Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo 2016

Your Soft Voice Fills the World: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 30

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I don’t usually credit photographs, but all photographs on my blog are taken by me. The very few exceptions will be noted.


For the last poem of the month for NaPoWriMo, we were asked to find a poem in a language we do not know and to write a “translation” based on what we think it means.  I chose a poem by an Italian 16th century poet.  His name and poem are printed below my poem, which is:

Your Soft Voice Fills the World

Your soft voice fills the world
and causes the fronds to tremble.
Oh Laura, my long love, even the trees laugh
as they spread their green blanket over my vagabond angel.
Sing your song for me
as you ride eastward
so I may hear it wherever I go.
When you speak in the night,
it resounds in the heavens.
If you want to be queen, be queen of my heart.
Our love endures in the mountains,
oh beautiful vagrant of the skies.
Both you and your words live within me.
In the end, they will sustain me like a fine cuisine.


Here is the original poem:

Ecco mormorar l’onde
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

Ecco mormorar l’onde,
E tremolar le fronde
A l’aura mattutina, e gli arboscelli,
E sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
Cantar soavemente,
E rider l’Oriente;
Ecco già l’alba appare,
E si specchia nel mare,
E rasserena il cielo,
E le campagne imperla il dolce gelo,
E gli alti monti indora:
O bella e vaga Aurora,
L’aura è tua messaggera, e tu de l’aura
Ch’ogni arso cor ristaura.

Originally, I translated the last two lines as:

The smoke of your words lives within me.
In the end, I will eat them like fine cuisine.

I loved those two images, but they seemed not to go with each other
or with the rest of the poem, so I changed them.

Here is a real translation of the poem:

 

Now the waves murmur
And the boughs and the shrubs tremble
in the morning breeze,
And on the green branches the pleasant birds
Sing softly
And the east smiles;
Now dawn already appears
And mirrors herself in the sea,
And makes the sky serene,
And the gentle frost impearls the fields
And gilds the high mountains:
O beautiful and gracious Aurora,
The breeze is your messenger, and you the breeze’s
Which revives each burnt-out heart.

 

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-thirty-2/

Ordained Corruption

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Ordained Corruption

It’s hardly worth the time it takes to rail against the gross corruption.
It’s gotten so the lack of it is what is classed as interruption.
Pure evil seems to run the world with scalawags who dupe the people.
False prophets fooling idiots who think because they hug a steeple
God has ordained all that they say, forgetting who they hurt or batter.
All they proclaim is what’s believed. The harm they do seems not to matter.

Good churchmen please examine closer what the ones who lead are saying.
The evil that they do is not abolished by the fact they’re praying.
Mean acts against humanity are wrong no matter what you call them.
True holy men are those who find that unkind acts always appall them.
You cannot keep the world you live in safe behind a towering wall.
When the true danger you’re not seeing crouches there inside you all.

The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem whose lines contained seventeen syllables each. Yes. I did it. Can’t resist a challenge. I asked forgottenman to give me a one word prompt yesterday, but his response came too late, so I used it today.  His prompt was “Corruption.”

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-seven-2/

Blueberry, Blueberry, Blackbird Pie: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 26

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Blueberry, Blueberry, Blackbird Pie

Gotta get a cookie. Gotta eat some pie.
Gotta have some sugar, do or die.
Grab a fork and grab a spoon.
Sugar shack opening pretty soon.

Hey lolly hey lolly, blueberry pie.
Hope to have some by and by.

Old Mother Crank put a pie up on the shelf.
Thought she’d eat it all herself.
Along came a blackbird who grabbed a bit of crust,
then the whole damn pie as the old lady cussed.

Hey lolly, hey lolly, no more pie.
Blackbird made it go bye bye.

Old Mother Fussbudget loaded up her gun.
She didn’t have pie, but she was gonna have some fun.
When she spied that blackbird way up high,
she fired her gun up in the sky.

Hey lolly, hey lolly, no berry pie.
Just that blackbird winging through the sky.

Now old Mother Wigglewaggy baked another pie.
It’ll be ready in the blinking of an eye.
She had two pieces, then she had a third,
Since she didn’t have fruit, she used the bird!!

Hey lolly, hey lolly, no bird pie.
I prefer my blackbird served on rye!

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a call and response poem.

http://www.napowrimo.net/

Ashes and Dust and : NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 25 and “Whisper,” WordPress Daily Prompt

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“After all our years have settled like dust . . .”
                                           ––okc forgottenman

Ashes and Dust

When that cruel wind
blows against memories
that have settled like dust
on our lives,

what  will remain
sealed in our crevasses
––fine furniture that we are
of a bygone age?

What remaining minutes
of a long life of years
will define us then?
A kiss? A child held in arms?
Regrets? Terrors?

In those storerooms
where people  sit
stacked in silent cubicles,
what zephyrs whisper through
to stir the embers
of their minds?

Is there music in those currents
or are they the sad
whining winds
that curl over headstones
and lament the dust that settles there,

moaning through cracks in attics
and around hanging eaves troughs,
causing them to swing and bump
lonely against the fading
wood of abandoned houses?

LIfe builds us and wears us away
like the mountain.
Like sand on the beach.
We are not above it all.

No matter how much power
we think we gain,
Nature is a wind that breathes
into us at birth,
then blows itself away.

The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem making use of the first line of someone else’s poem.  You can find the poem by okc forgottenman that I drew inspiration from Here. The WordPress prompt was “whisper.”

 

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-five-2/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/whisper/

 

After the Honeymoon

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Today’s NaPoWriMo Prompt was to write a “mix-and-match” poem in which you mingle fancy,  poetic vocabulary with distinctly un-fancy words.

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After the Honeymoon

Oh my dear,
caught in this star-studded cowboy boot world,
I love you more than an Oreo cookie,
more than bubble gum
or a dill pickle.
You are a full gas tank and my shoelaces.
You are both what keeps me going
and what I am reaching out for—
my goal and trophy rolled into one.
You are my ironing board and my blender—
what churns me up and straightens me out.
Everything in the world is caught up in you.

It is flowering, our ordinary world.
peanut butter sandwiches
and corned beef hash
are surrounded by rosebuds,
soaring heavenward in sartorial bliss.
The sewing machine is holy
and our Dodge truck dreamlike.
The fanciful and practical
are shuffled in our dream world
like cards at a poker table.
A washcloth and a comb soar heavenward.
Birdsong becomes a phonograph needle,
caught in its groove.
Verdant is the garden hose–
pulsating with a new vibrancy.

If I am a tax form, you are my pencil.
You are diaphanous in your kitchen apron,
a fairy in blue jeans.
I could sing an ode to your toothbrush.
If I took a measuring stick to our love,
the world’s breath would be bated,
waiting for the result.
Birdsong would issue from the teakettle
to chorus the announcement.

For oh, my love, our passion is a hammer.
A scythe that slices through the problems of the world:
the shopping lists and the crabgrass.

Love vaporizes our petty problems––
the broken dishwasher
and the broken fingernail––
leaving my bride, my fairy princess.
My pencil sharpener.
The trimmer of my wick,
the cooker of my sausage.

My dear, I am turgid in thy love.
You are what wrenches my heart
and nails shut the door
of every misgiving I might have had.
You are mustard to my sauerkraut,
pastrami to my rye.
Love in a Ziplock bag might seem less fairylike,
blander than white bread
and more Sunday School than magical;
but, my little zucchini,
my Dove bar and my Orange Crush,
you are still my camellia and my rose.

I think of you under lindens,
your footsteps filled with magnolia petals
and your cook pot full of stardust.
Heaven resides in our walkup flat, my dear,
and I pulsate every day
with the memory of that honeymoon
which was only our penultimate dream—
leading up to the chock-a-block,
stuffed turkey with all the trimmings,
overflowing Christmas stocking,
burst balloon filled with confetti,
blissful rest of that conjoined life
that with every morning alarm clock
will spill over us again
like a freshly split piñata.

If you are curious, here is the list of words I made up to use before I wrote the poem:

bated, penultimate, scintillating, vaporous, tyrolean, fragile, throbbing, majestic, cloud, magical, fragile, fairylike, vaporous, birdsong, flowering, verdant, diaphanous, star-studded,dreamlike, rose strewn, elfin, birdsong, Zephyrus, pulsating, silence, hush, tra la la, turgid, verdant, rosebuds, camellias, lindens, pastoral, heavenward, pulsating, sartorial.

gas tank, hammer, shopping list, dog food, can opener, wrench, pillow slip, garden hose, scrub brush, dishwasher, washcloth, comb, Ziplock bag, pencil, phonograph needle, emery board, shoelace, eyelash, curtain rod, stapler, bubble gum, Oreo cookie, peanut butter, corned beef sandwich , sauerkraut, blander, fingernail clippers, measuring stick, pencil sharpener, gas tank, shoe polish, Dodge truck, table saw, ski boot, cowboy boot, bra strap, ironing board, dill pickle, 

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-four-2/

Last Little Piggy Goes to Market: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 21

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Last Little Piggy Goes To Market

I am the littlest piggy, and when I commenced to roam,
why did I cry “Wee wee wee” all the long way home?
My sibling went to market and I followed along.
The path was rough and winding–as steep as it was long.

My little legs were tired, yet I followed close behind––
I wondered if he knew that I was following if he’d mind.
My family never let me go hardly anywhere,
so market piqued my interest. I wondered what was there.

I asked my other siblings if they wouldn’t like to try it,
but one was into his roast beef, the other on a diet.
She said she would be tempted by the pastries and the candy.
This was enough to convince me this market was a dandy.

When we crested the final hill and rounded the last bend,
the market spread out for so far, I couldn’t see its end.
Booth after booth was set up to sell its chosen fare.
My head swung fast from side to side to see all that was there.

Buttons, bolsters, bumbershoots and books with songs or riddles.
Little dainty donuts with whipped cream in their middles.
Tinkertoys and rubber balls and cricket bats and kites.
My eyes could not keep up with all these delicious sights.

I lost sight of my brother, but I didn’t care.
I was too busy ogling all this varied fare.
My tummy started rumbling. Ice cream, cakes and pies.
I wished that I could put my mouth where I had put my eyes.

But then I stopped to look at a very curious rig
and a big sign that said “Barbecue—what? Barbecue pig????
Folks stood around with sandwiches filled with dripping meat,
and then I saw another sign that said “Pickled Pig’s Feet!!!”

My pigs’ feet took me out of there as fast as I could joggle.
I didn’t stop for donuts. I didn’t stop to ogle.
I scurried for my own safe yard, squealing “Wee, wee, wee!”
Now when I seek adventure, home is enough for me!!!

 

The Prompt: write a poem in the voice of minor character from a fairy tale or myth.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-one/

 

NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 18 “The Language of Home”

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The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a poem about figures of speech and ways of talking of the people I grew up around. Since I have very recently written a poem about precisely this topic, please go HERE to read it.

Here is the prompt and link to NaPoWriMo, in case you’d like to join in.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates “the sound of home.” Think back to your childhood, and the figures of speech and particular ways of talking that the people around you used, and which you may not hear anymore. My grandfather and mother, in particular, used several phrases I’ve rarely heard any others say, and I also absorbed certain ways of talking living in Charleston, South Carolina that I don’t hear on a daily basis in Washington, DC. Coax your ear and your voice backwards, and write a poem that speaks the language of home, and not the language of adulthood, office, or work. Happy writing!  http://www.napowrimo.net/day-eighteen-2/

 

 

“The Gawkey and Flaybottomist—Who Should Have Stopped When First They Kissed”

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The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a poem using at least ten terms from a specialized dictionary. I guess when I chose to use the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue  from my own bookshelf, I should have realized that at least 1/2 of the terms would involve sexual innuendo. Nonetheless, I decided to proceed. I must warn you that the following poem is a bit risqué, so please avoid reading it if rude language offends thee!

The 16 terms I used and their definitions are given after the poem. If you wish, you might want to read them before the poem, or you can try to follow context clues to discover their meaning on your own:

 

“The Gawkey and Flaybottomist—Who Should Have Stopped When First They Kissed”

I predict the cross patch and the flaybottomist
are the sort of women least likely to be kissed.
The first’s so busy grumbling that the kiss never connected,
while the second merely thinks of how the kiss may be corrected.

Now, there was an awkward village boy excessively unworldly,
that on one occasion had acted most absurdly
by planting a fast buss upon his teacher’s nearby cheek
then since he was both young and shy, he beat a fast retreat.

The following week when mellow, he thought he’d try again—
His amorous nature brought out by much congress with his gin.
He desired a bit of relish, and the gin made him a fool
So he took his gaying instrument up to the village school.

I fear he was a gawkey–the worst that you might meet,
and he tripped over his crab shells as he stumbled up the street.
The roaring boys pursued him, thinking they would later cackle—
leaking all the secrets of where gawkey stowed his tackle.

Upon his knock, the school teacher opened up the door,
attired in her negligee–and I fear nothing more.
She greeted him with Friday-face, but he took little note,
for he was practicing the lines that he had learned by rote.

The teacher was a dumplin and her suitor tall and thin,
yet when she heard his practiced plea, I fear she let him in.
But what he didn’t know then, as he quenched his carnal thirst
was that on that night of visitors, he was not the first.

The reason our flaybottomist had greeted him ungowned,
clad only in her negligee and with her hair unwound,
was because the French instructor had been there to give instruction—
a fact that I fear later led to misery and destruction.

For her tutor left her Frenchified, which she passed to the gawkey,
who took his French leave quickly, feeling a good deal less cocky.
The moral of this little tale—at least the one you’ll get?
Things are apt to get sticky when you’re the teacher’s pet!

 

Words from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue used in this poem:

*crab shells:  Irish, shoes
*gawkey: a tall, thin, awkward man or woman
*gaying instrument: the penis
*cross patch: a peevish boy or girl, an unsocial or ill-tempered man or woman
*relish: carnal connection with a woman
*cackle or leaky: to blab or reveal secrets
*roaring boy: a noisy, riotous fellow
*flaybottomist: a schoolteacher
*mellow: almost drunk
*dumplin: a short thick man or woman
*tackle:  a man’s genitals
*Friday-face:  a dismal countenance (Friday being a day of abstinence.)
*French leave: to go off without taking leave of the company
*Frenchified: infected with venereal disease.
*Negligee: a woman’s undressed gown,
*buss: a kiss “kissing and bussing differ both in this, We busse our wantons,
but our wives we kisse! (Robert Herrick, “Hesperides,” 1648) from buss, 1570.

To see the NaPoWriMo prompt or to participate, go here: http://www.napowrimo.net/day-seventeen-2/

Although I doubt this poem will prompt much heavy breathing, I’m posting it on the WordPress site as well: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/breath/

What Consumed You: NaPoWriMo 2016, April 16

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What Consumed You

Hot wax for your wild boar sculpture
that you melted in my favorite sauté pan.
The metallic smell of your sweat.
Fine redwood shavings
caught in the curly hairs of your muscled arms.

“What is your favorite part of his body?”
a friend once asked––
a strange question.
It was your forearms.
You were a beautiful man.

“Nice legs,” a woman leaving a restaurant in St. Paul
once remarked to you, as we were entering.
“Bernice,” her husband expostulated.
“Well, they are,” she answered.
They were a bicyclist’s legs,
my second favorite part.

When they came to take you,
“What a waste––” I thought,
“that body consigned to flame––”
but appropriate to an artist
who had fired glass and clay and bronze
to join in the kiln all the beauty he had created from it.

When potter friends
asked for a cup of your ashes
for the glaze for your funereal urn,
that is how,
finally, you became
the art you lived for.

 IMG_5376The idea was to make ten of these seed-shaped urns to divide my husband Bob’s ashes into–one for each of Bob’s eight kids, his sister and me. A larger pea pod shaped tray was to enclose them all, but it blew into a hundred pieces in the kiln of our friends Dan and Laurie, who were making it.  I guess it was an appropriate metaphor, for Bob was the one who brought us all together and he was now gone.  Somehow, I wound up with eleven urns, so after Bob’s kids and sister came to Mexico to collect their ashes to distribute wherever they wished and we deposited the ashes designated to me in Lake Chapala, I wound up with one empty urn and one filled partially with the remains of Bob’s ashes.  I always thought the empty one was for me, but when I knocked over the one with Bob’s ashes in it a few years ago, we gathered him up so he now resides in my urn and I am unattached in the after life, at least for now.  The little urn in the foreground is all that is physically left of Bob.  In the background is a bronze nude that is one of hundreds of sculptures, art lamps and vases that he seeded the world with before he left it. R.I.P. Bob. Much of you remains in this world.

This is my poem for today’s prompt.  To see it and/or participate, go here: http://www.napowrimo.net/day-sixteen-3/

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/disaster/

Double Snap!

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Double Snap!

“Clap hands,” they said, “Clap hands
to the music,” and we all obeyed
that 50’s and 60’s band
that we might have followed anywhere–
out the door and across the street into the ocean
like geriatric children following a Pied Piper.

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As we had when the music was new,
we gyrated and sweated,
bumped hips, jitterbugged,
did swing and wild improvisation

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at Palapa Joe’s.
Joe himself barefoot at the keyboard,

a bookend to Denise at the drums.
And we? We are as hot
as this February night.

“Oh to be young again” is not in anyone’s vocabulary,
for we are teenagers again below the Tropic of Cancer.
In the ocean or in front of it,
sipping the sunset from tiny cobalt glasses,

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watching children move toy trucks down sandy roads
of their imagination

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and teenagers elfin in the surf.

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The sun falling falling farther northwards every day
until that March day we waited for every year when it sank
directly behind the offshore island.

Snap. It is gone.
Double snap. So are we.

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Here’s more of a photo story about Palapa Joe’s if you are interested:
 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/02/28/last-open-mike-of-the-season-at-palapa-joes/

The NaPoWriMo prompt was “double” and the WordPress prompt was “snap” so I combined them today…Here are links to those prompt sites in case you want to play along:
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-fifteen-2/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/snap/