Tag Archives: napowrimo 2021

The Window-Peeker Parses the School Marm

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The Window-Peeker Parses the School Marm

Though you’re unaware that you’re in my view,
as you sit parsing sentences, I’m parsing you.
And though you may find my excuse to be spurious,
I’m not lascivious. I’m only curious.

I peer through your window to discover a clue
if tight-lipped and buttoned-up is the real you.
I peek through a bush after climbing your fence.
Do you underline verbs and determine their tense?

No bushes or flower vines hamper my vision
to soften the view or to curb my derision.
Your life is as clear and empty and sparse
as the students you aim for and lines that you parse.

Every inch covered from your toes to your chin,
terry cloth robe. No booze and no men.
No bright colored pictures to cover your wall.
Not one detail to alter your image at all.

You sit at a desk looking tired and grim,
pallid and stringy and scrawny of limb—
essays piled to left and to right,
your strict narrow lips revealed in the light.

Everything minimum, like you have taught.
Strip sentences bare. Make them sparse, clear and taut.
Then you push back your chair, straight-backed and hard-seated
and seem to sigh. Is your patience defeated?

As you move to the window, a surge of past fear.
Have you sensed an old student is hovering near?
As you come to view the moon’s budding crescent,
I slip over the fence and become evanescent.

 

On day 29 of NaPoWriMo, they urged us to peek into a window and tell what we see.
Meanwhile, the prompts from five other sites were: curious, hamper, evanescent, parse and minimum.

Mean Woman Blues at the Corner Bar: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 28

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The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem that is a series of questions. Mine are all song titles save for one famous line from literature.

Mean Woman Blues at the Corner Bar

Him: What’s up Pussycat? Are you lonesome tonight?
Her: Can you mend a broken heart?
Him: Do-ya do-ya do-ya do-ya wanna dance?
Her: Who are you?
Him: Hello, Hello. Bad, bad Leroy Brown. What’s your name?
Her: Hello. Mary Lou!
Him: Ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?
Her:  Who let the dogs out?
Him: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
Her: What’s going on? Hang on, Sloopy!
Him: Wouldn’t it be nice?
Her:  (Looking down,) Is this a dagger which I see before me?
Him: Can’t you see, can’t you see?
Her: Is that all there is?
Him: Do you really want to hurt me?
Her: Would you still love me tomorrow?
Him: What’s love got to do with it?
Her: How did it get so late so soon?
Him: Does anybody really know what time it is?
Her: Should I stay or should I go?
Him: Do ya think I’m sexy?
Her: (taking out her car keys) Do you know the way to San Jose?
Him: Are you going to go my way?
Him: (To her back as she walks out the door) What’s goin’ on? Am I that easy to forget?
Him: (To the room at large) Can’t you see, can’t you see what that woman, she been doin’ to me?
A stander-by:  What I can see clearly now is what becomes of the broken-hearted!

In case you want to play along or read more poems written to this prompt, here is the NaPoWriMo prompt . Photo by Milo Bauman on Unsplash, used with permission. If you doubt any of the song titles or want to know who sang them, just Google them. I ran out of time or I would have made links.

Heart’s Eye, NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 27

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NaPoWriMo’s assignment for today was to find a word in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and to use it to prompt a poem. I chose the word “vellichor.” Here is its definition:
n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

Since I wrote a poem about vellichor just two months ago, I’m reblogging it here.


Heart’s Eye

Who can pass a bookstore door
and fail to note the vellichor
or fail to feel within their heart
the message of a piece of art?
A  poignant poem or pithy quote,
well-loved and thereby learned by rote,
is a means by which we might denote
that part of us that we devote
to what we can’t repudiate—
that part of us that is a gate 
to a special way of seeing—
the heart’s eye of a human being.

 

Here is the link to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Here is the link to today’s NaPoWriMo’s prompt.

Mad Poem: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 26, Parody

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Mad Poem

We’ve been pinned to our homes
for a year, maybe more,
and after a month
it’s turned into a bore.
We’ve stared at computers
or the walls of our rooms,
our social encounters
just tweets, Skypes or Zooms.
We’ve missed our Starbucks,
the beach and the mall.
Our range of diversions
has been nothing at all.
Restaurant after restaurant
called on the phone
has said they were closed
and to leave them alone.
When we called up our friends,
we had nothing to say
for we did the same things
for day after day.
We yearn for the freedom
that will come with a vacc.
It’s not fair that our elders
can get what we lack!

 

My poem was a parody of the Dr. Seuss poem below:

Sad Poem

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a parody of another poem. 

NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 25: Bad Timing

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Bad Timing

On my birthday in July, my true love gave to me
a coupon for a ski trip and a real live Christmas tree.
Chocolates when I’m dieting, sad songs when I am gloomy.
A grand piano, though my new apartment’s not too roomy.
The week that “Save the Animals” appointed me their chair,
he bought me a new winter coat of lynx and llama hair.

He brings home ice cream in the cold, hot cocoa in the summer.
When I broke my tooth, the peanut brittle was a bummer.
Though his gifts are generous, my thanks are often mimed,
for I’m speechless over just how badly all of them are timed!
The reason why we are not wed is so hard to relate.
I had the cake, the rings, the gown. We set the time and date.

The groom showed up and waited as I walked down the aisle.
My wedding dress was finest lace, my undergarments lisle.
I’d planned each detail out with care and left no stone unturned.
Just one detail  left to him–you’d think I would have learned!
For when I went to say “I do” to this  man I adore,
they found our wedding license had lapsed two weeks before!

 

For NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 25, we are to write a poem about a special occasion.

Old Boyfriends: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 24

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Old Boyfriends

Old boyfriends
are also known as
“cut boyfriends”
or “parasol boyfriends”.
Old boyfriends originate mainly in the USA.
They are found in eastern and south central Texas.
They also can be found in parts of western Louisiana.
Old boyfriends are not commonly found in subdivisions,
but are considered an agricultural, rural pest. 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today  is to find a factual article about an animal, making sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot.  Then go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem.

The animal I looked up was the leaf cutter ant. Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Stopping by Robert Frost on an Early Morning

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Thanks, NaPoWriMo, for making my poem one of the featured poems yesterday.  The NaPoWriMo prompt today  was to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another poem.
I chose “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Here is my poem. A link to his original is given below my poem. It is the first and only time, I think, that I’ll get top billing over Robert Frost!

Stopping by Robert Frost on an Early Morning

Whose poem this is I think I know,
yet know not where I’m going to go,
so glad I am that he won’t see
my page fill up with parody.

My next-door neighbors must think it queer
at six o’clock I’m in full gear
here on my perch above the lake,
dispelling darkness, this poem to make.

I jog my mind to try to shake
some fruitful thoughts out, then I take
and peel the gatherings of my  mind
to seek the flesh within the rind.

This creative state lies deep
between consciousness and sleep.
Each day our rendezvous I keep,
then share the poems that I reap.

 

See Robert Frost’s poem HERE.

Cowboy on an Off-White Charger (Prompts and NaPoWriMo 2021 day 22)

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Cowboy on an Off-White Charger

You say I’m queen of your affection, yet your ambit has grown larger.
I hear you’ve put some extra miles on your faithful charger.
You say she is exhausted, her endurance sorely taxed.
She may need reshoeing and your credit card is maxed.

The extent of your travels and the speed with which you charge
have lately increased greatly—to have doubled, by and large.
If our love’s become monotonous, perhaps you seek new favors.
Perhaps you choose to taste delights of various other flavors.

You say your boots are dusty and nonchalantly stroll
out to find a shoeshine boy to cleanse your dirty sole.
Yet what you seek to polish may be a point that’s moot.
I think that what needs polishing may not be a boot.

Prompt words today are dusty boots, monotonous, ambit, speed and queen. The NaPoWriMo prompt today discussed different poetic devices. In lieu of just using one of them, I decided to try to use metonymy, polysemy, synecdoche and metalepsis in one poem. Image by Karen Cantu on Unsplash, used with permission.

White Owl (Sijo for NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 20)

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White Owl

All these years I ‘ve done without your heavy breath and gentle touch.
My mind turned to other things. Sounds in the night, the call of birds.
But it’s time. The owl asks “Who? Who?” Leaves me to find the answer.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a sijo.

The sijo (Korean 시조, pronounced SHEE-jo) is a traditional three-line Korean poetic form typically exploring cosmological, metaphysical, or pastoral themes. Organized both technically and thematically by line and syllable count, sijo are expected to be phrasal and lyrical, as they are first and foremost meant to be songs.

Sijo are written in three lines, each averaging 14-16 syllables for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line is written in four groups of syllables that should be clearly differentiated from the other groups, yet still flow together as a single line. The first line is usually written in a 3-4-4-4 grouping pattern and states the theme of the poem, where a situation is generally introduced.The second line is usually written in a 3-4-4-4 pattern (similar to the first) and is an elaboration of the first line’s theme or situation (development).The third line is divided into two sections. The first section, the counter-theme, is grouped as 3-5, while the second part, considered the conclusion of the poem, is written as 4-3. The counter-theme is called the ‘twist,’ which is usually a surprise in meaning, sound, or other device.

The sijo may tell a story (as the ballad does), examine an idea (as the sonnet does), or express an emotion (as the lyric does). Whatever the purpose may be, the structure is the same: line 1 of the 3-line pattern introduces a situation or problem; line 2 develops or “turns” the idea in a different direction; and line 3 provides climax and closure. Think of the traditional 3-part structure of a narrative (conflict, complication, climax) or the 3-part division of the sonnet, and you’ll see the same thing happening.

 

Tyrant: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 19: The Rant

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Tyrant

Your arguments are specious, without a gram of proof,
but when we try to point this out, you only seem aloof.
Though you fancy that you’ve sex appeal and charm and woo and sizzle,
your expected rain of compliments turns out to be a drizzle.

That odor you find fragrant with which you mask your stench
would not be necessary if you were just a mensch*,
but the bald reality that you need to face
is that most of your actions are selfish, rude and base.

All your resolutions sworn to in the past
were but fabrications never meant to last.
In short, you are a narcissist thinking of you alone
with a thousand selfish vanities for which you won’t atone.

That’s why, my dear, you sit there in your ivory tower
wondering why your riches, your accomplishments and power
somehow do not satisfy when done for yourself only,
for all your grand accomplishments just leave you feeling lonely.

*mensch: a person of integrity and honor

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a humorous rant. In this poem, you may excoriate to your heart’s content all the things that get on your nerves.
Prompts today are sizzle, fragrant, past, specious and reality.images from Unsplash, used with permission