Human Condition

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 23)

On the fourth Sunday of April 2023, we’ve been granted the opportunity to write a poem composed of numbered sections. Each section was to be in dialogue with the others, like a song where a different person sings each verse, giving a different point of view.

Additionally, the setting was to be specific, ideally a place where we once spent much time, but no longer do.

I used parts of The Age of Anxiety: A baroque Eclogue by W. H. Auden for methodological examples and guidance. Auden used several techniques in his book-length poem. One was identity tags (“Emble was thinking, Now Rosetta says, Malin says” … or sings, or Auden simply names the character) for who was speaking or thinking. He also explained places or set moods in prose. However, he did not use numbered sections. I must (mine is not to reason why). I have spared us both the book’s advantage of a 49-page introduction.

The Masque of Nave
(“’oh, heaven help me’ she prayed, to be decorative and to do right.” R. Firbank, The Flower beneath the Foot)

      1. He recalled to me…

I sat, stood, and kneeled in the back-most pew
of the bright, modern, incensed church nave.
Why was I there? What did I want?

      1. Jack later said…

I don’t believe all this makes sense, celibacy
without a cause, trans faces reality, real versus
what you think this place can do for you.

      1. Elle complained…

Not a wretch am I, and exactly from what
do any of us need savin’? They will come
if you feed them, and the music isn’t too bad.

      1. Adam looked and talked…

I could live like this, with some of you.
Hungry for your touch. I can show you
the way to find heaven on earth, in church.

      1. Then Ted said…

I will let you, if you allow me. We need
secrets to keep. This place smells, but
however it is, let me be part of it.

      1. Maddie told us…

Ted and Adam can play their sick game
without us in hell to help them; they are
blind and will never see time go so slow.

      1. I recalled…

This is not the place for us above it all.
No one will find a way or feel the fall.
What matters most is how we lived.

      1. And Jack repeated…

What you sense is not the house of God,
but the way to be seen as safe or good,
none here will go farther than the end.

      1. And I said to Jack and Judy…

Ted and Adam are alone and now dead;
you’ll both soon go to join them there;
the end patiently waits. But it always comes.

Look both ways into the good and the evil.
Even the snake only wants to be left alone.
Mind the gaps in all relationships.
People worships for reasons unknown,
often even to them.

 

Just click on the damn button.

Note: I did not use Roman numerals. WP did that on its own when I indented the poem. But they work okay, right?

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 22)

For this Earth Day, also a Saturday, I was to select an Emily Dickinson poem and change it by removing dashes and line breaks. I was then to add my own breaks as well as to add, remove, or change words. Basically, I was to make a Dickinson poem mine.

As I read various versions of her many poems, I learned that others over the years have taken license to make changes to the point that I cannot determine original forms or words. In the case of one book I have, an entire stanza of a poem was either added by one or deleted by the other.

Because today is Earth Day, I chose a Dickinson poem that relates to nature: “The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants” – (1350); or XXV, page 97, in my copy of The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson (intro and notes by Rachel Wetzsteon). Generally, Dickinson did not title her poems, thus the numbers.

Bill’s Magic Trifle

The Liberty Mushroom is
the elf of plants at evening,
but not at morning, in its truffled magic hut
it stopped upon a spot as if it always hesitated.
Yet, its whole life is shorter
than a snake’s delay
and faster than the strike.

It’s its vegetation’s juggler,
the ever-changing nature is like a bubble
on the ground or floating to the trees.

I feel as if the grass was pleased as I
to have it grow in and among her blades of
scion of Summer’s circumspect.

If Nature had a more supple face
or she could pick a favorite fairy;
if Nature had an apostate fungus
the lowly liberty cap mushroom would be him!
And a favorite ‘shroom among us.

Look both ways because then is not now.
Mind the gaps left by migration and imagination.
Happy Earth Day.

 

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

 

Hallucinogenic common magic mushrooms

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 21)

My assignment (okay, prompt) for today was to choose a word from a list of 14, then to use that abstract noun to title a poem with short lines containing one or more invented words. I chose calm.

Calm
I recall
from long ago
Dad saying
“If you don’t
stop crying
I’ll give you
something
to cry about.”

That worked
as well as
“calm down.”

He never did.
I had plenty
of reasons
to cry.

I should have
laughed.

Mom said
I was being
demonstrative;
she meant emotional
or dramatic
or histrionic,
or noncalm,
or theatratic.

Now I’m calm,
laid back,
easy going.
Boring.

Now it seems
I should inflate
my former
theatricality.

Look both ways in a world flooded with emotions, actors, and lies.
Mind the gaps trying to find the facts.
Play your role.

 

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

Not so calm:

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 20)

What will future archaeologists from human or alien civilizations make of us? Today, I’m challenged to answer with a poem. My poem should explore an object or place from the point of view of the future scientist.

n Si(CH3)2Cl2 + n H2O → [Si(CH3)2O]n + 2n HCl

n Si(CH3)2(CH3COO)2 + n H2O → [Si(CH3)2O]n + 2n CH3COOH

They discovered it around the start of what they called
the Twentieth Century, which related to keeping track
of and measuring what they called time… beginning
with when one of their five thousand or so gods supposedly lived,
as best we can tell, given their early rudimentary measurement devices.

As far as we know, some called it rubber or plastic
but eventually virtually all said silicone because few could pronounce
polydimethylsiloxane in any one of their hundreds of languages.
Before they died off, this stuff was virtually everywhere
sometimes solving, and at times, causing problems.

We cannot examine or test anything they did anywhere
without finding this stuff in use by them, internally and externally.
We find it in all parts of their semi-decomposed bodies, mostly
to make lips, breasts, and other sexual organs look inflated
or larger. Eventually, it was everywhere. We find it in clothing,
on them as sexual lubricants and toys, and in everything they looked at or touched.

We mostly take it for granted now and we suspect
they did, too. They used it for rudimentary rockets but when
they failed to test it completely, it let them down and caused
many deaths. In fact, we can accurately determine when
things happened by how they used silicone before what they called
“artificial intelligence” (which was real) made their existence redundant.

Look both ways.
But study the past and appreciate the present.
Mind the gaps when the AI starts working together at night in your garage.

 

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

 

This is very brief clip from The Graduate:

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 15)

This is Saturday. This morning, I had a two-hour online meeting with my writer group. I left that meeting early to make an open mic poetry reading. I drove 40 minutes each way and read five poems. Now, I am to write a poem. I should also find time for things like exercise, reading, and whatever else comes into my life. Retirement—right.

Today’s NaPo poem should exaggerate some (supposedly) admirable qualities of a person in a way that exposes my doubts about them. This person may be real or imagined. A person who was held up as an example of how to be, but one about whom I had doubts.

Doug was a tall and handsome fellow,
a man of means,
a legend in his own time
and perhaps
in his own mind.
He was untouchable. Until he wasn’t.

Normally, when someone, either man or woman,
falls from the grace of celebrity status
and the pillar we place them on,
the reason is either drugs, alcohol, or sex
(predatory, paid for, consensual, or otherwise).

But this guy’s demise was precipitated by
pride and a godlike belief
in himself and his mind and spirit.

As it turned out,
His Nibs was replaceable after all.

Look both ways in the mirror of confidence.
Thankfully, no one is irreplaceable.
Mind the gaps because everyone is vulnerable, lies, and eventually dies.

 

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

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 13)

On the 13th day I was to write a short poem that follows the beats of a classic joke. My poem should emphasize the interplay between the form of the poem and the punchline.

I use humor. But today? Nada. In desperation I am posting this just so that I post “on prompt” and do not get behind. (Nobody said it had to be good.) I hope to do better tomorrow. Anyway…

Doctor, doctor,
what is wrong with me?

Each morning
when I look into the mirror
I feel like throwing up.
What is wrong with me?

The doctor says
he doesn’t know
then adds,
“but your eyesight
is perfect.”

Look both ways when contemplating the literal and the ironic.
Mind the gaps. Even the best comics flop sometimes.

 

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

Not his best, but Ray is on-prompt, too.

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 9)

Today I was to write a sonnet. While allowed space regarding traditional sonnets, I was to keep with a general theme of “love.” I did not shoot for iambic pentameter, but I did manage ten syllables per line, except for the final two, which are nine and eleven, thus averaging ten. I made no attempt to rhyme.

I don’t think you understood love like me.
When I told Mom that you were a good man
Walking home after making arrangements
She balked. I understood and we agreed.

You had always been a difficult man.
With a world view no wider than the path
Of a tear rolling down my cheek or hers.
Coalminer tough and Irishman drunk.

Your mother died when you were only eight.
You were raised by a strict Scotsman father.
About him and you, you never told me.
He was your only father role model.

Now I wonder about me as a father,
And my wife as my children’s mother.

Look both ways in love and life.
Nobody is perfect and forgiveness is good.
But forgetting is optional.

 

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

Friday Fictioneers for March 24th, 2023

The queen of Friday Fictioneering and purple lane swimming, the lovely Rochelle, has dealt us a prompt photo from the most awesome Liz Young. With an abundance of humor and joking around, the Queen and her King are chiding us into dealing from our own deck to call or raise a story in fewer than 101 words (beginning, middle, and end).

If you want in on the game, a seat is always open for you. Just shuffle on over to Rochelle’s blog by clicking on Liz’s pic. There you will be cut in on the rules according to her Hoyle-ness, and you may drop your ace story with ours in the inlinkz pot using any ante, wager, or whatever photo pleases you.

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

Genre: Memoir
Title: Funny Dad
Word Count: 100

***

Astrid owned the store. I dropped my stuff on a table then went to order.

Her father walked over and told me an Aggie joke.

I glared at him, “Should I laugh now?”

He spewed more insulting chaff. I scowled, “That’s dumber than the first!”

He paid for my order. I insisted she take my money. She refused. Astrid had no choice.

Then he said, “Student loan forgiveness is buying votes.” I dropped my items in the trash and said, “My vote’s not for sale. Don’t quit your day job.”

I haven’t returned. It wasn’t her fault. Dad’s a dick.

***

Look both ways because none of us choose our parents.
Mind the gaps because our DNA is 99% the same as monkeys.
Sometimes we can tell.

Click on the joke book to find more mad-jokery to read.

Sammi’s Weekender #303 (enterprise)

Click graphic for Sammi’s blog where you may play along and/or read more prose or poems.

Sin, according to those in the know
can be committed and then lovingly remitted.

All it takes is a paid remittance for which
said sin remission is granted with indulgence.

By paying my way, so it is that they say,
with remittance my guilt is pardoned
all at once, and thusly,

Religious enterprise thrives,
a consequence of my temporal sinful existence.

Religion only if a god, because of
delusional intoxication being like love.

Look both ways because some god needs your money.
Mind the gaps and the go-betweens, who never seem to have enough.