NaPoWriMo

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 3, Boom Boom

On the third day of April, I was given, via prompt, the task of writing a surreal prose poem (whatever that is). Since on Day One I chose to poetically recount the plot of Going After Cacciato (Tim O’Brien), and since it is somewhat psychedelically surreal, I decided to pop a prose poem based on that, with sadly surreal over-and-undertones, metaphors, allusions, suggestions, and damn lies.

Taking this poem literally can lead to a bad trip, man. If you ask, “What does that mean?” I ask, “What do you mean by mean?”

Boom Boom

In the Nam, the tunnel was the cuckoo’s nest of tightly squeezed death. It all went down that way because the blind leading the blind works better than the blind leading the sightful spiteful since the can-sees commonly also perceive gospel. At the observation post, Big Rifle, Jungle Doc, and Ready Mix watched as Stink Harris got blowed up, floating away, leaving only his face inside his helmet: undead—with a smile. So, they slithered off on a hunt to hook Cacciato. After floating down a cliff, they caught the next train to Delhi where he had jumped one to Kabul! Afghanistan, man. Flashbacks were set to the green alternate timeline when they wigged out because of the oppressed wartime dullness of sightings in Iran or Izmir, Turkey. They hear Sarkin say, “the way in” and she whispers, “is the way out.” Shell Shocked sings it, “Billy Boy, Billy Boy, Billy Boy lived but he was too afraid to die.” He was then a dead head. The smoke clears in Paris. In The World, man. Because being in the war is such a magical and wonderful thing, dead or alive. Boom-boom!

Look both ways for the real never is,
and in every lie, there is truth.
Mind gaps and try, try, try to understand being universally lost.

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.

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 1 Going after Cacciato

Day one of the NaPoWriMo 2024 event assigns me to write, without consulting the book, a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that I remember having liked but a book that I haven’t read in a long time. Define a “long time.” Am I supposed to remember plots well enough to recount them? Enough of my whining. No cheese, please.

I decided on Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien. I’ve done this in the past, particularly with O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. But as wonderful as that book is, it is a collection of connected stories with literary or psychological plots.

Pass the pipe, Paul.
He is there! We know!
You saw him say goodbye.

Follow his fantasy
to get out of this place,
miracle of miracles, as we

dream on, dream on, dream
ourselves away. Away to
gay Paree as all can see.

As the white rabbit said,
march on and find adventures
and stories, because

you do not have to be
smart to be happy,
you just should be in Paris.

Look both ways as you go after your dreams.
Mind the gaps because that is where dreams morph into gods.

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.

 

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Fried okra.

 

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 28)

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?”

 

Click here to see the pure f-ing magic.

 

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 27)

Today I was prompted to write a poem titled “The (blank) of (blank).” The first blank was to be a kind of plant or animal, the second blank an abstract noun.

The poem was to have at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.

The Dove of Independence,
The Dove of Resistance

Are you Texan, Mexican, Mourning
or just a dove? Like a pigeon, a bird,
or an easy mark?

A Vlad target in late fall, even some of
the white wing clan; are you game
on those special occasions?

Does the cooing help you or me
make peace from your innocuous innocence
or your purity? Do you pacify or fight on?

Maybe a little less like white wing
and more like Blackhawk to win the war.
Can we deal with that winning pair?

Love conquers all, but right now
they need some hard ass, bald eagle, boom-boom.
May art like Palance be their winning war dance.

Or can VZ in the UKry find a winning way,
and stand up with humor to the wounded bear.
There’s no independence without resistance.

Look both ways at peace through conflict.
Mind the gaps but win the damn war.

Click on the meme for the NaPo page and more poetry.

Maybe I was a bit heavy with this prompt, but here is the story of Blackhawk and the white winged dove.

 

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 25)

Today I was prompted to compose a love poem with three required aspects. It must name at least one flower (the Texas state flower is the bluebonnet, and they love them), contain one parenthetical statement, and have some
unusual line (like this)
breaks.

This Love

This love of ours
like bluebonnets flower
in Spring flashing brilliance
of blue, purple, white, red,
and like it knew,
maroon (if you look close)
in April then waning to green
by May. Yet,

This love of ours
thrives with
life—stronger after hard
wet Winter passes. The
flower gone
the plant lives like
our love. Fruitful.

Reliable. Dependable. This love of ours, like no
other’s (spreading, seen, felt)
cannot be trampled or destroyed (though some have tried).

Look both ways, forgive but do not forget,
let love be seen with eyes of envy.
Mind the gaps,
but don’t let them be more than
a seam on a garment, a patch in a road, or a lone weed in a glorious garden.

 

Photo by me.

 

Click this button for the NaPo page and more free poems.

NaPoWriMo 2023 (Day 24)

One week to go. Then poetry month and the NaPo challenge conclude.

Today we are to write a poetic review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. Define normal. Define review. I did a little rabbit hole hunting for things that should not be, but are reviewed. One guy reviewed life, and I thought it was great. I wrote a humorous epistolary poem.

Dear God,

I’ve tested this free soul
every day of my long life (thank you).
I understand this review
will be kept confidential.

First, my old soul has not aged well.
Mold and fungus are all over it.
What is it supposed to do again?
It seems to be useless like my appendix,
wisdom teeth, and nipples.
It’s just easier to remove.

How can I write a QA review
if no one knows what it is
supposed to do? One lady said that you
use it to keep score. Another said,
“you’ll find out soon enough.”
I felt threatened but don’t know why.

When I took it out, I noticed
feeling lighter with less guilt.
Is that normal for a soulless man?
I don’t see this part lasting
for the full length of eternity.

I’ve lost the receipt, the warranty,
maintenance records, and instructions.
Satan low balled me then refused to buy it.
The local body shop won’t touch it.

To be honest, this OEM soul
seems mighty worn out considering
it will not move and does absolutely nothing.
And what about soul music
and soul food? Is there more than
one kind, or is it a lot number thing?

Basically, my overall review and feedback
is that if this thing has a purpose,
please advise, and I will test accordingly.
Otherwise, I’m sure your QA department
can provide further information.

Sincerely,

Bill

Look both ways when reading reviews.
At the extremes, they’re often emotional nonsense.
Mind the gaps when someone tries to explain useless parts.

 

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

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?