Pain

Dream On – NaPo 2025 Day Seventeen

Today I was challenged to write a poem themed around friendship, with imagery or other ideas taken from two paintings (my choice from many). One by Leonora Carrington, and another by Remedios Varo, two surrealistic artists and friends. A surrealistically inspired, friendly poem?

The irony of this day is this prompt juxtaposed with the definition of surrealism: “the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature (poetry), film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations.” (Webster, on line) Where does one draw the line?

“One good friendship will outlive forty average loves.”

Faces

On purpose.
Told no one. Told everyone and nobody.
Formless as seen on tv ritual
ceremoniously entwined
with green crabapple branches.
Cuts. Touch. Mix blood brothers.
That smell. You! What? Stink-love.

Feel that? Smell. Yell. Scream.
Lie. Beatings from bullies.
Shinny-up. Run. Escape. Drown. Cross.
Crimeless criminality.

Friends first. Not. But.
Family was a lie.
Roy Rogers was naked.
All naked. Sing. Pray. Sting like a bee.

Share hair. Cardboard shoe soles
over shew holes and altar boys.
Smoke sticks. Tangents. Guilt.

Together every day. Share loot.
Flat nose. Black eye. Blood everywhere.
Swing. Fall. Break things.
Climb. Cry. Evil father.
Saintly mother. Naked sister.

Uncle Joe. G. I. what da ya know?
Cold is not coal, or pea.
Melds wrapped in love and shame.
Masturbating demons defiled hosts.
Do it. Now dare to do-do, pee higher.
Lie to be loved. Play all day.

Ugly beauty deep forever.
Melting madness of happiness.
Wanting what color of love?
Damn.
Help.
Hurry.
Hide.
It’ll never die.

Then it died.
Then you died.
Then I cried.

Back.
Then.
When.
Me.
We.

Look both ways or every way at the same time
because art is in what part of a dream when nothing is real and there is no god?
Imagine. Mind the gaps and slaps in genital naps.
If it makes sense, it cannot be art.

Say It and Play It, Billy – NaPo 2025 Day Eleven

Today I was to write a poem that incorporates song lyrics – ideally, incorporating them as opposing phrases or refrains (I didn’t). Though not specifically prompted, I felt like the poem should be a “loose” villanelle which, like the example, doesn’t rhyme (much).

Just to Feel Good for a While

To forget about life for a while
We hear the songs and drink the wine
and you got us feeling alright

Everyday life is one more trial
We feel abused by the tyranny of time
To forget about life for a while

We sit and we cry when we sing
Sadness and resistance break down
And you get us to feeling alright

We laugh until it hurts in a good way
Looking forward to this now all week
To forget about reality for a while

It seemed so much like just yesterday
When love, I thought, was here to stay
And your song and the grog got us to feeling alright

With midnight closing in
As we feel it and see it all in the air tonight
To forget, for now, about life’s pain for a while
And your song got us feeling alright

Look both ways on the hardest of days to find a break in the clouds.
Mind the gaps and learn the words of all the songs and poems you love.

Poem to a person – NaPo 2025 day two

NaPo 2025’s second day challenging prompt invited us to write a poem that directly addresses someone, has a made-up word, includes an odd or unusual simile, makes a statement of “fact,” and that includes something that seems out of place in time.

More Than Love

My dearest philologloth,
Are there worse places?
Is your prison like a happy place?

Your soul is good.
Unlike the dark life fiction
of your self-inflicted addiction.

Like a blade runner
missing for thirty years,
a gauntlet falls upon deaf earth.

Hearts grind to needless halts
when minds forget to remember
when my me died that September.

Come, my son
rise above it all
but not the love.

That tote we carry
full of all the good
and all the bad losses we’ve both had.

Love you, Dad.

Look both ways to discover the dark side of pleasure.
Mind the gaps for forgiveness and step carefully into whatever future you have left.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 25, Beaucoup de Sade

I made it to Day 25, only to find this prompt prodding me to write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire.” WTF is that? We were given a wiki link and 35 questions, then set loose to sow whatever poetic damage we could. Proust? Really?

Beaucoup de Sade

What do you consider the perfect murder?
Do you want to kill anyone?
Or some group; like atheists,
gymnasts, or Sociologists? If so—
who, which, when, how, and why?
And where do you live?

Do you like to scare the shit out of people?
Do you point and laugh after they
wet themselves or die of a heart attack?
What is your favorite form of torture?
Do you reminisce about the Spanish Inquisition?

Of all the people you know, what proportion
do you hate the most and wish they were dead?
(Former spouses, Mormons, and JWs don’t count.)
And why? It’s always why, right? I wonder too.

Do you hate any professional or amateur
sports teams, clubs, individuals, musicians, or poets?

Do you consider prohibition of libel and slander
an impingement on your freedom of speech?
Did you make crank calls as a child?
How many times a week do you defecate?
Masturbate?

What smells get you sexually excited?
Do you fantasize doing naughty things
with people you know, like your best friend’s
current or previous spouse or partner?

Who are your favorite villains? Are you
ever good on the bad guys and gals?
What are you addicted to?
Do you think pizza is overrated?
Do you hang out at cemeteries
just to find peeps with shared
hopes and dreams?

Did you enjoy this prompt
as much as I did?

Look both ways and only read Proust if your name is Duane (Moore)
and doing your psychiatrist is your lifelong fantasy.
Mind the gaps for punji traps because some wars never end.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 17, At Seventeen

Today I am to write a poem inspired by a song, and to share its title. I confess to being influenced by song lyrics, especially the well-told stories in ballads.

Earlier this year I read “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian (1975) as a poem at an open mic event. I’ve always loved the song and somehow relate to it, as do many people around the world. Janis explains how that affects her and sings her song in the video below.

At Seventeen
When she called
I couldn’t hardly talk at all,
and when she sings
I remember high school things.

The words, the tone,
together talking on the phone,
her memories, at seventeen,
were mine at home alone.

“It was long ago and far away,”
do I wish it was today?
What has changed in how we are,
in pickup trucks or borrowed cars?

At seventeen when boys like me,
Sad Sacks outside for all to see.
“Come dance with me”— because
that couple we will always be.

She said,
I pity boys like you who serve,
you only get what you deserve.
My broken heart sang obscenities,
to the one I loved but never pleased.

At seventeen I was that man,
a boy holding a gun over there,
I stay alive as best I can, but
of angry me I must beware.

At seventeen a boy like me—
at seventeen, too young to see.
And ugly boys like us do care.
At seventeen, when I was there.

Memory is a strange, unreliable thing; so, look both ways and don’t assume.
Mind the gaps in song and poem, you’ve been only human all along.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 14, When You Know

The NaPoWriMo, Day 14 task is to write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word: an anaphora.

When You Know

You know when you’ve had enough
When hopes and dreams are done and gone,
When your dog might outlive you,
When you can’t pass a bathroom,
When your hair is a memory,
When all your friends seem new,
When you wonder if you still can,
When someone says you’re harmless and they’re right,
When pain, not darkness, is your old friend,
When all your plans have come and gone,
When regrets and memories are the same
— if you have either at all,
When walking is workout,
When a game of pool is high impact for you,
When your favorite song is sung and gone,
When cooking and cleaning
— are aerobic exercises,
When grumpy, old, or sweet apply
— like names to all the people you meet,
When “I don’t care” answers every question.

Some of us have more past than future, but we look both ways.
Mind the gaps, ignore the aches.

Sammi’s Weekender #336 (search)

Ease your search for Sammi’s page and more excellent 52, pickup pieces by clicking on this graphic.

The Maelstrom of Combat

Hunt and kill missions,
search and destroy—S&D,
sick and disgusting.

If it’s them and dead, it’s VC.
Body counts win wars.
Ask GM-azon.
Euphemistic defense profits for all,
but not the warrior, the solder,
dead and maimed
they suffer, kid-killers—all,
they hate and love battle.

Combat. Killing.
I die. Why?

Look both ways, toward the light and the dark.
Mind the gaps for hints of denial.
It is yours to reason why.

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 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 10)

What is a sea shanty?

It’s a poem in the form of a song, strongly rhymed and rhythmic. Two famous sea shanties, in addition to The Wellerman (listen, it’s fun), are What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? and Blow the Man Down.

My assignment was to write a poem with nautical phrases to keep “the sea in my shanty.” While formerly career Air Force, I’m intrigued by submarines and aircraft carriers and the life sailors live. I decided on a poem about submariners, after knowing some and learning more (for a flyboy/landlubber). I used so much jargon that I decided on extensive glossing.

Blind Man’s Bluff

Shipmate, shipmate, useless thou art
you’ll be chief of the crank
or you’ll be walkin’ the plank
unqualled and unfit to smell a chief’s fart.

Yer like a dog with two peters
so confused in that bubble
a bluenose nub, yer nothin’ but trouble
below-decks with the cooks and the beaters.

The worst we got yet from rottin’ o’Groton
yer too fuckin’ green to sit in the box.
Today yer a FLOB washing my socks.
We’ll rig for red and drop you in Boston.

Shipmate, shipmate, you’re new to the crew.
Bubblehead, bubblehead, give me a clue.
Carry on with target prosecution that’s true,
a fish in the water with the firing solution.

What’s that? A dolphin on your chest?
And the COB now thinks yer one of the best.
Sooner than sonar our service’s a test,
an a-ganger now, yer the best of the rest.

With orders all ahead full cavitate,
it’s hard for the skimmers to fully appreciate
the pukas in our honeycomb tube
remember your days as a dumbass nub-noob.

Shipmate, shipmate, here we go again
bubblehead, bubblehead, give us a clue.
We’re just out of Groton all shiny and new.
We’ll be diving in soon, you tell us all when.

Look both ways, but things can hide behind a submarine.
Mind the gaps on the port and the starboard, but out of the water the rudder is right.

Note: I got the title from Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, and Annette Lawrence Drew, published in 1998, is a non-fiction book about U.S. Navy submarine operations during the Cold War. I give the book 5 stars.

Gloss: “Shipmate” is pejorative when used sailor to sailor, but not usually otherwise. “Chief” is a senior enlisted rank, but here it is sarcastic. “Crank”s are the shit-jobs on submarines. The “bubble” refers to leveling the sub. A “NUB” is a non-useful body, unqualified without a dolphin badge (like a pilot without wings).

The USN submarine school and museum (I recommend if you like subs and their history) are located near Groton, Connecticut (USA). I’ve heard it called “rotten Groton.”

The “box” is a key location on a sub. “FLOB” is an initialism for freeloading oxygen breather. “Rig for red” is going to red lights to preserve night vision before rising to periscope depth. “Bubblehead” refers to people on submarines. “Fish” in the water refers to a torpedo. US Submariners are awarded a dolphin badge when they become fully qualified. “COB” is the enlisted chief of the boat. “A-gangers” are experienced crewmembers (aka, knuckle-draggers/tough guys). “All ahead full cavitate” is getting away quickly. “Skimmers” are surface ships and sailors. “Pukas” are small hiding places on a sub.

 

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