Category Archives: Poetry

NaPoWriMo Day 15: Lunar Eclipse

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Lunar Eclipse

Last night I rose to watch the full eclipse––
a blood orange moon, full in the dark night sky,
around it, scattered stars and tall palm tips.

It was as though in this world, only I
watched the last fingernail of glowing moon,
chewed at by shadow, slowly wane and die.

And then the night birds with their lonely croon
gave timbre to this darkened night soon joined
by lonely burro, braying for the moon

as though they mourned for vision now purloined
or simply sang for joy of adding to
the beauty of this dark moon newly coined.

Then once again the moon’s edge came to view.
Earth moved aside in favor of the sun
and for an hour, I watched as moonlight grew.

Then sought my bed, the pageant not yet done,
as light increased and shadow slowly waned.
Inevitably, once more light had won.

The ending known, no mystery remained.

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Our prompt today was to write a poem in terza rima, a form invented by Dante and used in The Divine Comedy. It consists of three-line stanzas, with a “chained” rhyme scheme. The first stanza is ABA, the second is BCB, the third is CDC, and so on. No particular meter is necessary, but English poets have tended to default to iambic pentameter. One common way of ending a terza rima poem is with a single line standing on its own, rhyming with the middle line of the preceding three-line stanza.

See more blood moon photos here: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/09/27/eclipse-of-the-blood-moon-over-mexico/

NaPoWriMo Day 14: The Meeting Place

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The Meeting Place

What are you waiting for––
divine inspiration?
Do you think Shakespeare waited for his muse?
And if your muse came,
would you even recognize her?
Will she wear long white flowing robes?
Will she play a lute or will your voice
be her instrument?
Will she whisper in your ear or speak to you
though your mind?
And will she be beautiful or will that even matter?
As you age will your muse age with you
or is she perpetually young?
And what about wisdom?
Will it be your own acquired wisdom or hers
that will make your words cut like a knife
though the soft texture of days,
that will give them purpose
when those around you
fail and fall
into the magnetic cloud
of forgetfulness or boredom?
What if as you sit there
waiting for your muse,
watching reality TV
or doing crossword puzzles,
your muse is waiting for you
in the keys of your computer
or in your pen point?
What if she has been lolling all these years
in the pages
of that lined notebook
sitting empty on your shelf?
I keep telling you
that every day I see her
pass behind you
as you pine for her,
always looking
in the opposite
direction.

 

The prompt today was to write a poem in which every sentence, except for the last one, is in the form of a question.

 

 

NaPoWriMo Day 13: Wish Wagon

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Wish Wagon

Hear the clanging pots, the squeaky wheels?
Over the rise comes the peddler’s cart––
horse with head down, pulling the load,
the jolly man just dangling the whip over her flanks.

Pitchers, fry pans, mops and brooms,
a doll for sis and kites for the boys
who run to greet this week’s happening,
hoping that Pa has spare bills in his wallet this time.

Now hear the “Whoa, Nell!” and see Zeke, the peddler,
swing his bent frame down from his high perch,
Ma drying her hands as she emerges from the kitchen door,
sis attached to her skirts, shy but drawn irresistibly from safety

to see the wonders that the peddler draws from his wagon:
penny candies by the jar and safety pins.
Needles, spoons and dime novels.
Cloth for Ma of calico and new boots for Pa.

Rag rugs made by Ma and traded for a bucket
and a wash pan his last trip here
that haven’t sold and so he won’t need more.
Jangly bracelets like the city women wear.

Her brief laugh scoffs at them.
The very idea. But one finger runs them round
before it draws away. And in her eyes
there is a wistfulness we will not see again

for thirty more years, until another wagon
crests the hill and drives away with her,
that look again frozen on her face
for eternity.

 

 

Our optional prompt for today was to write a poem that contains at least one kenning. Kennings were metaphorical phrases developed in Nordic sagas. At their simplest, they generally consist of two nouns joined together, which imaginatively describe or name a third thing. The phrase “whale road,” for example, could be used instead of “sea” or “ocean,” and “sky candle” could be used for “sun.” I used my kenning for the title.

NaPoWriMo Day 12: Love on the Fast Track

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Love on the Fast Track

Love is a vehicle
powered by internal combustion
and able to carry only
a small number of people.
“We’re going by love,”
you can say, as they
hop aboard.

Even with no love
of your own,
you can now lease
some of the industry’s
best-selling love
for the equivalent
of a daily fast-food fix.

Easy-to-use online tools
put you a step ahead
in finding your next love.
At Loves.com,
you can search 2.6 million
new & used love listings
to get a dealer quote
or use an advanced search‎
to compare loves side-by-side.

Mexico Love Rental
offers cheap deals
at six rent-a-love agencies,
so save on affordable rent-a-love
when you book online today.

Our new love reviews
and love buying resources
are designed to help you
make informed decisions
when buying your next love.
See love reviews
for new loves
for 2014 and 2015
at loveanddriver.com.

Love is its own special universe
of design and engineering.
Learn how it works at
love.howstuffworks.com,

or if you have no interest
in the scientific side of love,
lovetown.com offers content
never before seen in the field
of love games.

Today’s prompt was to pick both a common concrete noun and a noun for something intangible, then to Google the tangible noun to find some sentences using it and to replace that tangible noun in those sentences with the intangible noun, then to use those sentences to create (or inspire) a poem. My least favorite prompt ever. This was the result. Now, check out this video:

NaPoWriMo Day 11: Strawberry Hill Forever

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Poets have been writing about love and wine, wine and love, since the time of Anacreon, a Greek poet who was rather partial to that subject matter. Anacreontics might be described as a sort of high-falutin’ drinking song. So, today our prompt was to write about wine-and-love.

Strawberry Hill Forever

So take we rum and take we Coke
and sippy-straws so we don’t choke
on ice and limes within our glasses
and fall dead on our tipsy asses.

Let us to Elysian fields
take our drinks and also meals:
cheese and grapes and shepherd’s pie,
potato chips and ham on rye.

Let us frolic in the lee
without your kids—just you and me.
Spread a blanket and have some fun.
Show ourselves to the morning sun.

If perchance you’d prefer wine,
well, you take yours and I’ll take mine.
I’ve chosen well. I think I will
take some Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill

found in a box of college things:
pennants, books and old class rings.
This dinosaur, screw top intact,
we must imbibe, it is a fact,

to stir libidos and memory
so I might take thee on my knee,
cop a feel of thy lovely ass
and roll thee in the green green grass.

Afterwards, we’ll fill our lips
with sandwiches and pie and chips.
No satyr dined on lovelier fare.
No nymph tasted food more rare.

And when the sun falls in the west,
we’ll cork our wine, pack up our chest
and hurry home. We can’t be late.
Your husband’s getting home at eight.

A Little NaPoWriMo encouragement

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Okay, all you NaPoWriMo’ers.  Please check out the below URL to know you are not alone:

NaPoWriMo, Day 10: Neo Burma-Shave Ads

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Our prompt today was to write a poem advertising poetry.  The third one is not quite an ad, but it has the cadence.

Neo Burma-Shave Ads

Make your words
both scan and rhyme.
Writing poetry’s
not a crime!

Get a seed of thought
and sow it.
Once it grows,
you’ll be a poet!

Robert Frost at the Movies

Robert’s poems
scanned and rhymed.
His meter? Even
and well-timed.

Yet when he tripped
on slippery tile
and dropped his
poems in a pile,

the usher hissed
in tones most vile
to get his “feet”
out of the aisle!

NaPoWriMo Day 9: “I’ll Leave the Light On”

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I’ll Leave the Light On

This is a world for the knowing,
and everybody knows
that if we would try just a little bit harder
that we wouldn’t feel so trapped.
yet still we cry baby, cry.

You think he’s gonna carry you home to China?
It’s not like that, darlin’.
It’s more likely that you’re walkin’ blind.
You will be two marionettes
on the Twickenham Ferry.

Where can I go? you ask, trapped,
a woman left lonely in winter.
What you gonna do––let your wedding dress
carry you home to the cold mountains?

Run, baby, run.
Let the black ladder be your museum of flight.
At heart you were always a circus girl, anyway––
that woman on the tier far above desolation row.

When were you happy?
I know you keep me in your heart,
the one who loves you the most.
I am in your mind, In the wind.
The memory of me is better than love.
This is a call–a broken man’s lament.
I hope it will carry you home.

Walk away, Renée. Walk away.
You’ll accompany me.
We can take the long way home.

Today’s prompt was to incorporate 5 song titles into a poem. As usual, I elected to be excessive. How many can song titles can you find in this poem? $10 prize or a free copy of my book to the winner. Woweeeee! You won’t be rich, but just think of the honor.

NaPoWriMo Day 8: Slack One Lying On the Cobblestones

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Our prompt today is to write a poem based on another famous poem. The poem suggested is this one written by Cesar Vallejo and translated by Robert Bly:

Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris–and I don’t step aside–
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday,
setting down these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.

César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also

with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .

This is my version of Vallejo’s self-eulogy:


Slack One Lying On the Cobblestones

I will die in Mexico, on a zany day,
on some day when memory fails me.
I will die under the feet of a burro––as I don’t step aside––
perhaps on market day, as today is market day, in a fall.

It will be a market day because today, market day,
buying new shoes, I have put them on
the wrong feet, and never so much as today do I find myself
having problems negotiating all the cobblestones ahead of me, alone.

Remi is dead. That burro walked on her
although she never did anything to him;
he tromped her hard with his hooves and hard also

with his trailing rope. This is what was left:
her shopping bag, the bones of her dignity,
her bolillos, her new huaraches, and the road. . .

(Note:  Remi is my preferred name to be called by friends, although few consent to do so.)

NaPoWriMo Day 7: Fidelity

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Our prompt today was to write a love poem.

Fidelity

Each morning when I wake
to shrill alarm or sweet bird song,
depending upon the requirements of my day,
you are the first to greet my opening eyes.
You rest there on the pillow next to me
in the bed where first I, then you,
have fallen to sleep the night before
too soon, too soon,
before half our words were said.

After a quick trip to the john,
it is the first stroke of my fingers
that bring you finally to life.
Your countenance lights up
and the same love words
I revealed to you last night
are returned to me.

My hands caress
and new words come easily
first to me, then to you.
I touch gently all
your fine smoothness,
getting back
everything that I give
equal measure,
continuing our long love story
of give and take
as I shift your light frame onto my lap
to stroke your separate parts
from question mark to exclamation point.

Could a PC ever rouse this passion in me?
No way, MacBook Air. Thou art my love!

(I forgot to mention before that this love poem was to be written to an inanimate object. My love affair with Macs has extended over 30 years—from my very first floppy disk table model to my new love…the ultralight MacBook air.)