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.

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.