NaPoWriMo April 2022 Day 10

Click the button for Day 10 Prompt page and links to other love poems.

For my tenth poem, I was to write a love poem. For one (me) who claims to be a poet, one does not simply attack such a piece flippantly. Love: the emotion, the action, the verb or the noun, the feeling of many flavors, the subject and object, the best and worst of it, new love, old love, love lost, love grown; all must be considered with many more meanings. Inspiration is essential. The multitude of other love poems and songs all dare us to comply and try for better. To seek the illusive meaning of the feeling.

I’m just saying, while I’ve written many (not all romantic love poems), and I know other poets who write exclusively love poems, I write comparatively few because I don’t like crowds. But today, it is my sacred NaPoWriMo duty to let love be written. “So let it be written, so let it be done.”

I Know This is So

I know the room gets no brighter when you walk in
but I can see better,
I know my heart does not skip beats when I see you
but my monitor tells me it’s beating faster,
I know nothing really changes when you are with me
but my soul calls out to be a better me,
I know the sound of your voice is not really music
but hearing it makes me want to dance,
I know that this burning fire is a huge risk
but I feel safe when I am with you,
I know the world is an anxious place right now,
but if you were in everyone’s world
I know words like love and peace
would be the action verbs of happiness.

Look both ways but dance with the danger of love.
Mind the gaps but feel the feels and take your chances.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 9)

Click on the NaPo button for today’s prompt and links to other poems.

Because it’s Saturday, day 9 of the NaPoWriMo challenge, and the 9th of April, my numerically poetic task is to write a nine-line nonet poem. A nonet renders out to about 36 words. It’s a brief form. The first line has nine syllables, the second has eight, and so on. The number of syllables reducing until you get to the nineth line, which has just one syllable.

I supposed that one could write an inverted nonet, which I did, beginning with one syllable and working up, line-by-line, back to nine. I felt like I had the time. Two poems, 72 words, 90 syllables. Not much for a Saturday. So, I also wrote a 57-word poem for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt.

Never Understood

He had a quick pride which pained him much.
So many loves he’d won and lost.
His narcissism reflecting,
the part he’d never see.
Sadness lived within
his tortured soul.
When he died,
I still
cried.

***

Had
I known
of his soul,
the cost to him
was in no way small.
I never understood
many burdens he carried
they just split his being apart,
making it worse, the curse of his heart.

Look both ways and up and down before asking why or why not.
Mind the gaps in mirrored perfection of human discernment.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 7)

Click the graphic to go to the NaPo page and read all about it.

To complete the first full week of NaPoWriMo, I was to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying.

I selected a Chinese proverb which is also a quotation attributed to Grantland Rice (which is the more likely).

“A wise man makes his own decisions. An ignorant man follows public opinion.”

Indeed, following public opinion is called argumentum ad populum (Latin for “appeal to the people”) and is a logical fallacy based on affirming that something is real or better because the majority think so.

Skeptical Wisdom

The killer of dreams may be worries about
what other people think and indeed,
it matters but shouldn’t.

People have died from their own ignorance
or by ignoring the fleeing crowd. Ask why
everyone is running away, discover reasons.

Learn. Make decisions based on valid,
repeatable, tested evidence. Be skeptical,
but listen and learn, or you may fail.

Opinion polls are often wrong. Opinions change.
Neither follow the blind nor be deceived by prophets,
think and consider and ask, then ask some more.

Public opinion is not always wrong, not always invalid,
it is not always all the public. It is not thinking, but evidence
that makes the difference.

And even then, the state of scientific evidence is fluid,
changing, moving. Contrarian thought is fine. It’s fun.
But in the end, truth is an elusive chameleon.

Look both ways to be sure the path is safe.
Carefully consider all options.
Mind the gaps well lest a valid exception be overlooked.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 6)

Today, I’ve been challenged to write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’m to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first word of each line.

I chose Find what you love and let it kill you. (Attributed to: Charles Bukowski [unlikely], Kinky Friedman [more likely but with like instead of love], Van Dyke Parks [attributes to Friedman], and Anonymous [possible, but someone said it first]; and if it was Kinky, who used love first?)

Seriously

Find my reason for being, my why did I not die,
What is it that makes me do the things I do?
You may have some thoughts about my dilemma;
Love or hate and genes and things, like moon phases,
And everything about what I was and now I am.
Let us feel, taste, smell, see, and hear all there is.
It is my life, after all, and I must find it or
Kill myself trying because this is too important for
You to take things like love and death so lightly.

Look both ways while searching for all the love to live for
and all reasons to die. Mind the gaps for gods with all the right answers.

Friday Fictioneers for April 8th, 2022

Today the ever lovely and charming Mistress of Mystery and lover of history and animals, Madam Rochelle, teamed up with David Stewart to serve up a delicious challenge which she prompted from her recliner throne surrounded by things important to her.

My 100-story follows the prompt photo. Is yours here?

 

click on red land line (or anywhere) in the PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart to go check out Rochelle’s blog for the latest menu.

Genre: Breakfast Fiction
Title: I Got You, Babe
Word Count: 100

They had told me there was another man. She’d soon be leaving me. I’d catch them in the act and kill them, then myself.

I parked a block away, planning to catch them having breakfast. I cautiously entered Big Al’s Restaurant. I saw two meals without coffee. Did she give it up for him? Probably a Mormon.

Her voice, “Hi Babe. Eggs sunny side up, right? Just like you, bright and sunny. I had to get our coffee. Did you drop the kids off? I’m working on that writing prompt you told me about.”

I decided to delay my plan.

Look both ways for drama in your life.
Mind the gaps for reasons to commit fictional crimes
if you are indeed a writer of such.

Click on the wayward children to read other flash stories.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 5)

Today I was to write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature.

While I may have skirted the “mythical person/creature” intent of this prompt into a mythical persona, my poem jibes with a contemporary American myth, my real life, and my reading of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove and other books.

The Marlboro Men

Some didn’t smoke nor drink. Some hated horses.
First, for thirty years he was the
as soft as May she,
the lady who smoked, then she transitioned
into a tough, rugged, solitary, successful,
sometimes gay, mythical but authentic cowboy—
the sexiest of the sexist real men to face cancer.

Born with The Magnificent Seven’s memorable music,
growing and coming of age while riding
our cultural waves of the cold war, rock & roll,
civil and women’s rights; adverts were
icons of destiny for the decidedly deceived,
counters for conservative control
of our changing values.

The Big-un, the real one, a cowboy myth
to market coffin nails
and sell cowboy killers
to callow, naive boys who
never did and never will ride a horse
or be close enough to smell a cow.

The idolized hat, saddle, and boots of the Colorado rancher,
a friend to the duke, who took twelve years to
awaken to the wisdom of his being bought
to kill his own kin.

Was the demise of the man, the myth, and the cowboy the lie?
Was the image of what such men meant tarnished
by tobacco’s tar, nicotine, addiction, disease, and death?

Yes!

What men or women deserve to be our exemplars?
Are the anonymous quitters, the rebels, those
who turn and fight for right; are they, the proven people,
our legitimate, proper heroes? Or is true grit bogus?

Look both ways while riding the trails of western myth.
There is a truth to be found, but it’s now more than a hundred years,
and thousands of movies, ads, and commercials later.
Mind the gaps in the lies of marketing and advertising.

***

Too much to gloss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlboro_Man

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 4)

My fourth day NaPo challenge (https://www.napowrimo.net/) is to write a poem in the form of a poetry prompt. I’m not sure that’s an accepted form, but it’s been done. Mathias Svalina posts surrealist prompt-poems on Instagram. I chose not to follow the surreal examples or numbered steps, but I got ‘er done.

Poem That

Everything I see is an unwritten poem, yet to be.
Even non-poets (if there are any) know this truth.
Listen to the music, hear it, feel it, watercolor it
(Julie’s prof said that’s a metaphor for letting go).
But it matters little if you let go or grab on tightly,
as the music is mused into your mind through
any of your human senses, not just the old five.
Recall the (Under) Pressure songs? Do it
like that. Hamlet said a thing is neither good nor bad,
but our thinking makes it so. A penny for your thoughts,
in the form of a poem, a memory, or a dream,
a hope for the future. Own your poem, then share it.

Look both ways for inspiration in life or death,
in the real or surreal, in the odd, the normal,
or in keeping Austin weird.
Mind the gaps, for even there the asinine fight the sensible.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 3)

Since it’s Sunday, (I’ve no idea why that matters to Maureen Thorson [Napo creator and prompt director], but I acknowledge that most folks who work do so on approximately five of the other six days) so today’s NaPo prompt is (she said “a bit”) complex. I’m to write a poem in a Spanish form called glosa (or glose). Glosa explains or responds to another poem or part of one. Until today, I was unfamiliar with this form, but now I am intrigued by it.

THE GLOSA OR GLOSE requires:

  1. a) A cabeza (or motto) – the quatrain borrowed from another poet, whose authorship must be acknowledged.
  2. b) Four 10-line stanzas, each ending with one of the lines in sequence from the cabeza.
  3. c) A rhyme-scheme requirement that lines 6 and 9 rhyme with the final word of line 10.

It seems challenging, but “The point of any formal (poem) constraint is primarily to put you under pressure to write a little differently from your default style, and in the case of the glosa, you’re forced to participate quite explicitly in the work of another poet, many new possibilities for writing differently can be magically released.

“There’s great scope for playing with this form, by varying the constraints. You could choose a different stanza length, write in free verse, in a metre of your choice, or in syllabics; dispense with rhyme or increase the amount of rhyme; use a different length of cabeza, or introduce the lines of the cabeza in different positions in your stanza.” ~ John Wheway, “How to write a Glosa.” (https://www.johnwheway.com/?p=4)

I did the prompt and followed the form as closely as I could, except for one rhyme. Who cares, right?

The most difficult part of this was browsing through my favorite poets to find the perfect quatrain, then to cull that dozen down to one.

I could feel the day offering itself to me
and I wanted nothing more
than to be in the moment—but which moment?
Not that one, or that one, or that one,

From the book, The Trouble with Poetry (and other poems): “In the Moment,” by Billy Collins.

Life’s Moments

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
they’d ask, “Do you have a girl friend?
I needed answers. Also, “How was school today?”
I grew up without ever knowing
what it was I wanted to be.
I married young and that stopped
all questions about any girlfriend,
and then one day I woke on up.
The value of school I started to see
I could feel the day offering itself to me.

One day at a time, moment by moment
I lived my life, and I slowly learned
what I wanted to do, he who I wanted to be
even though, before, I didn’t know or want
to be the he who was evolving into me.
Each day of my life I opened another door.
The important people in my life called me
Bill or Dad or Opa, not sir or major.
I finally had my feet on the floor
and I wanted nothing more.

Forty million moments later I knew
the answers to so many of their questions
but I can’t tell them now, not that they
ever really cared, like everyone does
after they’ve grown up (if they do),
they’re all gone now to find others to torment.
So little I remember, the work I did,
the people I loved (and those I did not)
I think about my future, I want nothing more
than to be in the moment—but which moment?

I wish I could tell them now
what I didn’t know then, what I’ve become,
and how I made my way, and what
I have to say. I never liked school,
a necessary evil at best,
but that’s all long over and done.
I’ve paid my dues. Didn’t always give my best
even when life was some questioning test.
I try moments and memories I could’ve become,
Not that one, or that one, or that one, …

Look both ways to the future and the past
but live every moment like it might be your last.
Mind the gaps and the questions, but live long into the answers.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 1)

Today is day one of the 30-day National Poetry Writing Month challenge to write a poem each day of the month. I plan to write to the prompts which are posted early every day. There are few rules to this and the prompts are optional.

Today I am to write a prose poem that is a story about the body. My poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image (could be more, could be other senses).

Her Superpower

Big at inception, his cesarean birth was through her swollen uterus and abdomen. Long tearful battles with Narcissus followed. Ripped apart for years, she eventually won her prince who grew into a tall, bulky, powerful, erupting, ever-growing, mountain of a lad. A strapping, kind chap, but like her, blemished by wee fits of fury over wounded honor.

Together they camped where broken was typical. Where hurt hurled tearless acrimony and demons encircled souls. At home but not a home of their own, west of the living and the dead, where spirits danced quietly like running shadows.

“Powerful in body, be strong, kind of heart and mind, my son.” He looked at her and spoke, “I think I can, but I cannot see my way. What mystery is my future? Will you always be with me?” She replied, “I cannot carry your cross, but you can see it there. By your mastery alone shall you lift and bear all burdens. Your will shall overcome.”

Her voice sang in his ears as he stepped onto the platform of his agony. His powerful hands tightly clutched his cross, his face burned red, he lifted as his hands and legs shook, his eyes bulged as he cried out. Every cell of his being bellowed in triumphant pain, he stood holding it still until white lights allowed his release. “I’ll be back.” He smiled, turned in triumph, then he proudly stomped and crowed toward her.

Look both ways.
Make the party yours.
Carry your own cross but mind the gaps for fearful traps.

 

Friday Fictioneers for April 1st, 2022

Sheriff of the Friday Fictioneer’s photo-prompted story telling tribe, the legendary Mistress Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, dons her purple Converse All Stars, the color of the brave, and leads her army of writing spirits into another battle with our hidden, internal creative imaginations in the face narrative challenges armed with only one hundred words. Today she teams with a Roger Bulot prompt photo of an urban scene for us to draw our pens and to drum on our keyboards as we begin our final March march of extraordinaire flash fictioneering into April.

Click on the PHOTO PROMPT by © Roger Bultot to taxi on over to Rochelle’s fabulous footwear and curly hair care blog to get the straight skinny on how to join up with these crazy cats.

Genre: Funny Fiction
Title: A Big Lie
Word Count: 100

***

“Gregor, why dem kicks up dare?”

“Dem’s cuz last night was second new years eve, Julie. Ya makes a wish and trows up yer J-jays”

“Second new years? Never heard ‘bout dat. Today is second new years day?”

“Oui, bae. Today use’ta was new years till dey changed calendars, yers to myin.”

“We had our own calendars? Cool! Ima gunna trow deez old sneaks up for good luck.”

“Dems yer all-stars, Jules.”

Barefoot Julie hung her shoes, first try. “Now, we have lots-a luck. Happy new years.”

“Yeppers, bae. Same. Taday also been April fool’s day fer near five-hundred years.”

Look both ways and practice wise skepticism this Friday.
Mind the gaps for a joke or a hoax.

Click on the Cabernet Sauvignon infused Jordan to read other fine fiction.

Gloss: (if you need it) April Fools’ Day goes back to 1582. France switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, ala the Council of Trent in 1563. People slow to get the news or failed to start a new year on 1 January and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. Pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as poisson d’avril (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily hooked fish and a gullible person.