NaPoWroMo #30 - The Cleansing Ritual

NaPoWriMo #30

The Cleansing Ritual

Naked, the poet,
indiscreet, uncovers
by lamplight,
her lush rhythms meet
traverse-ing the stanza
with an expanse of skin
ink-stained and thoughtful,
- let the poem begin.

- Mar "Mistryel" Walker
This 30 poems 30 days thing has been fun. Loved the prompts. I need a week off, then I might start again. The photo is of a sculpture of mine that lived in Dedham MA. (a very low res picture altered in an early photo editing freebe.)

NaPoWriMo # 29 - The Wind Farm

The Wind Farm

Down the hill
they raise little breezes, and
let them go free every morning.

These growing aires hustle
climb the fresh trees and rustle
and our delicate spring blooms
their petals jiggle like bangles
and there's cherry petal rain
branches bent at all angles
in the sort of, well,  angry air

The wind is farming now
digging up the dirt
flinging it down
a tornado - mile and a half wide
which takes out ten towns
in a few minutes time.
(Pat Robertson might opine
they were sinning online.)

Without regret or confession,
make this simple concession:
The wind doesn't know your name.
The wind just blows.

- Mar "Mistryel" Walker

==========

I am having a rhyme problem O dear. Can't believe I have come this far 29 days, 29 poems..... only one more to go....

PROMPT: find words from news paper headlines

NaPoWriMo #28 - Not the result he expected

Not the result he expected

After an hour of waiting
ignored, a girl in a mini
directed me
to the big shot's
expansive corner office.

Behind a flat, empty
aircraft carrier
of a desk, an overlarge
black leather chair
cradled the young CEO.
Heavy braided gold chains
swathed his barely
post adolescent neck.
His shirt was wrinkled
and junk food wrapers
littered the floor.

With my resume
in his hand,
he mocked each line
as he studied me
like a sociopath
studies an animal
he is dismembering
or a fly, just before
he tears off a wing.

After the fifth outright insult
I understood the smirk
the icy neon in his eyes.
He was just getting started.

"Well, well,"
I said as I stood suddenly,
strode forward, leaned
over him and yanked
MY resume, My history
from between his
arrogant fingers.

"I can see that we
are personally
incompatible."
I said,
"irreconcilably so."

"What... do you mean?"
he said, mouth still
open wide as I closed
the door, leaving him
alone
in his expansive corner
office in his overlarge
exécutive chair.

====================
This is a true story.   THE PROMPT was to write a poem remembering an “a-ha moment” from my past,  etc etc

My instantaneous intuitive "Ah Ha!" was this: I suddenly knew in my bones all the following, all at once:
a) there was NO chance of being hired. (All the employees I'd met were 25 or under and I was forty plus at the time.)
b) he was settling in to torture me for fun, maybe to get even with his Mommy.
c), I would have HATED working for this little jerk anyway..
d) I WASN'T HELPLESS - I DIDN'T HAVE TO SIT THERE AND TAKE IT - I COULD TAKE BACK MY POWER, TAKE BACK MY RESUME AND WALK OUT. So I did.

NaPoWriMo #27 Paint Every Day

- NaPoWriMo # 27:

Paint every day,

'Pan,' on the horizon's haze -
agree.  Nod 'yes,' with life
in all its oddity.
Never avert your eyes
to what is immediate.

Enter with color, reason's greater age.
Verify, examine on the fly and on the page.
Enter the living process with extant detail.
Require double-blind evidence for all,
yet look with loving eyes intent

directly, at our variously human form, as
ardently we breathe imagine and invent
year on year, till planets spin no more.

- Mar Walker

The prompt - use your guide phrase as acrostic for a poem

NaPoWriMo #26 - Governmental consommé

Governmental Consommé

"What recipe is he talking about?" Four hundred thirty pages and no one knows. The 1950s - they want to go back. It's like skating near a cliff. I need to keep track of them all - this model time machine has 93 million interlocking parts. There are no directions in the box, so keep stirring. It's past its expiration date. The man is an attorney and the woman is head of World Wrestling.  That is all you need to know. This could spin with history like a tire that fell off the car.  Will he ever come to the point? He's one of those persons who moves ahead by circling around. Politics is a carbuncle on democracy. Looks infected to me. It could pop and get messy. A filibuster, an old cat with hairballs you really have to watch where you step and keep paper towels handy.  I dream about a big teal wave traveling at high speed, covering everything. Could be the debt or maybe the ice caps have melted. Don't cash that check. There is no money. None. Some folks are needing a  rescue. But somebody drank the tea and it looked like Kool-Aid d to me. "Do you want soup" the social worker asks. "Oh yes," he replies. "Hot soup would be so lovely. Does it have salt? Can you have saltless soup?  The carbon traders cheat too" he says. "It's not just us bankers - and may I also have my $47 million bonus?"  Everyone is surprised. Maybe hire a 3rd party to rate the salt content of everything.  Greed lingers,  sours everything including the soup.  How long has it been here? Linda, Linda, we don't need  any more thugs, and no more glossy six page flyers,  though the sequined tights would be colorful. My glasses are broken - you wouldn't hit a old lady with a stigmatism would you? Unless justice is blond. Wait I meant blind. We'll see if the voters are....

-- Mar Walker

====================

THIS IS THE PROMPT"Find a poem that you started, or perhaps one you abandoned. Read it through. Highlight the lines or phrases that please you. Do not cross anything out (yet)! You now have two choices: finish the poem or take the parts you like and begin a brand new piece.

NaPoWriMo # 25 - Green Fuse Ignites!

"The Green Fuse," at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Stamford, CT yesterday, was a moving event. The name was from Dylan Thomas quote - " The force that through the green fuse drives the flowers, drives my green age..."

Put together by professor Ralph Nazareth, and Poem Alley, the event included words delivered in Japanese by two survivors of Hiroshima, Takashi Morita and Junko Watanabe who asked us all to support a nuclear free future. It was an honor to hear their words.


The program included an a cappella duet sung by Dev Crasta and Rebeka Radna.  Ms. Radna wrote the music, for words from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” .  Their pitch, blend  and voicing were excellent. A wonderful violinist, Darwin Shea performed four works by Bach. His playing was full of precision and restrained overarching emotion. Dale Shaw told a true story about silent witnesses frozen and unable to take action, and he drew out an analogy out as to how, in the face of environmental disaster today, we react in similar fashion.  Kate Heichler lead a group sing of  Woody Guthrie's tune, This Land is Your Land.

And that was just the first half of the program.  Ed Granger-Happ of the Fairfield Review, journalist Robert Masterson, and green party guy, Richard Duffee and Ralph Nazareth himself, and many others were among the readers I missed. (I had to be in Middletown for a Shijin event, along with Faith Vicinanza who read a Mary Oliver poem in the first half..)   A music finale was by David Balzano on guitar and Lloyd Gritz on drums. There were too many performers to be named herein, -including all of the folks from the Curley's Diner Tuesday night poetry gathering, and many guests.

Below my NaPoWriMo #25
The green fuse ignites.

with gentle arms

illumined in full spectrum
light like a sycamore's pale

upper-story at dawn
singing on every breeze,
with poems and
the motion of birds and men
interweaving, going forward:
tread lightly here,

our home, our nest, the earth.

NaPoWriMo #24 - The Bitters

the Prompt was to find inspiration at PhraseFinder. Sour Grapes is my phrase.

.The Bitters

they are scaling mountains
sailing across the seas
they dreamed they would sail
they are finding love in autumn
giving recitals, getting fit,
winning awards, expanding
achieving, getting promoted
while I am digging this hole
one shovelful at a time
a little deeper everyday
Hmmm. It's time to pour
out this sour grape
into the grieving earth, open to
Merlot, Shabatz, something
with richness and body
tip my glass to
the new.

(I think I am in a mood.)

NaPoWriMo #23 - When Planning the Bigamist's Funeral

This is really a first draft. More will come. It is my 23rd poem for the National Poetry Writing Month poem a day writing challenge. For 2010 I am using the prompts at ReadWritePoem.org. Last year I used Robert Brewer's Poetry Aside prompts.


When Planning the Bigamist's Funeral,

first divide the seating into sections:
 - To the right for the wife's family
 - To the left for the other wife's family
 - and in the middle blood relations of the deseased
Up front by the coffin: the entertainment:
A juggler, agile and dexterous, with two nubile assistants
The juggler will twirll six spinning knives in the air
The assistants will sit on the coffin in skimpy outfits
Order liquor.

-- Mar Walker

The PROMPT: Write a poem in which you combine a speaker and an event that normally don’t go together

NaPoWriMo #22 - Emporium of Earth Futures

Grey Heron in Bethel CT

Emporium of
Earth Futures

History is the track
of a flying planet
hurtling around a star
boisterous with life.
Where can we land?
What will we eat? How to
make a nest? Look!
In this fierce unfolding
we fit our lives into
what is already here,
nudge it with our living,
into something slightly
changed, die away into
what has already been.

- Mar Walker

For Earth Day 2010. Words used from the prompt include Emporium and Fierce.
I took this photo in Bethel CT last summer. Out of sight far in the lefthand foreground was an aeration fountain. The pond sits in front of an industrial building.

NaPoWriMo # 21 - Taking root

Taking Root

Abandoned on Osborne
a once handsome house:
plumbing doesn't work
no electric, no heat
doors boarded up
mold greys
the stucco now
no paint in decades
caved in roof
makes way for sky
welcomes rain.
A helicopter seed
twirls down on the wind
finds a home
grows unnoticed year
after year seeks
the light,  presses
against the still
unbroken glass
reaches through shingles
to open air, sky, sun
and this year  another
helicopter seed is released
to carry on, carried on
the streetside breeze.

Life grapples, insidious.
In imperfection: opportunity

- Mar Walker

The prompt was to write a poem on imperfection.  I took this photo a decade ago on Osborne Street in Danbury. I first noticed the tree's leaves pressing against the glass, a year before it came through the roof. It grew like that for another year or so. Sadly it's gone now, though it did reproduce - the evolutionary hallmark of success. The house still stands, looking much the same - though less interesting without the lovely tree. I used the picture once in an issue of Bent Pin Quarterly, but hadn't ever gotten around to considering a poem of my own to accompany it. So thanks ReadWritePoem for the prompt!

NaPoWriMo #20 - In praise of weeds

In praise of weeds

In junkyards, behind the garage,
through cracks in sidewalks,
in abandoned rails - life carries on
every day without applause
bent by wind, pulled up, thrown away
never nurtured or admired.
Yellow, purple, triumphantly blue
blooms, fluffy seeds come into being
despite human silence
despite our strange greed
for perfect, pampered crewcuts
of monoculture green -
when all around us the wild flowering
tirelessly fights, finds
water in stony soil,
recreates itself in borrowed light.

PAINTING: River of Sky

This is finally finished, I think anyway. It is one of those pictures where I didn't have a good composition to start with, and I fiddled and fiddled to bring the perspective into line. Originally there was a water fall in the rear as well and judging by the height of the trees in the foreground, and on how far back it was -  it must have been hundreds of feet high higher than Victoria Falls even.  It didn't make visual sense though it was very dramatic. It makes more sense to me now.

It's quite small 8 by 10 canvas board with oils. There is a cat in this picture too. Whenever i can fit one, there is a cat.

Below you can see the original design - which I liked in someways, and the stages through which it evolved. The original, I liked it but I could not accept it visually. Water doesn't fall at an angle. By perspective, and by comparison with the trees on the banks of the falls, - that water fall was ENORMOUS - taller than Victoria Falls.  Slowly I tweaked it into a form I could accept. I do like the some of the early versions for their  energy and angles etc. I like the finished painting better.

NaPoWriMo #19 - My broken glasses

My broken glasses

hieroglyphs appear
but no Rosetta stone near
can't translate today

Today I couldn't seem to get more than this ridiculous haiku. It's a dry day for me. And I guess this is really  the opposite of a light bulb moment in the prompt.  -- waiting for a light bulb that never comes....

NaPoWriMo # 18 - Suspicious activity

Suspicious activity

When the strainer for the kitchen drain
is in the center of the floor at dawn

when there are q-tips beneath the pillow
or an earring and tie-clip suddenly are gone

When there is water around the fish bowl
when scarves are tucked into the couch

if there are footprints on the counter
and crow outside becomes a squawking grouch

a roll of stamps becomes unraveled

and underneath the chair a bottle cap appears

and soil keeps escaping from a planter

there is no doubt:  the cat's been here

- Mar Walker

Yes this is just a little light verse but true. Above sits one of the conspirators. 

THE PROMPT: Write a poem featuring the cat family, whether big or small.

NaPoWriMo # 17 - Apple Blossom Air

Apple blossom air

Warm white snow
of petals drifting
down to the yard of youth
from the ancient apple tree
shading my path: stone walk to
slate porch through dark blue
door between inset glass blocks,
a house my father built lovingly.
Narrow hall,  the first door,
my room with bright walls,
crank-out windows and
in the corner closet - my
desk- a low, wide, pine shelf
with my small chair, where
I would write or draw alone.
Or often glance
from closet to room
through the window to
the apple blossom air
for just a moment,
and breathe

-- Mar Walker
I think i'm still on yesterday's scent and memory tack..

THE PROMPT: Let’s be elemental. Fire, earth, water, wind. They touch our lives every day. Choose one that interests you, then take a point of view that is not so much your usual. Observe what interaction you’ve known, or not known, with this element.  You might make it personal or take the element’s point of view (how might humans appear to you from that stance?) or wander where you may. Tell us something about your element that we don’t know. You’re welcome to make your own rules, and as always, the most important point is simply to write and share, however it comes your way! Have fun! 

NaPoWriMo #16 - two glazed, coffee light and sweet

two glazed, coffee light and sweet

My sleep churned with daymares
when I worked midnights
in the donut shop on White Street.
I remember the smell of donuts in the fryer
the heavy clinging scent of fat,
vanilla custard, chocolate and coffee brewing.

Donut dough filled my sneaker treads
confectioner's sugar in my hair
I had to choose a future:
going back to bible college
and pretending I still believed in hell,
or starting up a life without belief.

I remember the baker's brother
ordering breakfast at the counter,
dark curls, muscled forearms
a sculptured nose, his smiling lips
poised on the rim of a coffee mug,
as the flush of red perked in my cheeks.

-------

THE PROMPT: was to recall a smell and free write from the memory. This is a memory from 1972. Actually I later married the baker's brother. Now he is married to someone else. And good for her.
THIS WHOLE MEMORY REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING ELSE THAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS WORKING THERE. OMY I need to write a post on that story.....

NaPoWriMo #15 - Temporary Hiding

Temporary hiding

The card house falls
airborne cards scatter under
things too large to move

where dust balls hide,
plot to overthrow order,
cleanliness and its restrictions.

The dark provides refuge
and this unnoticed moment
of safety before the next shuffle.


THE PROMPT (OMG!!! Zesus's THUNDERBOLTS!) Somehow this didn't work with the tune.
In a nice private place, pick out a stanza, or a few lines, that you like from a poem that you don’t otherwise feel was very successful. Say them over to yourself. Now hum them. See if you can find the tune. And now sing them aloud. (Who cares if you can sing? You’re in private. And this is poetry!) Throwing away the rest of the poem, write two more stanzas (stand-alone or connected) that go to the same tune.

NaPoWriMo #14 - What of the child that lived?

What of the child that lived?

The dead child died                     The living child grew up
twenty three years ago                loved? grandchildren?
she mourns daily                          well-mannered, studious
every detail, as                             novelist? surgeon? drunkard?
nuance of her loss                        we don't know
gilded in memory                          she doesn't say
such sorrow preserved                only one child
in poetry clung to                           is spoken of
as if there was nothing                 no one else
nothing else                                   to live for


The prompt was to write a cleave poem that could be read across or down each column....  I read this prompt early this morning and got nowhere. But this evening I heard a poet read who had lost a child and her specialty (even after 23 years),  is grief poems for the dead child. She is so much associated with this subject  she is even giving a workshop on the topic. Yet none of the poems  include redemption or healing, even the newest poems, which are still on the same subject.  And she did mention she had two children, but she didn't read any poems for the child that lived who must be all grown up by now. (I am sure there must be some poems for the other child). I just thought this situation would lend itself to the cleave form  -- with one child for each column, the two columns together for the mother.......

NaPoWriMo # 13 - Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie

Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie
--- with a nod to the wind ---

"The pearl slapdash of the moon is on the water"

The brutal wind assumes
its superiority to all poets and other vapors,
These unlucky clusters of cloud gossip, but
wind knows all the ways to break them apart:
how to seem sincere and comforting,
blow softly out of the west with just the right
warm lies told with a charming smile and
such concern, skitter about, uncover
what needs to be hinted at - as if the gods
had only half told it, barely whispered our unlit secrets.
This wind knows how it feels to win, and that is
the only moon it knows, very high
and so cold.

- Mar Walker

THE PROMPT: (FROM READ WRITE POEM) For this prompt, take a Norman Dubie line to jumpstart a poem of your own. Your poem should be titled “Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie.”  (A dozen of his lines were offered as possibilities)

NaPoWriMo #12 - few, too few

 few too few

Blue do-bees, two-stroke oil
Rusted nails, cumpled foil
guarded rails, hacked macadam

angry oysters? Never had 'em

glossy matte, tainted glass

plastic pellets, plexi- pass

brown paper neon or blueberry clam

whiteout this pathetic pedestri-enjam

-- Mar Walker

YIKES - I am grasping at straws here.  The Prompt: Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal. Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem.

The photo is an accidental (nonsense) shot, looking down on a guard rail on route 34 near Stevenson Dam. 

NaPoWriMo #11 - Half of life is just showing up, oh well

Half of life is just showing up, oh well

Yes I often stay at home.
read a book or give the cat a lap
curl up in a quilt and take a sumptuous, stolen nap.

Think of all the wonders I might well have seen
were I a more ambitious chick
and less agoraphobic queen.

I 'd have taken all the workshops,
heard the concerts, seen the shows
won laurels on those days that I declined to even go.

- Mar Walker

------
OOH --   I seem to have way too many "what ifs"  so chosing one for the poem was over my head today.  Don't like this result and may write another later...

The Prompt:

Everyday we make choices. Some are small: English breakfast or Lipton? the highway or back roads? Some are more significant: convertible or mini-van? farmhouse or condo?

Some choices lead us straight into the life we’re living, but for this poem, think about one of the things in your life you didn’t choose.

Be concrete. Pick an object — something tangible* — and write your poem directly to it, as if you were writing it a personal letter. Explain why you didn’t choose it. What could things have been like if you had? Talk about what your life has become without it. See where the “confession” takes you.

*As an alternative, dig a little deeper and write your poem to a person you left behind.

NaPoWriMo #10 - Audience of Dolls

Audience of Dolls
     a poem from an exhibit of art dolls*

All around the dining room and down the hall, dozens of smiling
Carmen Mirandas in every imaginable outfit witness this meal:
They watch the diners tasting, the payers and the waiters bustling
watch Mr. & Mrs. with red wine in shining glasses, enjoying

the bouquet, the color, the dry spark of it, not caring if the legalists see.
Carmen and her sisters listen, ears peeking from wrapped
hair, smiling artfully, hopeful, as the beautiful youths speak
of their effusive readiness, so eager to leap into possibility's lap.

And the dark haired friend of the family, with his I'm-still-alive smile
innocent in it all, saying little, enjoying the occasion.
All around the dining room and down the hall
the talk winds on, in French, in Spanish, a hint of German

English in multiple accents, and food, such food. And the
Auntie in her white-haired frailty, tasting the chocolate cake
and the cousin in her exuberant reserve, looking back at
the dolls looking, listening to the doll talk  from their painted mouths

as they survey humanity with artist eyes looking
all around the dining room and down the hall.
And it was good, the dolls agreed. It was all deliciously good.

- Mar Walker

*The dolls were and are an art exhibit of "Spirit Dolls" created by artist Paula Brinkman which are on display at Carole Peck's Good News Cafe.

http://www.good-news-cafe.com/Gallery/paulabrinkmanmarch/    See the picture---> which is a webshot from of the Good News Website:

The prompt was to write about a celebration. I chose to write about the most recent celebration I'd been to which was on Easter afternoon. We were celebrating a new job for my cousin's son who was moving  out of the country with his lovely wife. (and has already left I think) . (Since I am a heathen, I was not celebrating the religious holiday, can't speak for the others, I think they were...) We didn't cook, clean or wash up, or have left overs that aren't on the diet.... And Carole Peck is a culinary genius .  The food is complex, fresh, delicious. And I didn't have to dress up, and I didn't have to pay the bill,  (thank Zeus' tail for that or I'd still be washing dishes.... Zeus is a cat I know...).

NaPoWriMo #9 - Survivor's Epilogue

Survivor's Epilogue

We persist like sentinel chimneys
teetering  alone when the house has burned.

Hazmat walkers sift pumice and ashes on the fringe,
sort remnants, ask questions, circumnavigate the wounds.

We sip coffee bitters all night, startle easily, but do
the next task, massage our bruises in silence.

A jug of rain,  a pail of tears cannot wash this.
Through coming years, we bloom

like mower-schooled violets in the lawn
heads tucked, eyes open.

-- Mar Walker

NOTE: I  only used nine words from prompt rather than 12. -- down to eight now that I changed the title (I also misspelled Epilogue originally. Coffee bitters was the flavor, silence was the sound. the lawn violets image was was from a previous poem I tried to write that didn't work out...  I took the photo six or seven years ago in New Milford, CT. I have changed the title three times. who knows what it will end up....

The PROMPT:

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to: Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker; Include something that tastes terrible; Include some part (from a few words to several lines) of a previous poem that didn’t quite pan out; and Include a sound that makes you happy."

LECTURE NOTES: Not Enough about Einstein's god, too much about Tippett

*****In retrospect: IF I had read the book before attending the lecture I would not have had the following reaction to it, since I would have already heard what she had to say on Einstein.****

Krista Tippett who hosts the National Public Radio show "Speaking of Faith" gave a lecture on Eintstein's God in New Haven tonight.

$30 was way too much for the lecture - unless you went because you are a Tippett fan and most people there were by the sound of the thundering applause. I went hoping to hear a detailed lecture on Einstein's concept of god, (which Tippetts did at least say was an impersonal overarching nature) --  and I was very disappointed there wasn't more on that subject. Though I guess she had covered it already in her book. And it is my fault for going without having read it....

So unfortunately the talk wasn't just about Einstein, nor actually about god either. People fans, had submitted a bunch of questions about Tippett and she endeavored to answer them.

She also quoted a few scientists, including Einstein and Darwin, and kept saying that religion and science were compatible -- apparently through the mechanism of a sort of new age niceness with a little scientific awe thrown in for good measure. Compatible as long as you don't mention specific doctrines, as long as you are talking to the theologians, who prefer verbal fencing, to strap-on bombs. As long as you are alluding to passages in scientists writings that sound vaguely spiritual or that refer to beauty or infinity. Still I doubt many main stream theologians would count that as 'god' even with a little g.... Sure its all compatible as long as nobody talks details. The devil is in the details they say. For good reason they say that..

Of course asking people about their faith is what Tippett does for a living. She wants her guests on her NPR show to reveal their journey of belief - yet she did not welcome a question about her own belief during the Question and Answer session. Her reply referenced her need to get people to interview for her show. (I guess all these fair minded religious folks she chooses for her interviews might not talk to her if they thought she was really a non-theist.) So in the end -  it's about continuing her personal mission in life,  which she can't do without the other people, ( not a bad thing I guess all in all)  and maybe selling her book Einstein's God. Can't blame her for that I guess.

I thought she gave rather a too high regard for the scriptures of various religions, ascribed wisdom to them without any qualification. No mention of cutting off the hands of thieves. Or subjugating woman. Wonder how she defines wisdom.... and I wonder if it includes forbearance -- during the Q&A Tippett called Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins bigots.  Live, In the Shubert Theater . Hmmm. I guess niceness only goes so far.

NaPoWriMo #8 - Drifting

Drifting

A little heat rises
from a tube of dried leaves clenched
between my lips. The breath
is mine. The fire too.
The sad, distracted smoke?
All you.

-- Mar Walker, curmudgeon

Love is a figment. Figs are preferable. But I hate figs too.
The prompt was to find a metaphor for your current love. What current love I might ask....The photo was taken at a high school play. It's a little over exposed, sort of like love....  Just for the record, I don't smoke either.

NaPoWriMo #7 - Pointless

Pointless

Your picture still pricks like cactus
when an unread letter announces
your death -- five years ago.
Too late to slap you now. 
Damn it.

( i did have six lines. so now I have altered the lines breaks to make five lines)

-- Mar Walker
Unresolved hurt makes havoc with grief.

The PROMPT:  "Write and capture humorous incidents related to love in a 5-line love poem called a tanka."  I got the five line part, and the love part. I missed the humor and settled for irony.....   

NaPoWriMo #6 -- Today's menu

Today's Menu

Dog looking
Dog looking at me
Dog poised to do a happy doggie dance.

Me looking
Me looking at the mirror
at the back of dog's head
poised to take a picture.

The looker and the look-ee
both expectant, assessing
the possibilities, full of energy.
Dog wanting something,

an adventure of walking
sniffing, chasing, a car ride.
Me wanting a photo, showing
a doorway, a place of entry

for reflection, for life and its shadow
where the right and the left  are joined
in a lake of glass: this moment
whose surface shows

all the actual places
we could go from here.
Woof.

-- Mar Walker

My dog, pictured above, is named Oggi which means Today.The prompt was to write a poem from a picture. I am so very glad for this prompt. I have always liked this photo and was never sure why. I thought it held something unusual but I wasn't sure just what until now.

NaPoWriMo #5 -- Mr. Poetry

Mr. Poetry

Bubba might be neurotic
or worse, bites his nails, drinks
expresso with rum, counts cards
at the casino. Bubba's not welcome
because he notices things: the gum
in your car ashtray, scratches on your
shirt, holes in the wall board, flecks of hubris.
Dressed in his neon coveralls
and backwards baseball cap
he'll write you a repair estimate that will
drain all the blood from your face and
other extremities while you phone
your lawyer and make excuses.
Bubba's secret is this: if you slap him
he will screech like a dying hare.
When he is done, he will hunt you
with a Swiss Army knife and a pen
until you are furious and embarrassed
or until your liver lies in the middle
of the road under a semi hauling
a lifetime supply of Bondo and
metal-flake paint, in various colors..

-- Mar Walker

The Prompt was to personalize poetry....   (You know who you are....)

NaPoWriMo #4 - The Exhibitionist

The Exhibitionist

 

Here I am in my kaki waders
and No. 30 sunblock,
standing in a white  bathtub
with rolled edges and claw feet,

a white dingy beached
on a choppy cove of lawn.
Inside it floats an island of fat leaves

sheltering coy fish in the noon sun.

Here I am with my beach hat
and waving my scrub brush,
or perhaps a little square net
for fish or butterflies who pause
so  slowly folding and
unfolding their wings
and the coy fish slowly opening
then closing their mouths
and the sunlight slowly
moving among the tree shadows.
And those bashful neighbors
shutting out the thought
of my afternoon bath,
discreetly lowering binoculars
and closing their living room blinds...

--  Mar Walker

The prompt was to write something inside-out. The garden bathtub and fish belong to a friend in Hamden. No actual bathing took place.

NaPoWriMo #3 Forgotten in the drawer

Forgotten in the drawer 
"place the bulb in complete darkness for one week"

Long pale roots, white
strings of life reach
deep into the bulb vase
stretching down for the last
half inch of murky water.

Pale whitish leaves
bent over, twisted
longing for the sun. Worse:
the now dried lavender bloom
that no one ever saw.

-- Mar Walker

The prompt was to write a poem about something you fear. Right after reading the prompt, i found the hyacinth plants in the drawer. I don't even remember what month it was when I put the bulbs in there. they did their blooming-growing thing as best they could, entrely without witness, carried on without human intervention, as nature always does when we walk away.

Why art satisfies

This is NaPoWriMo #2 .  At the very end - this poem makes a allegation about art and why we find it meaningful.

Better than television

The rolling wire probe
tests the level
of moisture
in this careful
world in glass.

Nurtured,
self-contained
moss, tiny ferns,
bugs, little lizards,
a climate trained for
atmospheric tricks
on command.

So every Friday night
Manfred sells tickets,
puts the terrarium
through its paces,
circles folding chairs
around his coffee table.
Unlocks the doors
Pops the corn
Announces each act.

"Ladies and Gentlemen
we bring you a special performance
by the Sudden Storm Troupe!
First up, the magnificent duo:
Lightening and Thunder!"
(applause followed by flashing
and crashing sounds, followed by
more spontaneous applause)

"And wasn't that spectacular?
And now,  please welcome:
Heavy Rains with Driving Wind:"
(applause, rapid pelting, vigorous
whooshing, then more applause).

Ringside seats
No channels to change.
Sometimes the storm inside
and the storm outside align:
Audience satisfaction.
Transcendance.

-- Mar Walker

The prompt was to take the acronym for the site name ( RWP for Read Write Poem) and run it through "Acronym Attic" then pick one of the lines and write a poem inspired by it. "Rolling Wire Probe" and "required weather performance" were the lines that inspired this poem

NaPoWriMo: Poem #1 Chameleon

Today's prompt was to write a shuffle poem using the first five titles that appear in the shuffle mode of your MP3 program or device. I took the first five English titles that appeared as my player is overloaded with Italian, German, and Latin items in the Classical genre. These are the first five English Titles I got:
** The Concept of the Open Throat (From a voice instruction CD by David Jones)
** Madama Butterfly Act I (Puccini)
** In the Fen Country (Vaughan Williams)
** When I Have Sung My Songs (Ernest Charles)
** I Cried All the Way to The Altar (Patsy Cline)

Here is the first poem:

Chameleon

I cried all the way to the altar
in the fen country of never
then like Madam Butterfly Act I
I waited in the sap green hills
between the paper walls
with irrational hope
for my life to start

I had delusions but
Pinkerton had a  plan, a social agenda.
As he sails away, I cannot find the right knife
the right note, I sing and sing until
all the songs have gone out
like last ship, the last love
the last dim star.

As the finale crashes to its end
I think about the coda: I think
when I have sung my songs
I should burn this music.*
After the fire, I lift my brushes,
paint still LIFE, or land SCAPE
and never wait for masagynists
or condescending conductors, and
the concept of the open throat
suddenly demands blackberries or peaches,
or a sigh of contentment at the end of the day.

And the good light shines in any color I want
every morning for the rest of my life

-- Mar Walker

*this is a metaphorical statement. I would not burn a score