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.
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.
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.
Working off the Poetic Asides prompt asking for a catch and/or release poem, and my local Stroll of Poets call to write a poem more about sound than meaning.
The Frequency of Calm
In. Out. In. Out.
As though it were that simple.
As though thinking doesn’t complicate even this.
Chase away the panic.
Catch the breath. Hold. Release.
Draw it in with a rush, flurry, gulp.
Let it out with a hush, whisper, sigh.
Draw, draw, aww, aww, awe
for this. Now.
Hold , hold, whole, whole, hole
of worry. Fade.
Let go, let go, here, here, hear
the whisper. Still.
Vibrato hum. Hum. Hum.
Om. Om. Om.
My province goes to the polls tomorrow. There seems to be so much riding on this election, and though it was a short campaign, I am sick of it. The anticipation. The punditry. Want the results so the band-aid comes off, and I can deal with whatever sore remains. All of this on my mind today as I read the Poetic Asides call to write a “prediction” poem.
I Predict A Riot*
One day until the election.
I’ve stopped reading poll results,
stopped making mental counts of
the election signs in my neighbourhood.
Stopped listening to reporters, pundits, soothsayers.
Who was it that said that the wisest among us
are usually silent?
I put on music instead. Brit rock.
Not London Calling, but somewhere familiar.
Somewhere where they understand the frustration
of the common masses, tired of what really trickles down.
But this song is so bouncy,
makes me want to shake it, not revolt.
On a day like today — cool, grey,
trees still stark and stiff from winter,
I could use a dance infusion.
Want to be moved to move
and not strain my thoughts
about why people believe what they do.
Why money is more valuable than care.
Why I still tell my kids to behave, be responsible
when what the world needs now
is lassies and lads getting lairy, sweet lairy.
* with thanks to Kaiser Chiefs for the title and the inspiration
Decided to write something way different than I usually do by trying out the NaPoWriMo prompt to write a poem that incorporates homophones, homographs, and homonyms, or otherwise makes productive use of English’s ridiculously complex spelling rules and opportunities for mis-hearings and mis-readings. Tossed in a witch for good measure.
How to Dress For a Ball
“A ball!” she bawled, “I’ve never been allowed!”
“Why’ve those princes and princesses
asked this old maid now?”
She wondered aloud, “is it for naughty or nice?”
“A trick or a trap, a mistaken invite?”
Why they want her as guest is anyone’s guess,
if their kindness is a phase, meant to faze her
she will redress.
A witch has a role which shouldn’t be lessened,
if she agrees to go it will be to teach them a lesson.
Roll out the carpet for this crone
if you must, but do not groan when
she’s grown from a quean to a queen
in a gown and a crown.
She can sew so-so, but magic is best.
They’ll reap what they sow and likely say “Frack!”
when she wears her new frock, a truly bewitching dress.
To truly be seen she must make a scene,
a dye to cause dying hidden right in the seams.
“I’ll sidle up to their sides, rub the poisoned dress on their skins,”
“Too evil? ” she sighed, then wickedly grinned.
It had been their main game for forty-three years,
those tow-headed royals with their silky smooth manes,
to call her a toad, laugh at her green skin and beard.
They wanted her there to be the brute of the ball,
but the fate of this fête wouldn’t be up to them at all.
So she said a spell for her garb, made two fancy shoes too,
Looked in the mirror and nearly squawked “boo!”
A startling sight, at this site under full moon.
Who was this person, now beauty not crone?
Perhaps she’d keep this fine form
when she’d thrown them all from the throne.
It’s the final day of this year’s poem-a-day challenge, and as always I feel simultaneously tired and invigorated. Today’s NaPoWriMo.net prompt asked for a poem inspired by a strange fact or historical nugget, while the Poetic Asides final prompt of the month asked for a coming-to-an-end poem. With a little internet exploring of weird facts and Wikipedia pages, I combined the two prompts to make this:
I get it, Frederic Baur
I’m learning
this strange fact ten years after
your death. That you, inventor of
the Pringles potato chip tube, asked
your family to put your ashes in one.
What flavour once lived in there
before you? Was it the bright red one,
iconic, yet housing the ho-hum plain?
Was it the green sour cream and onion,
a peppy shade to brighten up the
evermore? Were you paid well
for your ingenuity, your creativity,
your push to try something new
with the tried and true? Perhaps it’s
warped of me, yes, to think that once
you popped and now you’ve stopped,
but I can tell you this, Mr. Baur, organic
chemist turned food product sage:
I will never again gaze at that cylinder
of salty snacks without thinking of this
outlandish fact, and how all of us just want
what’s left kept in what remains.
For the penultimate day of National Poetry Month, I used the NaPoWriMo.net prompt to write a response to a Sylvia Plath poem. Mine is not so much a response, as a stream of consciousness something-or-other that came from the line “Where do the black trees go that drink here?” from Plath’s poem “Crossing the Water.”
Black Trees
In a gift shop, I tell my friend about my recent obsession with bare branches.
I want to possess them in paintings, necklaces, a metal wall sculpture.
It’s the bud of spring here, and the trees are betraying this admiration.
Abandoning their minimalist life for something with more promise.
The birds, of course, rejoice, but it’s harder to see them in an elm, full plumage.
Harder to watch the small red chest of the robin shrink and puff just before he offers his melodic warble.
I imagine the solitude of a forest, fresh from a fire. Destroyer, perhaps, but purifier too.
It takes years before those charred, naked sticks are overtaken by new growth.
So many years, I could forget how to drink that stark beauty.
I love looking at vintage postcards, so I appreciated the NaPoWriMo.net prompt for Day 28 asking for a postcard poem.
Greetings From The Seaside
There is sunshine and Maggie keeps telling me how warm the sand is beneath her toes. Like heaven, she says, and the stillness of the waves today — the sweet perk of Trixabelle’s ears when she hears children playing up higher on the beach — do suggest a certain beatitude. But there is another feeling here, one more difficult to capture in short words. Something unexpected and heavy, like reaching for an empty shoebox and discovering its filled with lead beads. Anna and Jane say I am being melancholy, spoiling things, since it’s been so long since all of us were together, but perhaps that’s what’s wrong. Time is exposed here, like the husk of a dead crab, caught bobbing at the edge of the shore. Bouncing, bouncing and never escaping the jostling water. If I could, I would send you that sun bleached shell, instead of this verbose postcard. Then you would understand what kind of woman agrees, even though all she wants is to be hers and hers alone.
I was away for the weekend and fell a little behind on posting for the poem-a-day-challenge, but I was keeping along with a few poem starts in my journal. The NaPoWriMo.net prompt for Day 27 asked for a poem using tarot cards and/or their imagery as inspiration. I happened to be visiting a friend that evening, who read a different sort of divination cards for me, so it was an obvious choice for poetic inspiration.
Five Joys a Day
A card falls out of the deck as I shuffle.
Dean, today my augur, laughs and sets it under a napkin.
It’ll be your fourth he says, grin across his face.
I am never sure I believe in all these mystical tools,
divination by tarot, angel cards or today, a nature-themed intuitive deck.
But I am open to the idea, or at least find it fun.
Whether it’s truth from some universal font of knowledge,
or convenient interpretation from a friend-turned-soothsayer
who knows me well, I want to believe him
when he holds up the fourth card, rosy pink,
decorated with flouncy hearts
a smiling sun
an outline of a bird
an apple tree
a wishing well
and says, You can achieve your goals if first
you find five joys a day
then sticks in a sharp pin of truth
and if you want to be truly happy
stop watching the news.
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