Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo 2016

NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 14: Mother’s Song (san san poetry)

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Mother’s Song

Left in our wake, hushed water parts like wings,
leaving behind us this brief afternoon.
With every oar stroke, I feel our parting
hushed as the falling darkness brings
through the departing wings of birds, the moon.
In this hushed darkness, my thoughts are spinning,
for as the rest of your life has its starting,
you leave behind you its beginning.

 

Phew! The prompt today was a doozy.  Here it is:  Today your optional prompt is to write a seven-line poem called a san san, which means “three three” in Chinese (It’s also a term of art in the game Go). The san san has some things in common with the tritina, including repetition and rhyme. In particular, the san san repeats, three times, each of three terms or images. The seven lines rhyme in the pattern a-b-c-a-b-d-c-d.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-fourteen-3/

Since this is a poem about leaving, which suitcases always suggest, I’m posting this on the WordPress Daily Post site as well:
 https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/suitcase/

Plucked from Line––5 Poems Stolen from Ginsberg: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 12

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For National Poetry Month, we are asked to write a poem a day for one month.  Today the prompt is to write a poem based on the index of a book. At first I was uninspired by this prompt.  I wrote several that seemed lackluster, then had chores and an appointment. In the middle of the afternoon, I decided it was time to get out of the house.  I headed to one of the fish restaurants on the lake and picked one from the road that looked peaceful and cool and atmospheric.  When I walked in, however, the TV was blaring some sports match.  When I took a table furthest from the TV, the waiter asked if I’d like to try one of the palapas.  We walked out of the large restaurant and I discovered my perfect environment to write.  I’d grabbed a book of Ginsberg poems–one of the few books I could find that actually had an index.  I settled in under the palapa roof, ignored the young men first working on their jet ski and then swashbuckling in circles in the water below the palapa, ordered a couple of quesadillas, anejo rum and Coke and  this is what transpired.

Plucked from Line––Five Poems Stolen from Ginsberg

These poems are comprised of selected lines from the first lines and titles index of Allen Ginsberg Collected Poems 1947-1980, Harper and Row, 1984

I met Allen Ginsberg in 1985 at a concert at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in L.A. when, after waiting in line for too long, I knocked on the door to ask if I could use the ladies room. He was the one who opened the door and graciously let me in. Later, he read his poems to the strum of some instrument—perhaps a sitar.

The book I took this from is signed: Allen Ginsberg, 3/12/85 HH (or perhaps AH) Los Angeles. There is a little doodle of a plant and some bees that looks like it is there to cover something else—perhaps a flub when he started to date it again. I don’t know if I bought the book that night or whether I had it and took it for him to sign. Or, perhaps I bought it in a bookstore later and it wasn’t signed for me at all. I prefer to remember that this reading/concert in the famous guitar shop was a promotion for his book, which had just been published, and that he signed this for me.

 

Plucked from Line, Five Poems

 

A bitter cold winter night
after dead souls,
after 53 years,
after thoughts fall,
after All, what else is there to say?
All afternoon cutting bramble blackberries––
a new moon looks down on our sick sweet planet.

#

An imaginary rose in a book
an open window on Chicago
as orange dusk-light falls on an old idea
at gauzy dusk, thin haze like cigarette smoke.
Aunt Rose––now––might I see you?
A very dove will have her love.

#

Because we met at dusk,
Buddha died and
cars slid minute down asphalt lanes in front of
city flats, coal yards and brown rivers.
Coughing in the morning,
covered with yellow leaves,
delicate eyes that blinked blue Rockies all ash
don’t grow old.
Do we understand each other?

#

Drive all blames into one.
Go back to Egypt and the Greeks.
Green air, children sat under trees with the old.
Green valentine blues––
have you seen the movie?

#

High on laughing gas,
how come he got canned at the ribbon factory?
How sick I am.
I am a Fake Saint.

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twelve-4/

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 11

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Bite

The gardener sprays the water wide
in an arc from side to side.
The old dog moves out of its path.
No one knows her held-in wrath

for all who hold the power but she––
the door for which she has no key,
the young dog taking power away,
as she grows weaker every day.

The universe is never kind
to those caught in the crushing grind
of power eroding day by day.
Surrender is the price we pay.

Commanding, shy, flamboyant, staid––
everyone falls to the blade.
For all, it is the price that’s paid–
by tyrant and by serving maid.

What has happened to stay my hand?
I’ve read the words both fine and grand
that other poets have been writing
and envy has commenced its biting.

What I write is merely babble.
It’s obvious I only dabble.
These words I have so easily found.
surely cannot be profound.

The gardener sprays the water wide
in an arc from side to side,
in a move so sure and quick,
quenching inspiration’s wick.

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-eleven-3/

Spinal Tap: NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 10–“Book Spine Poem”

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Today’s NaPoWriMo Prompt: Write a “book spine” poem. This involves taking a look at your bookshelves, gathering a list of titles and using the titles to create a poem that is seeded throughout with your own lines, interjections, and thoughts. (Did I take the fun out of it by putting all the book titles in italics?)

Spinal Tap

The artist in his studio may anguish behind bars
while right outside his window are nights of rain and stars.
No kindness goes unpunished, my friend’s mother would say
in infinite jest­­­­––she knew that our hearts were young and gay.
She’s all blue shoes and happiness and feasts on cakes and ale.
He looks through a glass darkly as he nibbles on his kale.

When the sun also rises, he goes west with the night––
never seeing sunlight when it is at its height.
Books, paintings and poetry are the edge of man.
We have not seen the whole of him. In fact, we never can.
It is the face behind the face by which he must be gauged–
that face we never see at all if he keeps it caged.

We have the full cupboard of life, although it is not free;
and this world of the makers (whoever they might be)
is ours to pick and choose from, though we must pay the price
when we add our unique nature to others’ sage advice.
Our lives are jigsaw puzzles that each of us must solve
to form a different picture as our lives slowly evolve.

Reading adventure stories of someone else’s strife
cannot compensate us for an empty life.
Revolution from within cannot be won by reading.
To use The Joy of Cooking also takes some kneading.
Dust on my heart collecting–every year there’s more.
A little life is not enough. I must open the door.

We need new names and faces, some are heard to confess,
so who we are inside of them, no one will ever guess.
The husband’s secret shared only with the woman upstairs,
is someone else’s love story. Nobody really cares.
There is a village in the sun. I keep my real life there;
and someday, someday maybe I’ll join it if I dare.

 

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-ten-4/

NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 9

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Today, we were challenged  to write a poem that includes a line that we are afraid to write. This is mine:

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Temporal

I am going to die.
That thing in me that talks to me
as well as the part who talks back
will be lost to posterity.
How sad that they have no names.

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-9/

NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 8: Cornhusk Bouquet

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Cornhusk Bouquet

No less real than those that grow
from soil and water and sunlight’s glow,
these are the flowers the women made.
They are less fragile––more slowly fade.
Fashioned from the husks of corn––
Their food’s protector, now reborn
by women’s hands–graceful and able,
into beauty to grace the table.

Their petals strong as the hands that twist
husks soaked in water lest they resist
the efforts of creators who
have dyed them yellow, red and blue.
Green for leaves and sepals formed
from nature trimmed and soaked and warmed
by the knees they shape them over––
hyacinth, roses and clover.

The breath of life stirs leaves and thrums
sunflowers, lilies and mums.
The gentle waving of petals hung
over paper scraps, bottles and dung
of a courtyard made from life and duty
and therefore not reserved for beauty.
Squalor from which beauty comes.
See how their bougainvillea hums?

Thunbergia’s petals and fragile pod
are lovely as if made by god.
Carried to market where they sell
to tourists who will love them well.
Crowded in vases, baskets or
in jardiniers on the sala floor.
These flowers will not tell the tale
of scissors and the soaking pail.

They stand completed, sure and tall
in a copper bucket in my hall.
As I pass, my garment’s hem
gently brushes over them
and stirs the powdery summer dust
that covers them in a fragile crust,
releasing a subtle bouquet
of corn and soil and the light of day.

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-eight-3/

Foreign Food

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Foreign Food

In the garden or on the hoof,
in the lake or on the roof,
we grow it, herd it, shoot it, hook it.
Pick it, wash it, chop it, cook it.

Wherever we see food, we take it.
Stir it, spit it, fry or bake it.
In Japan is the exception.
Some ancient chef had a conception

that he would not cook the fish–
just serve it raw upon the dish.
It is a strange way to be fed–
to eat a fish that’s merely dead!

In African countries, I have found,
they build a fire on the ground
and cook their food in cauldrons there
flavored with spices hot and rare.

In Sicily, the mafia bosses
favor rich tomato sauces.
First they’re fed by wife or mother,
Then they go out and kill each other.

Mexicans use corn instead
of wheat to make their daily bread.
They fold it around beans or meat
and chilis to turn up the heat!

America’s a country where
there’s food from every country there.
What’s unique in our repast
is that we want our food here fast!

The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem about food, and the WordPress daily prompt was faraway.  I’m going to try to combine them!

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

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-six-4/

Aunt Lou’s Underground Railroad Tomato

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Reading through a heritage seed catalogue can be a bit like reading a Reader’s Digest of adventure and human interest stories. Take, for instance, the abbreviated tale of how one tomato variety came to be saved and how it got its name. Above is an excerpt from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalogue that tells this tale. Below is the poem I wrote, prompted by this entry.

Aunt Lou’s Underground Railroad Tomato

So many acts of bravery lost
to history, but at what cost?
We concentrate on acts of war
in spite of what we fight them for.
Patriotism is what we say
we’re fighting for, while day by day
young men die for corporations
and win postmortem decorations
Their sacrifice of life much praised
so profit margins may be raised.

Consider, then, the other hero
whose decorations number zero.
This hero’s grave we’re loath to mark.
The soil above his grave is stark.
His collar bore no decoration,
His passing earned him no oration.
Unnamed, unlauded, he took a train
his life and freedom to regain––
pushed up from darkness like seeds to light,
by those engaged in a selfless fight
for fairness and equality.
One more man saved. One more man free.

Those who aided him also lost––
their names like ashes lightly tossed
to fertilize the soil wherein
small shafts push up where seeds have been.
Those seeds he carried his only fare,
passed to a woman who helped him there.

The fleshy meat––tangy and pink,
its juices running down the sink
a child stands over while eating it––
teeth tearing flesh, his face well lit
by sunlight streaming in the glass
where once a hand was seen to pass
a pocketful of tomato seed––
a humble gift born out of need
to somehow give a small bit back.
Those seeds he’d carried in his pack
saved now for posterity
by one man peacefully set free.

The Prompt: Spend some time looking at the names of heirloom plants, and write a poem that takes its inspiration from, or incorporates the name of, one or more of these garden rarities. http://www.napowrimo.net/day-five-3/

I think this poem is also appropriate for the WordPress daily prompt of Contrast.

September is the Cruelest Month–NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 4

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Riding in luxury on a sofa in the back of Denis’s pickup, seeing the beautiful Klamath country in style. We were driven directly under a rainbow that day, so it was on either side of us as we passed!      photo by Georgia Moriarty

September is the Cruelest Month

One cruel month is January, murdering December––
failed resolutions of last year we’re now forced to remember.

February rivals it for those with lovers missing––
conjuring up memories of  valentines and kissing.

March may come in cruelly–a lion or a ram,
but it is not the cruelest month. It goes out like a lamb.

April is the the month of rain and flowering and rhyme.
It cannot be the cruelest month. It is the most sublime.

May is not a cruel month, nor June, most surely not.
July and August are most kind––luxurious and hot.

September is the month for me that is the cruelest.
September is the month where I received my biggest test

in learning how to live alone after so many years,
conquering the loss of you. Battling my fears.

September was the month you left because you had to go––
away from planned adventures down a road you didn’t know.

Setting off alone–something you rarely did in life,
where you preferred to travel with a lover or a wife.

October found me no man’s wife, November found me gone
to take the road that we had planned. I would not be death’s pawn.

Then that December–– crueler than any month I’ll own.
That was the month I had the time to finally feel alone.

 

The prompt today was to write about “The cruelest month.”
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-4/

Fame––NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 3

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Fame

People become heroes due to leading or resisting,
whereas ordinary people have their hands full just existing.
But lately it occurs to me that people are reacting
less to who folks really are and more to how they’re acting.
To be best at anything I know would be exciting––
to earn world renown due to one’s politics or writing;
but if I had the time and nerve to simply write and ask
how each famous person really feels behind the mask
of notoriety and fame whereon they look so snappy,
the question I would ask each one is, “Are you really happy?”

Would Robin Williams tell the truth faced with this request––
or any of the others who respond at my behest?
Michael Jackson, Carly Simon, Liberace, Yeats?
All the angry politicians railing in debates?
Did Jackie Kennedy love her life? Did Natalie Wood?  Does Cher?
How does the Royal family feel faced with the world’s rude stare?
Is Dave Chappelle gleeful? Is Obama happiest for
his entrance to the White House or his walking out the door?
I can’t imagine dealing with the constant wild attention––
love offset  by hating, admiration with contention.

Is all this gross celebrity a cause for celebration?
Does it make you happy to stand up before our nation
and have some people cheering you and others rudely booing?
Do you ever wonder what it is that you are doing?
Do teenagers stalking you, waiting round every bend
make a rock star happy? Does he wish it all would end?
I know the question’s obvious as well as rude and lame,
but if you did it over, would you still go for the fame?
Are the cheering jeering crowds still fuel for your vanity
Or would you rather trade them in for simple life––and sanity?

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem in the form of a fan letter to a celebrity.
http://www.napowrimo.net/