It is Yolonda’s birthday. To celebrate with NaPo, I am to write an index poem (me neither). I could use language from any index or invent one. It is kind of an index to parts of her life.
Yo’s Index (chronological)
Arrival in Cisco, 47; Commencement into the World, 64; Abilene Discovery 65; Blissfulness, 66; PA pronouns after laughing in the Chapel, 66; Travels of Ankara, Turkey, 67; War Hymns, Chig-gar-roo-gar-rems, Hullabaloos, Caneck! Caneck! and au revoir Air Force, 68; Hello Number One, 71; Woodville bounce-back, 72; O-1 with you (she’s back), 72; here/there/everywhere, 73; Hello Cowtown, 74; Welcome two to the gene pool, 74; Redneck Mothers, 75; Happy alert Thursday, 76; How much more of this?, 77; She was number three to stroke back Mother’s Day, 78; Goodbye Stranger, 79; Island fever, 80-82; Missed the bus, 83; Rabbit fever, 84; Rancho Swimming, 83-95; Goodbye friends, 86; Ride the Fiesta, 86-92; Shadows of darkness; 90-97; All Hell breaks loose, 96; Heaven sent, 99-01; Hell sent, 02-07; Emerald water/white sand, 12; The three mountains and it’s 50 as we, 15-17; Near Austin City Limits, 18-23.
Look both ways.
It all boils down to a book of life, which requires an index.
Mind the gaps and always remember names and places.
“Okay, but is it a poem?”
My final hump-day task for NaPo is to write a portrait poem that focuses on the subject’s name. While most of these prompts lean to nice and light, I am still on prompt with some shade.
This could have been a self-portrait, that of a family member or friend, or of a famous person. I went with a famous person.
The Best
Cahhleigh, what cha doin’? was how your Brit ‘not-boyfriend’
friend,
Rolling Stones fronter,
Mick Jagger said Carly.
It was a hot song that burns today.
You tell about a father of two
girls who wanted a boy: Carl.
After you, he had Peter
but lost his wife, Andrea,
to Peter’s man, your discovery.
He lost his business, then, slowly his life.
And he never showed you enough
love. But you loved him anyway.
Carly Elisabeth Simon—
third daughter, sister, mother, wife twice,
writer of children’s books and memoirs
and songs and music
for movies. Singer. Guitarist. Pianist.
Not Carl. Carly!
As many who followed were
likewise named, proudly, Carly.
The tragedies and mistakes,
the stammers and stuttering,
the anxiety and performing issues
(you call not exactly stage freight)
the loss of all loves except your children
and many fans, we are all
hanging on and enjoying the days
that remain. Indeed, nobody does it better.
That forever smile, the eyes, hair, sometimes now, hats.
Shoeless often you sang out loud. A sexy lady of seventy-nine
and an inspiration of times, to us you seem just fine.
Look both ways.
The poor are not more or less guilty of being born into a place and world than the rich.
We were not asked.
Mind the gaps without judging the trouble they cause.
Often, we cannot overcome it, so we deal with it.
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)
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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).
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.
My peeps hang out at the VA clinic in Austin.
I know none of them. Prolly agree with very few about a lot of things. It’s okay.
It took six months to get two appointments coordinated
(it’s a long drive), but I like it here (not sure why).
(Almost) all the paid staff and volunteers seem nice
and tolerant (from what I’ve seen, they need to be).
Eye exam. Will I see an optimistic optometrist
or a pessimistic ophthalmologist? New script
and my cataract is ready for R&R (remove and replace).
The drop dead gorgeous (and friendly) young lady in the glasses shop said I looked like Bryan Cranston (showed me an old pic of him) from Breaking Bad.
Go ahead, make an old vet smile, and feel good.
Couple years back a dude came in, sat down to wait,
pulled out his gun and blew his brains out. Yikes!
I guess he wasn’t there to get new glasses.
Some of us got some serious shitty problems.
Later, about half-past noon I got some new hearing aids.
Rechargeables because I drain batteries binge watching House on TV
streaming on Bluetooth. Thank you. I like them.
I am a veteran eligible for most VA services, either alive or dead.
I’m a vet but no old fart hats for me.
I’m neither proud (okay, a bit) nor ashamed of that fact.
Like being old, bald, male, or a Texas Aggie,
it’s just who and what I am. No changes.
Look both ways and see it all.
Mind the gaps, some of us need more help than others.
Ten years my junior, and this pic of Cranston’s character (Walter White) is old.
Our own Kansas City, major league Girl, pronounced Rochelle, who is in a league of her own, has sent us up to the nosebleed section of Royals stadium for inspiration. It’s her pic, but it’s still football (not baseball) season, for which KC will be smiling and thanking Lubbock, Texas, for sending them the likes of Patrick M. (Superbowl Champs) for many moons. May the Royals be so blessed.
This game is all about telling a complete story in fewer than 101 words (more and you strike out). Click on the stadium pic to hit a home run over at Rochelle’s blog to get her pitch. There you can be umpired on the balls and strikes of Friday Fictioneers. Let the baseball metaphors fly!
Genre: Baseball History
Title: First Base
Word Count: 100
***
Billy and I bummed on cheap wooden bleachers watching the Rangers. Seven bucks covered everything, including Cowtown to Arlington gas and parking.
“Dad, that lady behind me is blowing on me.”
It was hot. I looked back. A lovely young lady was fanning his neck. She smiled. I mouthed thank you.
He punched his glove, but it would take a homer to get us a ball.
“She’s trying to keep you cool. Some day you’ll appreciate such attention.”
He asked, “Do you think she likes baseball?” I looked again. She winked.
“Yep. She and your mother are both big fans.”
Look both ways when life seems like a dreary competition.
Mind the gaps. At those heights, let the ball come to you.
Click on Charlie Sheen checking his package (autographed) to get tossed over to inlinkz where you may read more wonderous stories inspired by Rochelle.
One day I was chopping weeds.
When I looked up Libby, our toy poodle, was gone.
I knew she would go home with virtually anyone.
But she’d been fixed years earlier, so she could go play.
I noticed a familiar SUV driving away. I was unarmed, but I felt, maybe,
Libby had been dognapped. I called for her and looked around.
After a while, the car returned and pulled over near me.
The lady driving rolled down the window. She held a small black dog
in her lap and asked if it was my dog. I said, “I don’t know. Lemme check
her license right here on her collar.” Libby was calm. I got semi-sarcastic.
“Yep. Last seen right over there in my yard sniffing her own shit.”
The indignant do-gooder gave me a look and said, “I’m a dog
rescuer. I rescue strays.” I took Libby and said, “Today you’ve
moved up to dognapping. Last I checked that was against the law.
Now may I see your rescue license?”
I could tell she was getting pissed at me.
Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall started pounding my mind and I turned up my volume,
“Hey! Lady! Leave this dog alone!”
All-in-all, look both ways when tending your flock.
Your poor wretched strays may get “rescued” the minute you look one way.
Mind the gaps in the minds of those dumbly righteous souls who do good to feel better than.
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