a “climate” poem. I recently read an article about how people in my province are the least likely in Canada to “believe” in climate change. This is so disheartening to me, as while I believe we can debate strategies on how we operate in the world now, and plans for better environmental practices, climate change is real. And I worry for the future of our beautiful planet if we continue to spin in a cycle of denial, rather than take action together.

Assessing the Patterns of Variation

 

You wouldn’t think it’d be possible

in my (relatively) short life.

 

Firs would know better,

the dry soil at their base.

The petrichor hanging

less often in the air,

the welcome quench of rain

climbing their roots,

sparkling in drops

that dangle from their sharp needles

like earrings. Can they taste it?

The small changes, over seasons and years,

drawing the facts

in concentric circles

at their core.

 

It might not be evident, they say

until you look at the evidence.

Some patterns are best seen close-up,

under a microscopic lens,

 

but I know I’ve heard the change

in the summer winds, roaring.

Different than the breeze of my youth.

Breath, blowing hotter.

Dragon flare, warning.

Tree souls darkening

summer skies.

NaPoWriMo – Day 6

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The NaPoWriMo.net prompt today suggested playing with line breaks to emphasize, or de-emphasize sounds, rhythm and thoughts. Over at Poetic Asides, the instructions were to create a poem with a food item as the title. A good one to mash up.

Pie Crust

I stopped trying
to make pie dough

You always told me
it was easy
only a few ingredients
just a little practice

Like the way they retire
an athlete’s number
the process is honoured
the recipe stored

You never wore
an apron — too fussy
just dig in and get it
done
but I should’ve
kept one
of your threadbare
tea towels

Mounted it in a shadow box
a smattering of flour
still
dusting the corner

 

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 5

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I love today’s prompt. The challenge put for at NaPoWriMo.net was to write a poem that reacts both to photography and to words in a language not your own. Begin with a photograph and then find a poem in another language, ignoring any accompanying English translation. Write with the idea that the poem is actually “about” your photograph. Use the look and feel of the words in the original to guide you along as you write, while trying to describe your photograph.

I picked an untitled, Dutch poem with no author (that I could find) and used the photo of the cat below. I noticed some words seemed to suggest an English counterpart, while other times it was the rhythm or look of a line that caused me to “translate”. A cool experiment, and one I would definitely try again with a longer piece.

 

Natuurlijk moest je nog lang niet

dood, dat wist ik best, maar hijdiede liedjes

zingt voor de hazen en beren waarin hij vertelt

hoe hij ze heft geschoten, was juist begonnen

het jouwe te maken, ik kon het

horen in mijn hoof, pieng

pong¸ de eerste,

voor zichtige tonen.

 

Cat Work

Nature made cats so the dead can

speak, messages sent through a thrum in the chest,

the glint of a green eye catching moonlight

like a hurried mouse, the faint paw print

marking fresh snow, the quick flick

of impatient tails, meow,

yowl,  they say, meaning,

we never left.

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 4

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The Poetic Asides prompt today asked for a “case” poem, and NaPoWriMo.net focused on the importance of nouns in poems, especially when trying to convey an abstract idea. I’m not sure what I wrote here actually meets either of those challenges, but maybe. I saw a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s briefcase, circulating online today because of the 50th anniversary of his assassination. The short poem came quick as a response. A few words that can in no way encompass all the emotion inspired by one photo.

 

still-open briefcase

it’s the hairbrush that gets me.
too personal. like knowing the particular
cadence of a heart when your
ear’s pressed against a bare chest.

the newspaper, read and reacted
or kept for a later, quiet moment,
bare feet up on the sofa, giving in
to the heavy pull of rest.

but the book, tucked there like a message
in a lunchbox. don’t forget. I’m thinking of you.
still. it takes strength to love, true, but it’s there.
a second after the shot or fifty years later,
when you need it most.

NaPoWriMo – Day 3

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Doing a little prompt mixing today with the NaPoWriMo.net  challenge to write a list poem in which all the items are made-up names. I found intriguing thoughts and phrases from my Twitter feed to inspire imagined poem titles. And my title comes from the Poetic Asides prompt asking for a Stop or Don’t Stop poem.

Found: Titles; Wanted: Poems, or Stop Scrolling Twitter and Write Something

I Know Saying This Makes Me Sound Like A Baby
Calculations Prove It
Working Dog Needs New Home
Meeting Planned
Lactation Room
A Welcome Shift
Suck It, Racists
Sped-Up World
The Longer I Stayed, The Worse It Was
The Manipulations We Suffer
Are You Done In The Middle Yet?
Some Otters
Guilty Of Conspiracy
Mostly Giant Fireballs
Pull Up A Chair, Ladies
See The Entire Incident From Multiple Angles

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 2

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Combining  the NaPoWriMo.net prompt that suggested a poem that played with voice and the Poetic Asides prompt asking for a portrait poem. Today would have been my Mom’s 75th birthday, and I have been thinking a lot today about birthdays past, as well as the tendentious nature of memory.

Birthday Memory

1.

I remember another birthday, Easter weekend too,

thirty degrees above zero and all of us sticky

in the K-Car on the long drive to Auntie Deb’s.

 

I remember your face, Mom.  Soft.

Young, though I didn’t recognize it then.

You hummed when Tom Jones came on the radio.

 

I remember the conversation between you

and Dad, farm kids gone city, speculating

on the state of the fields, the summer ahead.

 

I remember you holding a bouquet of pink tulips.

We asked Dad to buy them from all of us.

Afterthought gift  from the gas station.

 

2.

If you could feel the heat then, daughter

from the sun and family, too close.

Even affection can be stifling sometimes.

 

If you could paint my portrait

there’d be lies in the brushstrokes.

Smoothed over wrinkles and anger.

 

If you could hear only what was said

and not what was meant, I wouldn’t

blame you. Your optimistic child’s ear.

 

If you could see my fingers rubbing

the plush flower petals. Not meaning to

wear a hole in something I loved so much.

NaPoWriMo is here!

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Hooray, hooray, it’s the first of … April! I always get excited about NaPoWriMo and the poem-a-day challenge. For one, it forces me to write. Secondly, I’ve learned that doing these quick drafts where I just let things flow and lay off the self-editing can actually take the writing to new and fun places. Bad writing can be made better later, but it has to exist first.

This year I’m aiming to write a poem every day in a local, closed group with other adventurous Stroll of Poets members, but when I can I will try to post here as well. I will also try to respond to either the NaPoWriMo site prompt, the Poetic Asides prompt, or a combination if it works. Today’s prompt was certainly harmonious, with my local group, NaPoWriMo and Poetic Asides all asking for a version of a “secret” poem. Here’s what snuck out.

 

 

 

Seclusion

I know it’s hidden

under a span of cold mornings,

beneath a crust of snow,

below the hardened soil,

in the throat of a robin.

 

I hear the whisper

of a season

ready to emerge.

 

But still

I hold this secret hope

that tomorrow might bring

another Arctic gale,

another lash of winter,

another frigid night

with nothing to do

but make each other

warm.