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.