Autobiography

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 15, How Things Change

For halfway day, for the fifty-yard line of National Poetry Month (US and Canada), for the late bunt that moved me to second base, for Day 15; I was to be inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. I assumed my poem was in the offing.

Technically, I’ve been, or was, a collector of stamps since around age 11. Over the years that hobby dwindled and failed to hold my interest, although I am still interested in stamps, especially the lovely old ones, from the US and other countries. I have acquired entire collections simply because some collector had lost interest. Click here for wiki on plate blocks.

How Things Change

When I was quite young,
too young,
my aunt gave me her
well organized, large collection
of used postage stamps.

My sister’s boyfriend at the time
(she was 13 years older than I)
collected new plate blocks.
He gave me some and encouraged me
to abandon used stamps for new
with printer plate numbers.

I did. He helped. I traded
my aunt’s collection to enhance
the upgrade. Eventually,
I put my collection away,
although I have acquired
other collections over the years.

I’m different now. Sister’s BF
has gone to the big Post Office
in the sky. I am not a collector
of anything. I’m an accumulator
(books, rubber ducks, some
stuffed animals and dolls).

But for many years I have
regretted my decision to part
with my aunt’s collection. Those
old used stamps would mean
more to me now than all the
many collections I have
stored and ignored.

Look both ways and appreciate the past,
but if wisdom comes with age,
accept it without regret, if you can.
Mind the gaps because memory is a strangely alterable thing.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 4, Of Nature

Now that I have gone several rounds with Facebook, finished every chore and honey-do I can recall, and exercised, I am ready to write a NaPoWriMo poem, to the day’s prompt.

That prompt is to poem up something natural that takes my title, some language, and/or ideas from The Strangest Things in the World: A Book About Extraordinary Manifestations of Nature, by Thomas R. Henry. It’s a cool book/Gutenberg Project. I’ll read every word when I am no longer knee-deep in trying to prove to you that I can still turn a phrase, poetic or not.

I love Nature much more than it loves me or you. I roll my eyes at things like “natural ingredients, GMOs (I mean, so what?), organic (prove it and pay for it), back to nature, and off the grid.” Dr. Scott Peck wrote: “…natural does not mean it is essential or beneficial or unchangeable behavior. It is also natural to defecate in our pants and never brush our teeth…” (The Road Less Traveled).

I decided to write a poem:

Of Nature.

I first camped out in the woods or forest
as a Boy Scout, about age twelve.

Years later, I tent camped with my wife
and I learned what chiggers are, sort of.
She had over 100 bites. I had none (that time).

I was sent to Survival Schools by Uncle Sam
to learn skills about how to live alone
with Nature (so we’re never truly alone).

I’ve hiked wilderness trails in several states;
in the mountains, sand pits, and pebble pocked paths
of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico
(26.2 miles, four times),
and I hiked the boonies in Guam.

I swam in streams, rivers,
stock tanks, ponds, lakes, and two
major oceans. I backpacked in and days later
back out again. I pissed and shit in the woods.

I suffered from heat and nearly froze,
wild animals woke me up and threatened me.

Thunder and lightning and torrential rain
made me question my sanity.

I know the creepy crawler creatures
by first name, and I’ve been bit,
stung (once in the ass), scratched,
charged and needled.

I have taken Benadryl to recover
from the sicknesses that being close to nature
bestowed upon me.

It’s beautiful, wonderful, glorious,
and even freakishly mysterious.

Ask the first in. Ask the pioneers. Ask
the natives. Nature is not a safe place.
Most frightening of all: people!

Take Her for granted at your own peril.
Love the beauty but respect it all.
Nature can and will kill you
without fear or regret. Ask anyone
of the frozen dead bodies
of the Everest climbers.

But then again, what the Hell?
Go ahead. Be one with nature.
Stomp that fire ant den. Follow
that rabbit into the briar patch.
Play piñata with that wasp nest,
and charm or handle that snake.
Enjoy your life. It’s all you get.

Looking both ways is not good enough
in the depths and wilds of nature.
Mind the gaps, look, listen, and be careful where you eat, step, sit, sleep;
and appreciate where you decide to defecate.

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 2, Hello, Jimmy

Day two of the NaPoWriMo dot net prompts has me writing a platonic love poem. In other words, a poem that is not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love. In my case, the plutonic love of a friend.

My poem was to be written directly to the object of my affections and should describe at least three memories.

Hello, Jimmy!

I don’t remember
where or when we first met,
nor when we were not friends,
Jimmy (later Jim),
never James to me;
although, I left first
for Basic Training,
before you went later
to Navy Boot Camp.

We grew up through times
of learning to swim together,
our first diving board jumps,
walking the mile and stopping
on the way home
to pick and eat wild berries
on the spot, while “dying” of thirst.

To our family’s first televisions
and Roy Rogers, and more
black and white pretend life.

You from a large and growing
family, me essentially
an only child,
fishing in pristine
Pocono streams or
in the smelly Susquehanna,
where we also swam
and somehow survived.

We shared the instinct to
climb every wall or cliff,
getting stuck because up
was easier than down.
We shinnied up and jumped off
almost everything,
often landing wounded.

We stumbled into rocky,
hormone laden, teenage
years when you had sisters
who I noticed more and liked.

We envied each other’s worlds.
Our last visit was, what we felt,
a final embrace;
only this time—
you were the first to leave
and left me forever behind.

Look both ways to discover the many forms of love,
what it is and what it is not.
Mind the dark, silent gaps in time
when the love of a friend outlives many longer romances.

Sammi’s Weekender #337 (scribe)

Click the graphic for Sammi’s page and the works of other scribes.

Been a student.
Learned and been taught.

Forgotten most of it by now
like Algebra and French
except the writing. And
some things
that can’t be taught.

Other things
I didn’t learn in school
like telling stories and jokes
that are learnt by listening.

Sitting around campfires
when some was truth,
some memories,
and some was downright lies.

When they ask
I say I write.
“What do you write?” they question.
What should I say? Words? Stuff?

Letters or poems?
Will novels and memoirs
resonate with my interrogators?
What does any writer write?

“I am a scribe.”
Sometimes.

Look both ways for self-identification.
Know the how’s, when’s, and whatever’s.
Mind the gaps and watch for traps but try to be what you say you are.

dVerse Poetics November 7th, 2023

This was a complex prompt, so it is best to go to the dVerse page and read about Lisa’s Time Machine Bucket List: TMBL and the subsequent prompt with options.

I think I sort of did Option 1, but this comes from my heart. I know Lisa said ten and cull out, but I can’t do that. I focused on both the stars and the venues because, seriously, I would try to go.

Coming Around Again

Forty-five (or more)
albums later, fifty years
of water under two bridges,
if we could go back.

Back to when you opened up
to your kind, to your fans,
and friends and family,
your folks, without
a care or anxiety
for either of us.

Long over now except for
the forever connection
of Ben and Sally; I still
love to hear you and James
sing duets and harmonies.

Save me seats so I can go back;
back with my beloveds
with you to concerts like:

Live from Martha’s Vineyard,
or from Grand Central,
or from aboard the QM 2.

Can we meet at the Eagles’
Sad Café? It’s been fifty years
Carly. What do ya say?

Listen,
mock, yeah,
ing, yeah—let’s sing!

Look both ways, but when the more is in the past,
we can wish for times to go back to for just a brief concert to visit,
to sit and listen, to applaud, perchance to take in a toke.
Mind the gaps until time travel is perfected. Our goals are very specific.

Click here to enjoy more TMBLs.

And Carly—

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 29)

Today, I was to cook up a poem in two parts. The recipe was supposed to focus on food or a meal. Part of the poem was to season the food as a person, and I was to give it some spoken dialogue.

Boiled versus Fried

  1. First this:

Newlyweds were we,
having moved to above her garage
from over on Waverly Way.

She fixed supper for us,
and I first met up with boiled fucking
okra, AKA, slimy green snot.

It was nineteen hundred and sixty-six;
we were 19; something, like this, well folks,
you just never forget, or forgive.

I’m certain I heard the grassy flavored
seed pods of gumbo thickener sing
eat me raw, you city slicker. We be worldwide.
I wanted to puke. I could’ve just died.
Embarrassed, I mannered-up and sighed.
And I swallowed the snotty lady’s fingers.

Little evil green monsters, till one day…

  1. Then this happened…

A crunchy cousin, nicely coated,
in some restaurant, called theirselves fried okra
provided texture to my tale and it was,
step back, Jack, we gunna treat ya well.

Old John Henry called it all “Okree,”
like old aunty of the Mallow family
with a funny first name
and John seemed to fuss over the food
in a good way, but I passed on boiled,
stewed, raw, or wrinkled. Fried
is the only okra for this damn Yankee.

Look both ways and learn to try, but texture counts.
Mind the gaps, but India grows most okra and now has the most people (not China),
and they must eat a lot of okra over there.

 

Click the button for more NaPo magic.

 

Fried okra.

 

Monday’s Rune: NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 17)

I call my Monday poems runes, which can be ancient Germanic alphabets or stones with such symbols used in fortune telling (mystery or magic). Synonyms for rune include lyric, poem, song, and verse. (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary)

For today, my NaPo challenge was to write a poem that contains the name of a specific variety of edible plant that grows in my area. I was to make a specific comparison (or contrast) between some aspect of the plant’s lifespan and my own. I was also to include at least one repeating phrase.

Byline: By Bill Reynolds as prompted by Maureen Thorson at NaPoWriMo dot net.
Dateline: Everywhere in Texas, but mostly from near Austin, 
perhaps anywhere in the Americas, April 17, 2023.
Copyright and published: 2013, by Our Literary Journey, 
NaPo #17, Monday edition, Rune section.

Cautious Culinary

An eerie red afterglow surrounded us as we drove between the hellish throbbing of wildfire embers from the hearts of burned prickly pear cactus.
I don’t know why.

Ubiquitous, often unseen until it stings, Opuntia of family Cactaceae, also called tuna, sabra, nopal and more,
a bushy edible succulent, often decorative, shrub.

Light green or bluish thorny fleshy pads sprout Spring’s purple-red fruit for jam, jelly, or syrup.
Unharvested fruit become beautiful cactus flowers.
I don’t know why.

They are decorations for xeriscape, desert, Mediterranean, and cactus gardens.

When spiny glochids are removed, pads or fruit are nutritious but best harvested in morning as taste changes during each passing day.
I get it.
I also change as hours of each day pass and like the pear, I taste better in the morning.

The fruit emerges in Spring and soon flowers, more growth and long lived but old age produces less desirable taste.
I get that too.

I can be oh so prickly, no more fruit or flowers, but inside, except for arteries and added parts, I am soft and moist, maybe a little salty for some.
Don’t know why that is either.

I cannot nail down my life span but this year is “expectancy”, nor if the pear outside my door will be there after I’m gone. They live a long time but eventually
everything must die.

I don’t know why, it’s one of those things.
For life to be, there must be death, food chains, health, fire, and sickness
when an eerie red is glowing all around us.
And like me, prickly cactus can be too much.

Look both ways.
The cactus you do not see will stick you good.
Mind the gaps, wear good boots, and watch for snakes.

 

*Click on the NaPo 2023 button to see the challenge and to read more poems (not all are on prompt).

 

Prickly Pear cactus after they flower in Spring.

 

Edible pads and fruit.

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 11)

Today, I was to write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard that made me laugh, or something someone told me once that struck me as funny. So, one day…

Testimonial Tiptoeing

While walking to Bible Study one sunny Sunday
I thought I heard her say to me, “Sit on your hands
and keep your mouth shut.”
She may have said, “Please.”
I may have laughed,
as they say, out loud.

I don’t recall.
I hadn’t planned for this behavior,
nor had others. I was well-known
for my robust questions effectuating discourse.
But I agreed to remain calm and quiet.

Perhaps a little too proud of my oracular
transformation of boring topics into
heated disputes among those who cared
(maybe a little too much) about all things biblical.

I did my best. I really tried to make her proud.
With both hands literally under my arse,
and my lips drawn to a thin white line,
I was being holy as hell and doing fine,
until the lovely lady facilitating the study asked,

“Bill, why have you been so quiet?
Why have you not blessed us
with your usual wit and wisdom?”
And why is your face so red?

I don’t remember much after that.
The priest said it was demonic.
A friend said smoke bellowed
from my ears. I swear I heard a nun pray,
more impassioned than logical,
“May the saints preserve us from
this cantankerous old toad.”

Look both ways when contemplating all things divine.
Mind the gaps but give respect to get respect.
Sometimes a story is just a story and a joke is just a joke.

 

Click on the NaPo 2023 button to see the challenge and to read more poems (not all are on prompt).

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 5)

Today, the NaPo prompt challenged me to write a poem in which laughter comes at an inappropriate time. While George Carlin would be my inspiration for laughing inappropriately, I recalled this story about my first experience with laughing in church.

Measure Up

First grade was—what? —age six?
Twelve months before Pope P. declared
us prepubescent Catholic children
to be at the age of reason: still, that’s seven,
thus eligible for eternity in Hell.

That’s the time when we must confess
our sins to a priest and then to receive
the actual body and blood of Jesus
into our mouths (no touching or chewing).

Too young to jerk off;
couldn’t spell rape or murder,
(but could be a victim of either);
abuse, or extorsion.

On Sundays, at nine o’clock Mass, we had to be there
and sit in the front pews, down range from
second through eighth graders
in ascending class order behind us,
thus we were easily seen by everyone.

Our teacher, Sister Mary Menopause, floated by
just as Jimmy Sauer (also six) dropped his punch line
and we both committed the unreasonable, punishable,
but forgivable sin of laughing in church.
She crucified us both.

After Sister M. played whack-a-mole on our heads
with her ever-present wooden ruler,
she further embarrassed us with after Mass detention
upstairs in our school classroom. Mortification!

Dad said, “I hope you learned your lesson.” I did.
Seventy years later, I examine my conscience
by writing a poem about a churchly childhood experience
and a nun whose real name I’ve long forgotten.

Look both ways as the lady in black floats down the aisle.
She comes for you.
Mind the gaps between us and sit in the center of the pew,
well out of reach when she begins her swing.

 

Click on the NaPo button to see the challenge and more poems (not all are on prompt).