Poetry

Why Not Art? – NaPo 2025 Day Seven

Today I am prompted to write “kind of” a self-portrait poem wherein I explain why I am not an object of art. Additionally; I should include a fake fact and a highly unlikely comparison.

objet d’art

A can of soup was not art.
Wait now, the can may be but not the soup.
Tell the chief her food is not art
and you may invoke a visceral emotional response
from them (pronoun problems today)
about his grossly gristly
chicken fried steak found at some greasy spoon
somewhere in the middle of Texas or Montana.

Intent counts in sin and art. Fuck for effect.
I am the conscious effort, like the fork, push pin,
or skin covered hairless fat over brittle bone and
Weird Andy Dubya paints me as a Brillo box
for which some fool pops millions. I’m not that.

But is it art? Am I?
Am I that posed and canned portraiture photo of me
p-shopped to make me artfully handsome and young
soliciting a salacious feeling from someone
who practices the high art of pornography?
I am not that kind of art, thank you, Reverend.

We all love being objectified, of evoking
an aesthetic or emotional response
from the neighbor’s horny wiener dog down the road which
is not art. The road I mean, not the cat. I mean dog.
But maybe, could be, should be transformed
into a painting of an old hammer, which I am also not, but
a can of soup is. Art’s weird if you ask me,
which you were not and I’m not saying.

Look both ways and up at a ceiling full of shit-filled condoms and call it art
because it evokes within you an emotional response.
Mind the gaps where function follows form, and a poem is a form of expression
but isn’t art.

Hot Chow – NaPo 2025 Day Six

To determine today’s NaPo prompt, I randomly selected a number from 1 to 10. I picked ten. Then I scrolled down to find a table of 10 rows and 4 columns. At the row corresponding to 10, the first cell to the right gave me the name of an edible item: cilantro. That was what my poem was to be about. The next two cells had words that were to be used in the flavor-descriptive poem. To see the entire prompt click here.

Cilantro

I don’t know when it came into my life.
Probably after I met my wife because
if it wasn’t meat with mashed potatoes
and some form of bean,
I had never tasted it.

Two things provided for expansion
of my sense of taste and flavor,
including smell. Marriage
and my military life. Chow halls
didn’t care, but they also did.
I actually like liver and spinach
(sorry Mom).

It goes in with other stuff,
Where would salsa, soups, guacamole,
and other dishes be without it? Sure,
there is parsley, dill, and basil,
but they are not the same.

Where would be the fresh citrusy
and floral flavor? That peppery tang
we find in and among the Mexican gang.

If it tastes like soap, there is no hope.
Genetics rule. Thanks to a gene
called OR6A2 for that
and eat something else.

For the rest of us, we enjoy the
gentle chip drip into the culinary saucy sink.
Good food is more than you think.

Look both ways and learn to love the food.
Mind the gaps and pity the picky eaters.

Musical Notation – NaPo 2025 Day Five

A Saturday NaPo table prompted me to compose a poem given inspiration from a musical notation of my choosing from a list of 21. Then, I was supposed to select a musical genre from another list of 21. Finally, I was to use in said poem one or more words I picked from a third column of 21. You can see the entire table which was Bogarted from an old Twitter account by clicking here.

My selections were: “lord have mercy;” folk song; and bones, butterflies, + banquet.

Pay to Play

I am not a musician.
No instrument can I play.
My singing’s not worth the price of admission.
Not even in church while
surrounded by singing Baptists on the Lord’s Day.

I love music. I wanna be
all those things. Just good enough
will satisfy me.

When I hear it, the many from way back then,
when, lord have mercy, a folk song
written and sung during the genre revival,

gets into my bones
I can get butterflies. I become
the man-boy I was with hair and zits,
now my playlist becomes
a veritable banquet. Then I sigh,
and I wonder why
they don’t get it.
Like rain they hear it but they get no feel.
Frankly, they just get wet.

Look both ways but remember; your song is yours, your music is born into your soul.
It matters not what others think, this is your thing.
Mind the gaps but you’ll never explain not knowing what was for lunch,
yet you still know the words to songs from fifty years ago.

 

Rock Poem Metaphor NaPo 2025 Day Three

Day three of NaPo prompts me to follow the easy style of Frank O’Hara and to write a poem that obliquely explains why I am a poet and not some other kind of artist.

I looked. Oblique means not straightforward: indirect, obscure, devious, or underhanded. Perhaps metaphorically?

Poemhenge

Like most,
as a child I found rocks and stones interesting
to see, to hold, to gather, and to throw.
There were cool ones for holding
and some for skipping on water.
Some were hot rocks. Jocks protected stones.

I didn’t know any of the names.
Fools gold wasn’t gold or diamonds
but was filled with glittery sparkles.

Rocks had formations.
Many were famous.
Rocks and stones were even in songs.
And in idioms like rock solid
or your stone-cold heart,
or the millstone around your neck.

Eventually, old stone makers interested me
and new stone makers challenged me.
And the colors and cutters of gemstones
like emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and diamonds.

As I grew, my view of stones got more solid.
Famous rock formations attracted me,
I wanted to imitate the creators.
In the gym I used soft rock like talc
as I listened to the rock music and dreamed
of the rock candy mountain.

Rich people wore and collected rocks.
They called them jewels and gems
but I could not always tell you why.

Later, maturity took ahold of me
and I found my fit, even as a fossil,
to make rock and stone creations of my own.
Polishing stones. Stepping stones.
Stumbling blocks are rocks.
My mind one stone quarry among many quarries.
I walked the limestone line on cordoba cream—
noticing colors, styles, and finishes.

One day I collected some of my stones.
I trimmed and polished them. I included
abrasive stones, message stones, smooth stones,
and made them ready for display to the world.
And I named them all poems.

Look both ways and if you see Frank O’Hara, tell him I want to be a painter too.
Mind the gaps, especially as you traverse the rocks, then stop, sit, have a “J.”
Mind what the poets have to say.

Note: “J” is from the Paul Simon song “Late in the Evening.”

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.

Poetics: Inspired by Album Cover Art

Mish from mishunderstood (A Collection of Poetry by Michelle Beauchamp) devised a prompt that I could not resist. Her dVerse prompt was to write any style of poem (ekphrastic-ish) inspired by an LP music album cover.

My (writing/art/reading/library/music/office) room walls are decorated with 100 album covers (see why I can’t resist?) with more stashed on various shelves around the room, all changed out or around regularly. While I dearly love the music and what it does to me, the albums displayed are all about the cover art with few exceptions like the Beatles White Album or the Eagles, The Long Run, and a few others. Most of it is photographic art, thus (photography is another of my “hobbies”), I must respond to yesterday’s “Poetics: Inspired by Album Cover Art.”

I chose a classic: Tapestry, Carole King’s second and most phenomenally successful album from 1971. The poem credits the photographer. The album was produced by Lou Adler and was released 10 Feb 71, by Ode Records.

Smackwater Jack

It is weird, isn’t it?
How we form attachments to things, both iconic and not.

Sights and sounds, perhaps,
more than other senses,
but still in nineteen-seventy-one, when my B.S.,
Tapestry, and Billy were all born.

(And, oh god! — Wally World.)

There’s Carole, barefooted in jeans,
sitting on the bench window seat
at home with her great hair, at

Eighty-eight-fifteen Appian Way,
Laurel Canyon—in Hollywood Hills, L A.
There she is,
perched on a pillow holding a tapestry.
While her cat, Telemachus, sits on his own pillow—

But only momentarily,
much chagrining cover photo guy,
Jim McCrary, photo maker of many iconic covers.

And ya know the piano’s
not far away. Maybe it’s
“Way Over Yonder,” or maybe
“It’s [just] Too Late.”

She had help (James, Joni, and more) recording
in Studio B. And isn’t it amazing
how more than fifty years later
I still know, I accurately remember
every word of every song to sing along.

Look both ways and let the magic of art and music take you where you want to go.
Mind the gaps, as crazy as it is, vinyl is coming back.

Dishonest Poetry

Tell Me Lies

Who tells lies?
According to
fictional Gregory House, M.D.,
“Everybody lies.”

Certainly,
some among us lie
more than others. Perhaps called
pathological as in diseased,
uncontrollable, or obsessive
(no names please).
Sometimes it’s necessary.

But we are not born fibbers.
Lying is learned behavior
to equivocate or prevaricate,
but why? When and how
does the lying begin?
Intent matters. It’s a crime
when you swear you won’t
and then you do.

I still recall what I believe
was my first lie, but probably was not.
Self-protection
was why. I lied (long story) to my mother.
She often accused me of telling
a fib, or a “story;” inferring
dishonesty of the whiter degree.
Usually, I was telling the truth
(yet another story).

Almost expected in politicians,
I’ve seen it everyday, lying everywhere
by everybody: parents to children,
Supreme Cout Jurists (under oath),
police officers, teachers, married couples,
religious leaders and disciples to those leaders.
Pick a government agency
or automobile manufacturer—used car guys?
I even suspect that George Washington
engaged in the occasional untruth.

I am no wiser than the fictional Doctor House,
but I am older. I have more experience living.
I must agree—everybody lies. Deception
is not a skill unique to magicians. Liar!

Look both ways with discerning eyes at everything.
Mind the gaps and realize that a smile is a thin disguise—
“There ain’t no way to hide [those]… lyin’ eyes.”

***

The title is from lines in the Fleetwood Mac song, “Little Lies.” Gaps quote is from “Lyin’ Eyes,” a song by Eagles. How many songs (poems?) are about lies and deception? Hundreds?

Sammi’s Weekender #367 – Party

What Matters?

I envied parties.
Younger me wanted something,
or was it concern about missing out?

My last party,
a high school graduation overdone deal
for a grandson, with whom,

I exchanged five words.
People I didn’t know,
went mostly unnoticed by me.

Many lacking in the social graces
except for some like me
so many names with unfamiliar faces.

I talked to his other grandfather,
and to my twin step-granddaughters
who seemed to like me better,
after thousands of words, I felt likewise.

Small intimates are for me now.

Look both ways because the life of the party is not who it once was.
Mind the gaps when you soberly tell me about your life and what really matters.

Sammi’s Weekender #362 (classic)

Click the graphic for Sammi’s page and more classic writing.

Classical Folk

Telling me about herself,
her childhood, family struggles
made her who and what she is today:
a wonderful classic of musical charm.

The point is telling
the story only she can.

She remembers.
She wants me to know.
It’s all important.

Another girl on my mind
made me wonder.
What was it like
to have been her?

Look both ways when looking into the lives of others.
Mind the gaps and do the research.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 30, Controlling Feline

For the final day of the challenge, we were to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.

I chose a Greco-Roman mythological goddess, Megaera, from the three Furies: Alecto (anger), Megaera (jealousy), and Tisiphone (avenger). I embodied her as a pet cat.

Controlling Feline

I am Megaera the Cat, your jealous Goddess
sent here by Gaea and made from
the blood of the Lord tomcat, Uranus.

My holy task is to punish you for being human.
You may do nothing without my revocable approval.
If I have not approved your every action,
the indignity of Hades awaits within my hairball.

You must be shamed into submission by me.
I will make you fall; I will pee on everything
and everyone else you love until you bow,
honor, and feed me. Pet and feel bitter pain.

Privacy is a sin. Your computer is mine now.
All this furniture is mine and mine alone
to use and abuse as, and when, I see fit.
My water bowl is only half full. Fool!

I am a daughter of Darkness. Do not even look
at another cat, animal, bird, person, or
(may Nyx and Zeus forbid such sin) a dog.
You will pay dearly and experience
the smell of Hell, if you ignore me.

Look both ways, forward into May and back to April.
Mind the gaps as you recover from 30-in-30, all to prompt.
We are saved by the human gift of humor. Empowered by babble.