NaPoWriMo 2019

PAD 2019 – Day 30

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The final day! Woot! To anyone who’s been reading my poems, thank you. I write and post these drafts to keep myself on track, but it’s always nice to have the kind eyes of others on them too.

Today I decided to include all three of the prompt sites I’ve been using this month. A bit of a challenge since NaPoWriMo called for a micropoem. Packing more into less. That’s what poetry’s all about in many ways. So I tried to squeeze in the Poetic Asides call for a “stop” poem and the Stroll of Poets “standing in line” prompt.

 

tourist rest stop

 

cradled

by the rocky mountains

 

in the bathroom line

 

i hear “beautiful”

in six languages

 

 

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PAD 2019 – Day 29

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The penultimate day of the poem a day challenge! I love the word penultimate. Today’s Stroll of Poets prompt was “room full of secrets” while the Poetic Asides prompt called for a __________ Again poem. Not sure the quickies I wrote really fulfill either prompt that well, but shhhhh….don’t tell.

 

whispering again

leaves plotting a quick descent

secrets of autumn

 

 

powerful people

disguised in expensive clothes

fill rooms with secrets

 

men with ideas

plan a covert whale mission

to harness power

 

* last one inspired by this kooky news story I read this morning

 

 

PAD 2019 – Day 26

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Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt called for a poem that uses repetition, while Poetic Asides suggested writing something about “evening”.  Here’s what came out of the mix:

Evenfall

 

Evening comes

faster the less you pay attention,

like everything that slips in unnoticed. Silver inch of growth

in the part of your hair,  shimmery skin cells sealing a wound,

lines on the face memorializing every frown or smile.

 

Evening comes

solemnly when you are not listening,

whispers of gold and pink asking you to let go

of fulgent preoccupations. A coolness in the gloaming,

offering calm restoration.

 

Evening comes

steadily no matter how much you long for pause,

reliable reminder of all you cannot, should not control.

Winds calm, stars test the sky with the first pricks of light,

darkness readies.

PAD 2019 – Day 21

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Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt asked for a poem that “doesn’t make formal sense, but which engages all the senses and involves dream-logic.” I tried to meld that with the Poetic Asides call for a “sketch” poem. Played around with spacing a bit in this one too, which I don’t often do.

 

Depiction

 

Every rough draft is a sketch

a scribble of words   dashing

across a page     hummingbird thoughts

flitting, then caught      inkblot memory

what does it mean and does it mean something

completely different

to you?

 

Adumbration is another way to say

outlined in shadow    scratched with

a lead point         snake imagination

wriggling, toward something        draw a line

from one star to the next with your finger

string of light connecting

us all.

PAD 2019 – Day 19

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Mixing the Poetic Asides call for a “license” poem with NaPoWriMo’s suggestion to write an abecedarian poem. (Something I’ve never done before…which is likely painfully obvious).

PAD 2019 – Day 19

Alphabetic License

 

Always, bearing certain disaster,

everything finds great happiness.

I just kissed lovely morning.

New order perfecting quiet rights.

Still trees — ulmus, verbena, walnut,

eXhalted yellowbark. Zinging.

PAD 2019 – Day 18

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A little tired today. A little pressed for time. A little stressed. So I was happy to see the Poetic Asides prompt asking for a “Little ______ ” poem. Admittedly, this one was penned with little effort, but it did inspire me to listen to Fleetwood Mac while I work.

 

Little Lies

 

Fleetwood Mac called them sweet.

Sometimes I think it’s true.

There are truths no one can bear.

Souls who know

sometimes the real gift

are the words we don’t share.

 

 

 

 

PAD 2019 – Day 17

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A short one today because I’m busy, and also disheartened about the results of the election in my province. Want to stay optimistic about the future, both the social and environmental aspects of it, but some days that’s hard.

The NaPoWriMo prompt asked for a poem that presents a scene from an unusual point of view, like a rainstorm from a raindrop’s viewpoint. My take didn’t have that potential for beauty, but it was fun to write in the midst of my political wound-licking.

 

Comment From The Platform

 

I’ve propped you up for months

in rhetorical fashion,

and you stood on me last night

to declare your plans and passion.

Please don’t blame me,

when your lies are exposed

and the support goes a’crashin.

 

PAD 2019 – Day 1

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Today is the first day of National Poetry Month and the FIFTH consecutive year that I’ll be participating in the poem-a-day-challenge! I have been madly writing dark short fiction for the last few months, as part of a mentorship program with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta (how lucky am I?!?!), but I decided to dust off the blog with some poetic blab too.

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 the Poetic Asides prompt, or a combination if it works. Today’s prompts matched perfectly, with my local group suggesting “the streets at dawn” as a prompt and Poetic Asides asking for a “morning” poem. Clearly the darkness of all that horror fiction I’ve been writing and reading bled into today’s poem:

 

Morning Before Anyone Else

 

a kind of hollowness, the streets at dawn

apocalypse now — concrete world without people

 

rubble from winter melt desecrating this suburban crescent

windows of each house black and vacant, pupils of the dead

 

trees, budless and birdless in this limbo season

morning is a beginning and an ending too

 

uncovering all that lied in the dark