30 Poems in 30 Days
April 28
( Prompt: a bridge )
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 27
( Prompt: the hay(na)ku, a variant on the haiku. A hay(na)ku – a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words. )
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Poetry,
a puzzle
niggling the soul.
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Poetry,
bones scattered
on smooth sand.
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I
looked back,
but everything shifted.
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Either
I cut
or be cut.
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Poetry,
pale smoke
over scorched reality.
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Yellow
skies darken.
Rain will fall.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 26
(Prompt: A persona poem, speaking from another’s viewpoint)
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I am tired of this. Introspection is for the birds, and they don’t do it. I don’t think so. I thought of writing a persona poem from his (or her) perspective, one of those little birds who sets down outside my window. And I tried to imagine what it would be like to see this small deck even smaller from high above, one tiny patch in a patchwork puzzle vista rolling out beneath me in all directions, while I flew around the neighborhood looking for good things to eat, or a peaceful spot to set my little bird self down and feel the gentle breezes skimming over my feathers.
But i got that wrong, because, why, if I was a bird, would I come to earth to feel the breezes when I could dance with them in the sky, darting in and out, gliding buoyed upon the stream, cutting sideways through a gust? Now that would ruffle my feathers.
If I was a bird.
But obviously, I can’t even pretend, today, to be one. My imaginator is broken, overheated by this long month of soaring half the time and crawling the rest. No, the view from above really is for the birds, and not for me. And the view from here is as limited as our so short lives are limited, in these identities we wear around for a day or two before we dance back into the winds that carry us. Before we dart and glide and cut in sideways, just for fun.
And to ruffle our feathers.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 25
( Prompt: a quatrain using someone’s name )
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Poor Jane
Poor jane, she breaks her head attempting
To be recognized and featured for a day.
But alas the cards are always stacked against her
And they never pick jane’s poem anyway.
Poor jane, she really writes her heart out
And gives her head an ache most every day,
And struggles to set free the bard within her,
But they never pick jane’s poem anyway.
Poor jane, she knows it ought fullfill her
To express herself without a thought of pay
Or recognition — ever — which is lucky,
‘cause they never pick Jane’s poem anyway.
Poor jane, she cannot help but wonder
What it takes to get a mention or a hey.
Would it help her if she were somebody’s cousin?
Or to know a reader in some other way?
Or to know the secret code or sign or handshake?
Or give the ultra-secret word a say?
Or clean somebody’s house or tend their children?
Or kiss somebody’s heiny twice a day?
Poor jane, it turns out she’s a whiner
And not evolved in any special way.
Even so, her poetry is awesome,
But they never pick jane’s poem anyway.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 24
( Prompt: to write a parody or satire based on a famous poem )
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The Cat-Thing
Once upon an evening boring, as I nodded stoned and snoring
Louder than the wheel that spun dispensing fortune o’er the roar
Of crowds, the audience was clapping, while I had been merely napping
But it seemed someone was tapping, tapping there outside my door
“Tis the audience”, I muttered, “clapping midst the manic roar
Only them and nothing more.”
I am certain I remember it was back one past November
When the season to be jolly was about to knock upon my door
I’d been wishing I could dodge it, that somehow I could dislodge it
That hot madness that besets us— every year they’re pushing fore
Plastic crap of all dimensions on our children, pushing fore
Will they push for evermore?
Then the jerky weird demeanor of each shiny-eyed contestant
Chilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors I have rarely felt before,
Til I told myself, half joking, “It’s this shit that you’ve been smoking
And it’s just your pesky neighbor standing now outside the door;
Just that crazy pesky neighbor standing now outside the door.
That it is, and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,
“Pete”, I said, “get lost, you know I’ve told you many times before.
And the fact is I was napping, when you started in that tapping
When so rudely you were tapping, tapping there outside my door
That I could not help but hear you!” – here I opened wide the door,
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken, were these whispered words, “Buy more!”
This I repeated and an echo murmured back, “Buy more!”
I spun round and slammed the door!
Back into my front room lurching, for the clicker I was searching,
When again I heard a tapping even louder than before.
“Surely then”, I said with gusto, “that’s just something on my patio.
Let me see, then, what it is so I’ll this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.
It’s only Pete, of that I’m sure!”
Open then I wrenched the glass door, when, with many a flit and flutter,
In there stepped a cartoon creature dressed in Santa’s coat and hat.
Not the least obeisance made she; not a minute stopped or stayed she,
But with mien of lord or lady, she upon my tv sat;
Without any invitation, she upon my tv sat,
Looking weirdly like a cat
But with bosoms like a Barbie and long legs crossed underneath her,
Emerging from the skimpy skirt trimmed round the edge with fur she wore.
“What the fuck?” I cried and staggered, all astonished and unraveled
I had never seen the likes of anything like her before.
“Who are you?” I struggled with my vanishing composure.
Quoth the creature then, “Buy more!”
Much I marveled at this cartoon hybrid cat and Barbie speaking,
Who looked nothing like Michelle or Halle either, those sweet cats of yore.
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever saw on his tv a cat with breasts and legs before;
Breasts and legs just like a Barbie there on his tv before,
Mewing just the words, “Buy more!”
But the creature sitting sweetly on my old tv spoke only
Those two words, as if in saying them her soul she did outpour.
Nothing further then she uttered, though her lashes at me fluttered
Til I scarely more than muttered, “I have seen your kind before!
What the hell is it you’re up to?” I was edging toward the door
When she snarled at me, “Buy more!”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Is that all”, asked I, “you have to say? Can you say nothing more?
Were you made then just by someone whose creative thread came undone
Leaving neither bells nor one fun song in keeping with the lore
Of that Santa suit your wearing, that beloved yuletide lore?”
Quoth the kitty just, “Buy more.”
But the cat-thing was beguiling all my sad soul into smiling
So I sat back down in front of my tv where just before
I’d been unawares and snoozing, all but innocent, and dreaming
of the wheel of fortune spinning round and round and round some more,
While the shiny crowds applauded as they yelled and cheered for more
And the hostess crowed, “Buy more!”
As I sat engaged in listening, this specific message beaming,
The creature’s fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core.
And her breasts were oddly jiggling, and her plastic legs were wiggling
So’s to knock the player and the dvd’s down to the floor!
Uncaring and unmindful she just knocked them to the floor!
And through fangs she growled, “Buy more!”
Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from a scent dispenser
Bought to mask the smell of smoke that rises far above the floor
When my habits I am feeding, this diversion oft I’m needing
and deploy to keep that pesky Pete from sniffing round my door;
To keep that mooching Pete from hanging round about my door.
Breathed the Barbie-cat, “Buy more.”
“Bitch”, said I, “cartoon of evil, mouthpiece still, if cat or Barbie,
For the sellers of the poisonous plastic crap shipped to our shore
Clear from China, where the people work for nothing, neither freedom
Nor fair wages paid, in sending pink and purple stuff galore,
Red and green, fluorescent, sparkly, blinking, squeaking stuff galore
To our plastic-covered shore.
“Bitch!” said I, “cartoon of evil, harbinger, if cat or Barbie,
of the doom that beckons onward all the children we adore,
Tell me now who sired and spawned you, could a human man he be, who,
grinning, kills his own and, rubbing hands together, asks for more?
Rubbing greedy hands together, dreaming wealth and power more?”
Shrugged the Barbie-cat, “Buy more!”
“Get out of my house, you cat-thing, cartoon fiend!” I shrieked upstarting.
“Get thee back into the wires and waves of cable’s ‘lectric door!”
And stumbling over piles of plastic toys, I searched for chocolate
In kitchen yon, then lit another bowl and looked to dream some more.
“And get your ass off my tv”, I murmured, “and thy form from off my door.”
Laughed the cat-thing, “Nevermore.”
But that cat thing, never flitting, still comes sitting, still comes sitting,
Smirking at me as contestants jump with glee and voices roar
Never waiting for November, now she comes in mid-September
In her Santa suit, her plastic breasts come poking through the door
Through a haze of smoke I see that hybrid bitch slide through the door
Singing carols loud, “Buy more!”
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 23
(Prompt: draw a card from the deck and write about it for 5 minutes. Then use that as the basis for a poem.)
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*A disclaimer: I said no more and I meant it, but this task was a freewrite, first thing in the morning, so I abdicate responsibility for my head without a lid.
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Nine of Spades
Nine black spades dig nine black graves:
One for coffee in the basement of that fast food place on Market Street.
One for Food-not-Bombs: good idea / inedible soup.
One for washing your exquisite feet, uncovered carefully from beneath the sheet
where you lay, probably dying.
One for Sherman.
One for Sylvia and Rose. They have to share, the bitches.
One for the picnic table, where you cut my long hair with the tiny scissors of my Swiss Army knife and we watched it glitter (mostly gold, some silver) as it floated downriver, toward Portland and the sea.
One for Keith.
One for Rocky.
One for that first kiss, on the bench, in the morning, in the sun.
And that about does it, I guess.
None for the disinformation. (What hole could be big enough?)
None for the shame.
None for your broken knee or
my intractable heart.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 22
( Prompt: Nature )
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 21
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Fleeing into words to throw behind me
Evil imps that pick and peck
And bite
Racing to outrun the little devils
On a ground that shifts and shakes
And shrinks
Today
While needle teeth nip
Unpoetic bits
Away
Unpoetic bits
Not worth a damn.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 20
( Prompt: I know… )
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I know that I am plain wrung out of words
and thoughts as well.
My brain is like an empty field of grass
where critters dwell,
but they are insignificant and small,
as critters go.
To see them you must get upon your knees
and search down low
along the ground, between the emerald blades
where tiny flowers,
unnoticed by the giants up above,
live out their hours.
And blooms of moss so delicate, but strong
in that green shade,
are crushed beneath our feet, yet do not die.
Nor do they fade,
but serve as cups of dew to ants and mites
and spiders green,
and pour sweet water down on earthworms’ heads,
and shine unseen.
I know that I am plain wrung out of words
and would to lie
down on that field of tiny flow’rs and beings
and watch the sky,
and watch the drama of the gods unfold,
as far above
this field as I am from the tiny bugs
that down there move.
Unfazed by me, the universe spins on.
I dream of it.
And further out, beyond the blue, the stars
stretch infinite.
I know that I am plain wrung out of words.
I want to lie
and let the dew of clouds fall down on me
from flow’rs on high.
But these, my words, are no more than a noise.
So I’ll be still
and let the sounds of bugs and gods and stars
sing as they will.
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30 Poems in 30 Days
April 19
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I am through writing poems of you. You are free,
black bird in the black night,
to be what you are.
You are free of me.
And I am free
of you.
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April, Poetical 