napowrimo – Page 12 – Words and Feathers

Poem 20150424

April 24, 2015 crow

Today’s prompt from #NaPoWriMo

Our prompt today (optional, as always), will hopefully provide you with a bit of Friday fun. Today, I challenge you to write a parody or satire based on a famous poem. It can be long or short, rhymed or not. But take a favorite (or unfavorite) poem of the past, and see if you can’t re-write it on humorous, mocking, or sharp-witted lines. You can use your poem to make fun of the original (in the vein of a parody), or turn the form and manner of the original into a vehicle for making points about something else (more of a satire – though the dividing lines get rather confused and thin at times).

—–

Stopping by the Fridge

(with apologies to Robert Frost)

Whose lunch this is I think I know. 
His desk is by the window, though;
 He will not see me lurking here 
To rummage in his lunch-to-go. 

The worker bees must think it queer 
How their lunches seem to disappear 
Between the hours of eleven and eight*
 For fifty weeks out of the year.

I give his Caesar salad a shake 
To ask if there is some mistake.
 All these greens will make me weep; 
Why couldn’t he have brought some cake?

 Well, for today his lunch he’ll keep, 
But I have calories to reap,
 And bags to pilfer before I creep,
 And bags to pilfer before I creep.

—–
*Yes, I know the rhyme breaks here.

Poem 20150423

April 23, 2015 crow

Today’s prompt from #NaPoWriMo is completely random:

And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to take a chance, literally. Find a deck of cards (regular playing cards, tarot cards, uno cards, cards from your “Cards Against Humanity” deck – whatever), shuffle it, and take a card – any card! Now, begin free-writing based on the card you’ve chosen. Keep going without stopping for five minutes. Then take what you’ve written and make a poem from it. (Hat tip to Amy McDaniel for the idea!)

—–

six diamonds
blood red against the
white skin of the card
like a tattoo
like symmetrical knives
ready to pierce you
in six places
the eyes
the mouth
the hands
the heart

the feet are useless to pierce
because you cannot escape

a six-sided blade
one edge to dismember
one edge to assemble
one edge to wound
one edge to heal
one edge to destroy
one edge to create

the diamonds get caught in your throat on the way down
after you have swallowed them
thinking they were marbles
thinking they were memories
thinking they were childhood

Poem 20150422

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015 crow

The prompt today is all natural from @NaPoWriMo:

And now for (as always, optional) prompt! Today is Earth Day, so I would like to challenge you to write a “pastoral” poem. Traditionally, pastoral poems involved various shepherdesses and shepherds talking about love and fields, but yours can really just be a poem that engages with nature. One great way of going about this is simply to take a look outside your window, or take a walk around a local park. What’s happening in the yard and the trees? What’s blooming and what’s taking flight?

—–
the feeders in the yard
awash in browns, yellows,
reds, dusty oranges,
gemstone flashes of emerald ruby

lesser finches, american goldfinches
purple finches, house finches
–so many finches
sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, phoebes
the hummingbirds with their high twittering
and constant jousting
an occasional cooing dove
who usually has the sense not
to perch on the feeder

and today a squirrel
tawny and crafty
trying to figure a path to the food

it’s a pleasant thing to look out
and see them from the couch

the glass keeps them there
approach the door and they scatter
so i try not to move
and i wonder
what they talk about
as they dig their beaks into
the food mysteriously provided for them

Poem 20150421

April 21, 2015 crow3 Comments

#NaPoWriMo’s prompt for today has me leaving things out:

Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is an old favorite – the erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact.

—–

the earth was darkness
the surface of the deep was moving

over the surface
light separated from the darkness

in the midst of the waters
the expanse separated below from above

the heavens teem with swarms of living creatures

let fly the great sea monsters
and multiply, beasts of the earth

god creeps on the ground

man in our image,
according to our likeness
male and female

subdue and rule the sea
the sky
the earth

Poem 20150420

April 20, 2015April 20, 2015 crow

Day 20 of the #NaPoWriMo challenge and we have come to this:

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge to write a poem that states the things you know. For example, “The sky is blue” or “Pizza is my favorite food” or “The world’s smallest squid is Parateuthis tunicata. Each line can be a separate statement, or you can run them together. The things you “know” of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs. Hopefully, this prompt will let your poem be grounded in specific facts, while also providing room for more abstract themes and ideas.

Facts? Who needs ’em!

—–
the moon is made of cheese
which is sad for the rabbit
who lives there
he probably wishes it were made of carrots
but maybe not so sad for the princess
who lives there though
she might get tired of cheese all the time
the rabbit will make her rice cakes
gummy and sticky
–they’re bad for old people to eat
on new year’s day
because they’re easy to choke on–
the mochi will be a nice change
from all that cheese
while she’s sitting up there
in her silk robes
looking down and affecting the tides
making people go crazy when she shines
bright and full
–it’s called lunacy–
does she breathe in sharp daggers of moon dust?
does she breathe at all?
she’s kind of a goddess
so if she does breathe
it probably doesn’t tear her lungs into shreds
like it would
mine
i like to look up at her
and her friend the rabbit
and i think
good
you’re not all alone up there
any more than i am down here
in your light

Poem 20150419

April 19, 2015 crow

Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo

And for today’s prompt (optional, as always!), I’d like to challenge you to write a landay. Landays are 22-syllable couplets, generally rhyming. The form comes from Afghanistan, where women often use it in verses that range from the sly and humorous to the deeply sardonic and melancholy. Check out this long investigative article on landays for a fascinating look into a form of poetry often composed in secret, and rarely written down. You could try to write a single landay – a hard-hitting couplet that shares some secret (or unspoken) truth, or you could try to write a poem that strings multiple landays together like stanzas (maybe something akin to a syllabic ghazal?)

As always, a big thank you to NaPoWriMo for giving me something to try that I’ve never done before. It’s like ordering food in a foreign country without a menu, sometimes.

Speaking of syllables, I completely forgot the Friday Haiku.

And I deeply apologize for the poem below.

No, I don’t

—–

you think you know what’s in my pocket
better take a step back, sweets; it might be a rocket.

Poem 20150418

April 18, 2015April 18, 2015 crow2 Comments

Today’s prompt from #NaPoWriMo:

And now for our (as always, optional) prompt, which takes us from 2015 back to the 1700s. After all, it’s the eighteenth of April, which means that today is the 240th anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere! Today, in keeping with the theme of rush and warning, I challenge you to write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message. It could historical, mythical, entirely fictional, or memoir-ical.

—–

there’s that joke
about christ
on the cross
and peter
before he became a saint

and you have to remember
that he just denied that he even knew
jesus
three times

it’s important to remember that for
the sake of the joke

so jesus says
–and he’s hanging on the cross, remember–
jesus says, barely audible
and maybe peter is the only one who hears it
“peter,” he says

and that’s all

so peter grabs a ladder
throws it up against the timber
keeping jesus vertical
and climbs
only to have the roman guards
pull him down
and beat the shit out of him

this happens again
and the beating is worse
the second time

but jesus seems insistent
calls to him a third time
and peter
he longs for forgiveness
so he throws the ladder up
and scales it as fast as
his bruised legs
aching ribs
and trembling hands will allow

as the soldiers pull him down
jesus smiles and says
“i can totally see your house from here.”

Poem 20150416

April 16, 2015 crow

Man. Really?

#NaPoWriMo is trying to kill me.

And now for our (as always, optional) prompt! Today, I challenge you to write in the form known as the terzanelle. A hybrid of the villanelle and terza rima, terzanelles consist of five three-line stanzas and a concluding quatrain. Lines and rhymes are chained throughout the poem, so that the middle line of each triplet is repeated as the last line of the following triplet (or, for the last triplet, in the concluding quatrain). The pattern goes like this:
ABA
bCB
cDC
dED
eFE
fAFA or fFAA.

You can use any meter or line length, though you may want to try to have all of your lines in the same meter.

—–

there are sounds that the heart makes
not when it pounds and beats in the chest
not when someone reaches in and takes

the last feeling you have as a test
or some kind medieval fealty oath
not when you hide your secrets in a chest

of drawers; there are sounds, both
warm and calm, that only another heart
can hear; a sound that whispers as an oath

is whispered, a sound that is only the start
of other more concrete things; a simple touch,
a hand trickling down like water over a heart

beating soft and slow, secure with such
a gentle fire that there is no need
for any other kind of passion; one touch

one touch is all you need
and you will hear the sounds a heart makes
when it is finally freed
from doubt and a thousand aches

Poem 20150415b

April 15, 2015 crow

I missed day two of #NaPoWriMo, and also I wasn’t that happy with my dialogue poem of yesterday (here if you want to read it–it’s kind of a downer). But here’s a poem that fulfills the dialogue prompt and also the prompt from day two, which is as follows:

And now, our (as always, optional) prompt, provided to us by NaPoWriMo participant Carla Jones. Today, I challenge you to take your gaze upward, and write a poem about the stars. You may find inspiration in this website that lists constellations, while also providing information on the myths associated with each one, as well as other salient information. Your poem could be informed by those myths or historical details, by the shapes or names of the constellations, or by childhood memories of seeing them. Any form or style will do.

—–

i say, roll over onto your stomach
pretend you’re going to get a massage
and like those women in the brochures
put your hands under your face
turn your face to the side
and smile

you say, those brochures are bullshit
it feels great after the massage
but during
it hurts like hell
fingers driving into your muscles
trying to split the fibers apart
imagine doing that to a roast
with your bare hands

i say, just do it, and let your hair
cascade down. i want to draw
on the small of your back

you ask, what do you want to draw?
nothing embarrassing
nothing in ink

i say, no, no, i’m just going
to use my finger
i’m going to draw the night sky on your back
in the hollow curve
just above your tailbone
i’ll only include the stars
with better names
sirius, procyon, rigel, and betelgeuse
castor, pollux, and deneb
altair, antares, and arcturus
none of the stars with only letters and numbers
for names
i don’t want designations.
i want them all to have names

you feel my finger tracing a spiral
stopping and dropping a star with each
name

you say, this is going to take awhile, isn’t it?
why not draw the universe while you’re at it?

i feel you sinking into the bed
the weight of all those stars
pushing you down
you’ve put your hands under your face
your hair spills down and
you turn your face to the side and smile
like the women in those brochures

i’m not that ambitious, i say
adding a thousand more stars
making up names as i go