Tag Archives: objects

Leavings: NaPoWriMo 4/19 2020

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Leavings

Do I walk the long kilometers of beach
to look for the next shell
or stand stable, like that woman
casting and recasting her hook,
patiently waiting to pull her world in to her?

I’m gathering things
that I’ll collect into stories–
pinning them down to use like words.
Nothing wrong in finding meaning
through a piece of driftwood, a stone or shell.
Objects are only things
we cast our minds against
like images against a screen—
a shadow glimpsed crossing a window shade.

My shadow cast in front of me
is such a different thing
from one I cast behind.
In the first, I am constantly hurrying
to catch up to what I’ll never catch up to.
In the other, I am leaving behind
what I can only keep by walking away from it.

I take this place along with me in clear images–
not as they were, but as my mind has cast them;
so every picture taken of the same moment is different,
each of us seeing it through our unique lens.
We cast these things in bronze or silver-gelatin,
stone, clay or poetry.
A grandma holds out pictures of her children
and her grandchildren. See? Her life’s work.
And then this and this, without further effort on her part.

I share stories of children I don’t know
who gently unwind fishing line from a struggling gull,
of a minefield of jellyfish found on the beach
or other treasures nestled in a pile of kelp.
I find my world in both these findings and departings—
the leaving each morning to go in search of them
the part I find most exhilarating,
perhaps teaching this woman
of the death-themed night-terrors
not to worry,
that leaving is just a new adventure.

People forget and let me slip away
when I would have held on, given any encouragement,
yet fingers, letting go,
flex for that next discovered treasure.

Life is all of us letting go constantly—
taking that next step away from and to.
A white shell. I have left it there
turned over to the brown side,
so someone else can discover it, too.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to take a walk and collect objects to turn into a poem.

Objectification

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Objectification

Objects are dependable. Objects are the best.
Objects do not leave you. They remain there at rest.
They soothe the eye with beauty or operate as slaves,
for objects have served us since humans lived in caves.
Since the first stone hammer or flint carved to a point,
objects have helped to feed us or to pretty up the joint.
Carved into a cave wall, a bison or a bird.
Art lasts for millennia. That’s why I find absurd
those who say things don’t matter, for what I have to say
is that it’s art that lingers. People just pass away.

 

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Fandango‘s prompt today was object. Before you start exclaiming in protest, I’ll issue the disclaimer that this is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. Albeit, I love art. Wouldn’t want to live without it.  But I do realize people are more important.

Fandango‘s prompt was object.

Mundane Objectification: If Helpmates Could Speak– (NaPoWriMo 2015, day 26)

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Mundane Objectification: If  Helpmates Could Speak

I’m the first to tell her what to do,
though each morning she pushes my button, too.
“Get out of bed,” I order her,
come back to reconnoiter her.
When she refuses to rise at once,
I sit in the corner like a dunce
and nag and nag until she’s up
to shower and dress and feed the pup.

I keep her clothing crisp and neat
with water mist and searing heat.
I’m a dangerous helper and she knows it.
Dire results if she ever blows it
and fails to heed my hiss and cough
and forgets to turn me off.

When my workday starts, I have no say.
Always ready as she greets the day,
I perk her up and fuel her drive.
She says she needs me to feel alive.
She takes some of me with her when she leaves.
When she kills the rest, nobody grieves.
I’m strong and flexible and black.
Cause eyes to open and lips to smack.

She holds me tightly every morning–
cussing, yelling, pleading, warning
others who get in her way
as she speeds into her waiting day.
She pushes my buttons and wheels my wheels
with clicks and groans and grinds and squeals.
I carry her inside of me
to take her to where she needs to be
and wait outside until she’s done
in rain and snow and baking sun.

I wait at home in the cold and dark
wondering when she’ll light the spark
that relieves me of my lonely plight–
chilly  environs and unlit light.
I hear her footsteps across the floor,
light up as she opens my door.
She reaches in and relieves me
of can or bottle, then goes to pee
restoring me to isolation.
I don’t complain. It is my station.

She turns me on most every night
to wallow in my sickly light,
staring at dramas I provide.
Never does she go outside
to jog or run or bike or walk,
to meet the neighbors and have a talk,
to mow her grass or trim her tree–
she seems to live her life through me.

When at night she seeks her rest,
she always favors me the best.
I cushion her at end of day,
listen as she has her say
about her travails, aches and pains
her setbacks and all her gains.
All her secrets I will keep
As she covers me, then goes to sleep.

The Prompt: write a persona poem – a poem in the voice of someone else. Your persona could be a mythological or fictional character, a historical figure, or even an inanimate object.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/barter-system/