Poetry

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 7, Bro, WYWH

Today I was to write a “poem” titled “Wish You Were Here” (WYWH) that takes its inspiration from the idea of, and the abbreviated format, of a postcard. My poem should be short, and should play with the idea of travel, distance, or sightseeing.

Okay. But since some folks have no idea what a post card is or does, and others only know texting with its abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms, I made a post card poem written by a texting generational.

Hint: Listen to audio as you read the poem.

 

Bro, WYWH

Cos, I got seasick
And the food sux
and I bored 2
IDK WTF WYD

IRL is NBFD but hey
we on FTW, right?
NVM, Ima ROFL
Cos Mail person wonders,

If we are FUBARd RN
or doing a GG. IDK.
CU in 2wks, right
IYKYK.

TC, Duddo

Ps: FWIW – ILY

Look both ways and look up everyone if YC.
Mind the gaps and the language of the text machines.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 6, Truth Hoax or Delusion

For my fifth poem of April’s first Saturday (it’s a long story), the NaPoWriMo prompt asks that I write a poem rooted in “weird wisdom.” This means something objectively odd that someone told me and has stuck with me ever since.

Truth, Hoax, or Delusion?

My friend, Elizabeth, is white, was raised Methodist, but has Carolina Low Country roots and claims hoodoo spiritual knowledge. She predicts her days by pulling runes from a bag or tossing tarot cards. She has all the New Age trinkets and talismans. She was Wiccan, claimed to be a New Age witch of some sort, then was Druid. I lost track after that.

But she is a poet from a very interesting tribe. One day Lizzy confided that there is a Big Foot (Sasquatch, Yeti, or Abominable whatever) and that she had personally seen it — all 500 to 1000 pounds on a seven-to-ten-foot frame, anchored to Earth by seventeen-inch furry but bare feet.

Her private testimony was as a passionate eyewitness. It brought a soft smile from me. I decided to ask how her Druid studies were going.

I looked up and became a believer.

Look both ways and be aware while hiking the trails.
Do not eat unknown mushrooms, carry a good camera, and mind the gaps.
For as the old Sherpa said,
“There is a Yeti in the back of everyone’s mind; only the blessed are not haunted by it.”

Taken by me at a coffee shop in Issaquah, Washington.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 5, When Rain

The NaPoWriMo.net page prompted us to write a poem about how two or three different things might perceive a blessing. Or how they could think about something else.

Since I seldom use the words blessing or blessed, I pondered things to poetically opine such as luck, grief, happiness, politics, God, love, power, rain, poetry, sleep, or sex. Since the prompt has this option, that’s for me. I pulled rain from the sky.

When Rain

When the old man heard rain,
he smiled, looked out of
the window and said to his Chihuahua,
“You know, Thunder, Updike wrote:
Rain is grace—without rain,
there’d be no life. I am still life.”
And out into the warm summer rain he went.

In the trees the birds huddled together
as the rain caused seeds to fall,
worms to surface, and the raindrops
puddled before it paused. Soon
they could dine and bathe.

In the earth the soil spread out
and teemed with life as all bits of
Nature was graced with
musical raindrops descending
washing off the old man’s
smiling face.

The fish were amused.

Look both ways with gratitude for rain and shine.
Mind the gaps as they fill with water and air fills with the petrichor of life.

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.

Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #350 – Vapid

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog and more special vapid writes.

An Ordinary Rage

Ordinary wine works just fine
for normal people like me.

My sister-in law explained,
(about damn near anything
she liked): “it’s all the rage!”

Like mid-eighties, vapid looking,
overpriced, Cabbage Patch Dolls.

Ordinary is good. Strength
resides around the center of a bell curve.

If everything must be so damn special,
think about that, my friend—
because (then) nothing is.

Look both ways because weddings are wonderful and funerals are not.
The first is an option while the second celebrates death more than life.
Mind the gaps and be skeptical of outliers.

A Monday Quadrille at the dVerse Pub

Lillian is hosting today and prompts a 44-word poem that must include the word imagine (or a form thereof). Click here for the pub page or here to find more quadrilles.

Dip Stick

When I heard that our friend Jack
was charged by Olive
with checking Sally’s oil,

Sarcastically I said,
(with a semi-evil grin below a slow eye roll)
“Imagine that!”

I’d bet that Jack’s measure of success
was how often
Jack got that Willie wet.

Look both ways because some fools just cannot stop what they do.
Mind the gaps when you check your dip stick for fluid levels.

Sammi’s Weekender #348 (turmoil)

Click the graphic for Sammi’s page and more 53-word writings.

The Young Die in War

Into the turmoil of war, he went.
That young man in love with a dream,
showing his loyalty and patriotism,
what he can do for his country,
his tribe, his people, his gods.

Willingly, eagerly,
into the hazy war he went,
returning home bagged as meat and bone,
into the war he went.

Look both ways in school but keep asking, keep your mind aware,
why are we… why do we?
Mind the gaps in the destruction and rubble and remember why.