Waiting for April...

Will it arrive prompt-ly?

Day 21 - NaPoWriMo Challenge - Erasure

I love the notion of giving several people the same raw ingredients and witnessing the variety that blooms.

Today's NaPoWriMo challenge was an opportunity for me to play that game, by starting from the same original page as the sample to create my "erasure" poem.  Certainly a darker theme here (and not at all autobiographical, I hasten to add).

(As typewritten text):


remember
I grew up with them
New England born,
almost all
stone

individual histories
were never referred to
if, indeed, these were known

my great-grandfather
(planted near the doorway)
passed away,
and was spread over the countryside
by his descendants

none of my family ever called

a small boy,
it was my job
to turn the meat-chopper handle
as we ground them
to be sure

Day Five - Emily Dickinson: Disassembled

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to take an Emily Dickinson poem, remove all the punctuation, and then re-break the lines, adding or removing words in order to make something new.  

I took that suggestion to the extreme, typing out all the words to "A not admitting of the wound" into a column, and then rearranging them copy-paste fashion into groups by parts of speech with the windows Paint accessory.  All this as preparation to begin playing with them as though they were refrigerator poetry magnets. I built my poem up from scratch, based on how the words called to me.  

Below is a .jpg rendition of the result.  The stray words at the bottom were my leftovers.

I enjoyed this exercise!  I am always interested in how different artists can use the same raw materials to arrive at unique outcomes (give or take a few one and two letter words).

The original poem, by Emily Dickinson:

A not admitting of the wound

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside -

A closing of the simple lid that opened
   to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down -


* * * * *


Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Minus One (prompt-driven, impatience-delivered)

Too Late 

I guess it's too late for coffee

Not quite right for chocolate either

The moment is calling for massage
Long, slow breathing
Leaning into, luxuriating

But all I have are twist-untied wrappers
And quiet telephones
And empty inboxes

I guess it's too late to reach for you
Not quite right for rejection

The moment is calling for awareness
The birdsong is calling for the usual mystery

And I am no longer lonely.

Can be found by Clicking Here

Shadorma (3-5-3-3-7-5)

I am done

I am done.

You have  convinced me.

Surrender,
and be free:
so I begin to empty
my stash of love notes.

=================

I just learned about this form from a poem called "Stairway to Heaven on Earth" by Adam Everhard on the Poetry of the Netherworld blog, introduced to me via a comment from Tempest Nightingale LeTrope on my Day 17 post here.  Check them out for their A-to-Z sampling of styles!  It's serving as a great introduction to new ideas.  Thanks, Tempest!

 

Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Seventeen

Older 

I have changed.

I just noticed.

I want less sound of humans

more of nature.

I am heavier.

content to guide.

offer caveats.

adventure is still there to be sought

but not by me.

I want the sublime.

resonance.

affirmation

and underscore,

these are my punctuation marks

before my

full

stop

.

 

Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Twelve, Part II

The Oaks are Blooming 

I have counted the ways

now let me tally them before anyone else will

and before I must stop thinking in “we” but instead as “I “

If given the chance, I would still elect

this many-pot-holed road that

did real damage so seldom

I would choose you again, before any,

would gladly fall in the steps that you tread

if just to keep your company, and

if just to learn the opposite of “no “

You will be waking from this dream…

You have packed and are ready to set out, but

there is one thing missing, which is this:

There would not be the me of today without you.

We caused these pieces that have readily come

and a part of me is traveling away from here today too.

* * * * * 
a 2nd 'golden shovel' poem of today based on a certain stanza from Rilke (same lines)

 

Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Twelve

Do You Know... 

If I had my wishful ways

there would be a shift in your will

and I,

now certain of what you would elect,

could unleash all the love that

rushed up in a way felt so seldom,

and give you any,

and I mean any, permission to tread

through and around and

into my heart, with no

limit I could dream

but

you would need to know this:

I want the same for you

so that when I wide open come

you’ll be certain too

04/12/2014

Based on a stanza from Rilke, in ‘golden shovel’ fashion

 

Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Six

Simple Simon

I met a man

he asked a question

I gave an answer

he acted grateful

I took his picture

he asked for payment

I said 'paper, or plastic?'

he grabbed my elbow

I started screaming

he took my camera

I guess I'm grateful

 

Can be found by Clicking Here

Day Five

Today, a “golden shovel” poem, inspired by the Day Five optional prompt at NaPoWriMo.net, and using the words of one of the suggested poems, this one by Charles Simic:

Watermelons

Green Buddhas

On the fruit stand.

We eat the smile

And spit out the teeth.

- Charles Simic

The nifty challenge is this:  You can read his poem by reading the final word in each line of my subsequent "golden shovel" poem.

I liked this prompt so much that I kept on with it, using the exact same poem to stretch my imagination several times in different directions.  I found ‘spit’ to be the most challenging word to incorporate, but isn’t it the necessity of an acute problem that pulls for the most creativity ?

Here are four versions, in order of their emergence, driven by the same ending words for each line.

Saying grace for a lovers’ picnic

Paths that wind through bursting green

traveling silent as buddhas

the feather-soft of trails we’re on

disturbing not a one, to taste the

shimmer song of tandem fruit.

Lush as down, in an open stand

single file through the archway we

sigh a blessing, kneel to eat

through pores and passages the

many visions of your smile.

Delving newly into familiar and

luscious ground, leaving traces glazed with spit

no pinkie lifted, no slurping left out

this is the last supper, the

christening of love, sliding over tongue and teeth.

First Mate

you liked them green.

“unspoiled buddhas”

you said.  sex with the lights on,

not so hard to get past the

hard shell to the fruit

and leave them in a thoughtful shoulder stand.
as if you hadn’t -- we

hadn’t had enough to eat

in days of good fortune, the

ease of getting by on a smile.
just my luck, and

here I am, trapped eddying behind the spit

that formed from your love siphoning out

while you danced with the

excellent rose between your teeth.

Embarrassed

rows of green

figurines, laughing buddhas,
with a smile permanently turned on.

you take your time selecting the

most right identical one, as if it were fruit,

and I do my best to stand
far away from you, not a part of ‘we’

because my pride is that hard to eat,

and there are real yoginis here, flashing the

epitome of that smile,
but it’s live, and genuine, and

it makes me so jealous I could spit

so instead I dash awkwardly out

jangling the peaceful strand of bells, the

tiger showing all its teeth.

The Recipe

jealousy is coloured green

forbidden to buddhas
but precisely what turns me on

is maybe, probably, the

lure of forbidden fruit.

it’s not a one-night stand
but a long-term, ill-fated sense of ‘we’

that yields nothing to eat

while the honor drains out of you, the

impetus for your smile,
the tastiness of “I can’t” becomes “tomorrow again” and

we are roasting on a spit

of waiting to be found out

or if not that, the

digging in of innocent teeth.

 

Can be found by Clicking Here