Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo 2018

The Meeting

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The Meeting

You stand, weary of stirring, under
the twirling of the spar line in the night.

The lamplight fanning out in flat flame
as you bend over, reins in your  bright fabric.

You smite your fist, protesting with a wink
this light labor of the oar and fishing line.

I make as if to lend a hand, but you wave it away,
Earnest philosopher, choosing instead this sad September song.

MOETING

De stêd wierre grize strjitten, sûker
twirren oan ’e spoarline, in nacht.

Yn ’e lampebol fan fiere flat: man
wachtsjend foar it reinich bytfabryk.

Ik smiet de fyts oan ’e kant, wankel
en werkende in lûd út in oar ferline.

Hy joech my de hân, sei dat hy it wie:
earste pianospiler, sad septembersong.

                              —  Albertina Soepboer

The prompt was to choose a photograph, then a poem in a foreign language and to write a poem of your own according to what you think it means, influenced by the photograph as well. I chose a poem in Frisan, (the Netherlands) my grandfather’s native language.

NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 5

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Lost Weekend

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Lost Weekend 

Trapped within this living Hell,
no guardian angel  breaks the spell.
Colored tan or gray or brown.
Elevator music, sound turned down.

Slow as molasses or legs in splints.
It’s windows smudged by fingerprints
so not one ray of light gets through.
Caught fast like velcro, stuck like glue.

Pointless conversation tending
to go on without an ending.
Tasteless food within the fridge.
Endless hours of contract bridge.

TV blaring with contact sports,
Fox News and stock market reports.
Boredom swells like a balloon.
Would that it were over.  Soon!

NaPoWriMo Day 4, The prompt was to express an abstract idea through Concrete Images. I chose “boredom.”

“Set to Music” Naughty Little Pleasures

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My talented friend Christine Anfossie just surprised me with a musical rendition of my poem “Naughty Little Pleasures,” a poem I wrote for day 1 of NaPoWriMo 2018. If  you’d like to hear it, click on the arrow below:

https://judydykstrabrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/naughty-pleasures-new-2.wav

If you like to read along, here is the poem again:

Naughty LIttle Pleasures

Naughty little pleasures, secret little games—
they are our private treasures, these solitary shames.
We never can admit them to family or friends,
for fear that doing so would  bring about their ends.
Childhood is when our private pleasure starts—
not stifling our sneezes or holding back our farts.
Eating the last cupcake or hiding Grandpa’s teeth.
Watching skirts on windy days to see what’s underneath.
Torturing sister’s Barbie Dolls and kidnapping her bears.
Reading Daddy’s magazines underneath the stairs.
Guzzling ice cream from the carton and milk right from the spout.
Opening sister’s love letters to see what they’re about.
Telling mom you’ll help her because she’s running late,
then licking all the cookies you’re putting on the plate.
If being perfect were more fun, then probably we would,
but there’s little pleasure in always being good.

NaPoWriMo

Dianne Hicks Morrow/ Day 3, NaPoWriMo

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My friend Dianne Hicks Morrow is doing the NaPoWriMo challenge this year but doesn’t have a blog, so I asked if I could post her List poem here and she agreed.  Fun.  We were asked to make a list of imaginary “somethings” and then to make a poem of them.

Harlequin Detective Novels—Day 3 NaPoWriMo

Tit for Tat
Smell a Rat
Ballarat
Vallarta
Your Hearta
Must Go On
Swan Song
An Inch, A Mile
A Crooked Smile
A Stricken Heart
A Sickened Tart
She’s Too Smart
For Her Own Good
Life in the ‘Hood
The Purple Snood
The Cost of Rude
No Golden Rule
The Champagne Pool
Make Me Drool
Make Me Droll
Make Me, Doll
Make Me
Then Again Maybe Not

Hard to Teach
Beyond Her Reach
Bongo Beach
The Peach
The Screech
Snorkel Empire
Crossed Whale Lovers
What Angelfish Know
Beware the Stingray

Capsized by Desire
Stoking the Funeral Pyre
Wisdom of the Dolphin
Beyond the Lace Veil
Beneath the Bed
Dust Bunnies on the Easter Rabbit
Single Men Swim Free
Beyond Wrinkles
The Death of Spider Veins
Listless in Seattle

—Dianne Hicks Morrow’s wild mind for 10 minutes this morning
For NaPoWriMo list poem prompt.

NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 3, List Poem

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Truth is much stranger than fiction. Today, when the NaPoWriMo prompt was to make a list poem, I drew a blank, so I used the WordPress prompt instead.  But, when I went to Facebook to see if my poem had posted there, I found a very strange thing. There, dated April 3, was posted this “List Poem!”  It turns out that it was posted as the Five Years ago Today feature on Facebook. In short, five years ago today when I was making my first NaPoWriMo posts, the prompt on April 3 was the same prompt they gave us today on April 3 five years later!  Go figure.  I took it as a sign, so I’m publishing this one (which had one “like” five years ago when I was new to blogging and had no followers) again.

“When Life Gives You Lists, Make Poetry” 

The poem in a nutshell:

A poem a day might be more possible
if only I were not so bossable.

Or, The unabridged version:

I had the best intentions when
this morning I picked up my pen;
but then the phone began to ring
and all day long, thing after thing
presented obstacles to rhyme,
ate up attention, devoured my time.
First, the printer who needed pay
of course, lived 15 miles away.
Two hours later, home at last,
I had to cook a light repast
for company who now have left
me feeling not a bit bereft.
My laptop open, my mind about
to function, I was beckoned out.
My mood was less than  joculant
as the gardener asked for flocculant
for pool algae gone amuck.
When? Now? It was just my luck!
He made a list, demanded more
since I was going to the store.
He added chlorine and algaecide
as I considered suicide.
Finally home, I yearned to go
devise some verse, but to my woe,
my propane tank had just run dry.
We made the call. They said they’d try
to make it out within the hour.
My mood grew crabby, dark and dour.
From then on, things just kept on being
averse to my poesy-eeing.
Thing after thing came up to do.
If I know you, maybe some from you!
I‘m just a girl who can’t say no
so this is how ‘twas bound to go
until I figured how to make
adversity a piece of cake.
Make the best out of the worse.
Let interruptions become the verse!

NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 3: “Explorers”

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Explorers

When the first man dipped his oar,
entering geographic lore
to journey out to some new shore,
he opened up a certain door
that has been open evermore—
that need for mankind to explore.

The current’s swell, the ocean’s roar
has entered into every pore
and permeated to the core
that man who is adventure’s whore.
Each journey craves a new encore.
Each return one leave-taking more.

When Viking wanderers of yore
set sail, their fortunes to restore,
and shield and sword to battle wore,
staying in place became a chore.
Mankind was meant to sail and soar.
The journey is what life is for.

 

For NaPoWiMo 2018, Day 3
The WordPress prompt word today is explore.

Personal Journeys: NaPoWriMo Apr 2, 2018: Point of View

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Personal Journeys

I am the emptiness in you that glues the parts of you together.
I form those other worlds that are the universe inside of you.
I have a language all my own that speaks through your voice.
There is something holding us together, something keeping us apart.

You are that part of me that only I can search for.
You are the part I wrap myself around.
You are the mystery that forms the game of my life.
When I am alone, you create in me the opposite of loneliness.

They are the full cast of her life.
They  come together when she is willing to let both of them go.
She lets them take turns being her guide.
It is in getting lost in them that she lets herself be found.

The NaPoWriMo assignment: Write a poem that plays with voice. For example, you might try writing a stanza that recounts something in the first-person, followed by a stanza recounting the same incident in the second-person, followed by a stanza that treats the incident from a third-person point of view. Or you might try a poem in the form of a dialogue, which necessarily has two “I” speakers, addressing two “you”s. Another way to go is to take an existing poem of yours or someone else’s, and try rewriting it in a different voice. The point is just to play with who is speaking to who and how. 

Naughty Little Pleasures: NaPoWriMo, April 1, 2018

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jdb photo        

Naughty LIttle Pleasures

Naughty little pleasures, secret little games—
they are our private treasures, these solitary shames.
We never can admit them to family or friends,
for fear that doing so would  bring about their ends.
Childhood is when our private pleasure starts—
not stifling our sneezes or holding back our farts.
Eating the last cupcake or hiding Grandpa’s teeth.
Watching skirts on windy days to see what’s underneath.
Torturing sister’s Barbie Dolls and kidnapping her bears.
Reading Daddy’s magazines underneath the stairs.
Guzzling ice cream from the carton and milk right from the spout.
Opening sister’s love letters to see what they’re about.
Telling mom you’ll help her because she’s running late,
then licking all the cookies you’re putting on the plate.
If being perfect were more fun, then probably we would,
but there’s little pleasure in always being good.

For your listening pleasure, my friend Christine Anfossie added music to the poem and sent me a copy to share with you. Listen to it here: 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem that is based on a secret shame, or a secret pleasure.

Belly Talk

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Version 2

Belly Talk

Stomach, darling, first of all I’d like to tell you how indispensable you are.  Literally, you are irreplaceable in my life.  Aside from digesting my food, you separate my waist from my chest and keep my belts from straying.  You warn me about absolutely revolting subjects as well as food and are handy for nudging ahead in tight crowds.

That said, I need to bring up one large touchy matter.  For all the good you do in this world, do you need to be quite so large?  Lately, for instance, I’ve watched you extending your territory–venturing out into one plump donut extending around my back.  This makes looking at my rear view in the mirror extremely distressing.  “I never look at myself in back,” one friend told me years ago, but darling, that had been evident for years–testified to by the tight snarl of hair in the middle of her head.

But I digress.  You’re  awfully quiet.  I’m a bit worried that I might have offended.  But, the topic of magnitude of sound being brought up, I’ll continue.  Were you aware that you have taken to communicating with me at inopportune times?  A small growl after midnight to remind me of today’s brownies hiding in their microwave storage space safe from ants and marauding family members and friends?  That’s fine…and probably the real reason you were given a voice in the first place. But that long low rumble increasing in volume in the middle of the significant pause in the dialogue of the movie playing in a hushed movie theater?  Totally unacceptable. Other times your voice is uncalled for?  At the dentist’s office and in the throes of a long passionate kiss.  In teachers’ conferences and at ladies bridge afternoons.  No. No. No.  You are not invited in this capacity.  Yes, digest the margarita, the popcorn or the rich dessert.  Comment upon it? No.

That’s it, dear stomach.  I appreciate you. I know you are vital to my health and happiness.  You provide me with countless pleasures–those pleasures increasing with the years.  But, sweet middle of mine, if you could see your way clear to not increasing at a rate commensurate with my pleasures, I would appreciate it very much.  Oh.  Talking again, I see.  And probably not listening.  Oh well.  I hear your message loud and clear.  A pint of triple chocolate extra fudge gelato in the freezer?  Well, honey, this time you are speaking my language.  No one is around.  And it is totally acceptable!

Prose poem For NaPoWriMo’s Early Bird Prompt. Write a love letter to an inanimate object.