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9th Day of National Poetry Month – Good News, Bad News

April 9, 2010

Good News/Bad News

Good News/Bad News

And then there was the children’s book
about the man–look!–who fell out of
a plane. That was the bad news.
But, phew! he fell onto a hay stack;
this was, apparently, the good news:
that his back was not broken
through the intervention of
dried grass. But hey! there was
a needle in that stack–
which was the bad news.  Except that, wait!
He turned out to have a spare camel
in his pocket which fit exactly through the eye
of that needle–which was the good news!
for it took him straight to, do-not-pass-go to,
the kingdom of heaven, not
so much because he was a rich man
but because the hay stack hadn’t worked that well,
after all, not against a fall from the sky.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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Eighth Day of National Poetry Month – Villanelle to Glasses (Leopard-skin-pillbox style)

April 8, 2010

Furred Glasses (Underwater)

As followers of this blog may know, I made a commitment in honor of this April 2010 National Poetry Month to post a freshly-minted draft poem every day.  I am cheating tonight and putting up an older draft poem, Villanelle to Glasses.   This poem came to mind (and seemed to justify the cheating) due to the many kind and helpful comments I got about yesterday’s poem re sore eyes.

For instructions about how to write a villanelle, check out these prior posts on (i) how the assembly of a villanelle compares to banana pudding, and (ii) a specific breakdown of the form.

Villanelle to Glasses

Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred
like the ending of an echo, crush of shale.
Ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

trooping muzzily through head, not shaped by word,
as if mind’s eye can’t make out thought’s detail
without glasses.  As edges of my world are furred,

so too, I find, my verbal memory’s slurred:
I’ll say peach for onion, kite for sail;
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

and though I tell myself I’m quite absurd–
my mind’s still good; it’s only eyes that fail–
without glasses, the edges of my world are furred.

Even corrected vision’s not assured,
each type of lens its own peculiar jail,
where ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

and I must make a choice between page or bird,
eternal grain of sand/horizon’s trail.
Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred:
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred.

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Seventh Day of National Poetry Month – New Computer Poem

April 7, 2010

New Computer And Eye Issue

I’m afraid to say this seventh draft poem of National Poetry Month does not bode well.

New Computer

My new computer really hurts my eye.
It swirls, it’s quick, it does
a zillion tricks–sit up, play dead,
if I say “speak”, it speaks;
say “seek”, it finds;  still it puts
me in a very pricey bind–
this new computer really hurts my eye.

But when I try to write things out by hand,
my fingers won’t quite prise
the pen, at least won’t prise
it well; even signing my own name
takes clumsy thought–
which is why I really need this new laptop.

Besides, it beams, how it beams–
which seems to be the problem–all those beams–
like staring at the sun, Louis Quatorze
Medusa, Yoda’s cave that held the Force.
All that glisters is not gold,
but this bright screen has now been sold
to me, oh my, right retina, goodbye,
this lovely new computer hurts my eye.

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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Sixth Day of National Poetry Month – Swept Away

April 6, 2010

Sweeping Before Trip

Here’s a poem that I originally wrote for the Sixth Day of National Poetry Month (April 2010), a month in which I write a draft poem a day.  This one was about the urge to clean before taking a trip.  ( I am linking it now in December 2011 to Bluebell books’ prompt about Cinderella taking a tea break. )

Swept Away

Sometimes you just have to clean.
Yes, you have a plane to catch.
But you notice, even as you should be zipping up
your carry-on, specks–whole clumps–dust
that you tell yourself you just can’t bear
to come back to–but that you really just can’t bear
to leave behind.

In the moment of departure, in the grip
of tearing yourself away,
the familiar web-swathed corners call out to you;
all those crumbs below the table, their genealogies
so readily traceable; that rug that catches
every single thing; all of it holds on,
until the act of sweeping gently rocks you
across worn paths, cradles
you in your own low arc, scrapes
the home plate clean and, somehow,
sets you free.

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Fifth Day of National Poetry Month – Engagement (New Baghdad, July 12, 2007)

April 5, 2010

Engagement (New Baghdad, July 12 2007)

Sad and horrifying video posted on Wikileaks.org about two Reuters employees (a photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh) killed  in a raid by two Apache helicopters on an Iraqi neighborhood, New Baghdad.   It’s a video that makes one really very very sad for all involved.

In keeping with my National Poetry Month commitment, here’s a poem draft for the day;  sorry that it doesn’t really do justice to its subject.

Engaged (New Baghdad, July 12, 2007)

Static static beep beep.
Static.
Cross crosses blurred grey screen.
“There’s more that keep walking by and one of them
has a weapon.” (Camera.)
“Look at all those people.”
“Fucking prick.”
“There’s a weapon.”  (Camera)
“Five or six with AK47s.”
The men on the screen, as grainy as the dust at their feet,
walk without concern, awareness,
right through the crossed sight, some together, some not;
two hold dark bags (cameras); two more, it seems, do hold something long,
rifle-like, points down.
“Request permission to engage.”
“Roger that.”
“Keep shoot’n…
keep shoot’n….
keep shoot’n.”
“We’ve just engaged eight individuals.”
“Dead Bastards.”
“Nice….
Nice.”
“Good shoot’n.”
“Thank you.”
Static.
“One individual appears to be wounded, crawlin’ away.”
Static.
“Come on Buddy.  All you gotta do is pick up a weapon.”

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Fourth Day of National Poetry Month – Easter Poem

April 4, 2010

Here’s today’s poem draft, an Easter Poem.   The drawing done during Easter sermon on the Church program;  I hope it’s not impolite, but it helps me to listen.  (Also I  hope some of you guys are also trying some daily poems so that I don’t feel like I’m the only one being silly. )

After Easter Service with Music By Tomas Luis de Victoria, Francisco Guerrerro

One miracle of Easter
is that a stone can actually
be rolled away.  No Sisyphus in
Golgotha;  no Calvaric wheel
of samsara, resurrection not
rebirth so much as return.  (Christ,
unlike the Dali Lama,
was not even asked to pick out
the wire-rimmed glasses of
the prior him.)
But why don’t they recognize him?
Mary Magdalen takes him
for a gardener; at Emmaus, he’s
the only  stranger in Jerusalem.
Though I’m not sure of  what I recognize either
except that when clear single voices chime
together in a Renaissance motet
the soul exists for some while, and any stones
in the heart become simply the stuff that
earth is made of.


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Third Day of National Poetry Month – Old Dogs/Sandalwood Tricks

April 3, 2010

Dog Breath With Sandalwood Bracelet

The Way to Hold an Old Dog Close

The way to hold an old dog close is
to wear a sandalwood bracelet,
the beads of unburned incense almost inoculating you
from the yawns of decayed ivory.
You tell yourself, as you carry the dog down
stairs too steep for her to manage
(which means any stairs)
that they do make beef-flavored toothpaste,
but now the dog’s fifteen and you only bought one
tube ever, used once.
The thing is
that dogs are not actually children, and though she never snapped,
she would also not be coerced; your words, your mimed example,
did not influence.  (You’ve never seen, for example, a dog pushing a
toy baby carriage, or even pulling a wooden pup upon a string.)
But a sandalwood bracelet, on the other hand,
on the arm rather, the arm that
that cradles the old dog’s head,
as you make your ways downstairs,
may just do the trick.

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Second Day Of National Poetry Month – A Pantoum

April 2, 2010

Silver Slipper

Today, tried a pantoum.  The great thing about a pantoum (a form of repeating lines) is that you don’t need to come up with so many new lines.  ( For instructions on the form, check here.)

Remember, this is a draft a day!  A Draft!  (And the point is for you to try too.)

(Please note that in my poetry, pauses come only with punctuation–commas, or periods–and not at line breaks.)

Last Anniversary Party

She walked that night on the side
edges of silver slippers.
Her smile stretched movie-star wide
above sored feet that moved like flippers.

The edges of silver slippers,
gathering, elasticized
around sored feet that moved like flippers
as their slow, held, waltz defined

our gathering; elasticized
the sweet stretched around the bitter
that their slow, held, waltz defined.
We were her husband, her too, who fitted

that sweet, stretched around the bitter,
to make it last, while we each tried
to be her husband, her too, as they fitted
loss with all that sparkled fine

to make it last, while we  each tried
a smile stretched movie-star wide,
at loss, at all that sparkled fine.
She walked that night still on this side.

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First Day of National Poetry Month

April 2, 2010

First day of National Poetry Month was a day, unfortunately, busy with many non-poetry tasks, but two drafts were written as per my commitment, one on the subway up to a see a musical, the other, during an intermission (sort of).

The Suspense of Survival

The suspense of survival
can be hard enough to support,
that, at times, we almost wish it all just done,
rather than contend with the
uncertainty, the worry about how
it will happen and when, and whether, in the meantime,
it will hurt.
What’s me in me wants to add in “if”
silently, though the mind knows truly
that not-surviving is a given in this world, so instead
it adds “in this world”, hoping like hell
(only not like hell) for another.

Home From A Musical

Just home from an old-timey musical,
a Rodgers/Hammersteiny musical,
whose refrains repeated, repeats refrained,
while true love waxed then slightly waned.
The bass was manly, tenor impassioned,
the soprano not quite out of fashion.
Internal rhymes danced through each line
as singers kicked their legs in time,
for these singers danced and dancers sang
as they acted out each heart-struck pang.
Hurrah hurrah for a musical show
that finds the lilt in every woe.

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National Poetry Month- National Poetry Exercise Month (Blocking Writer’s Block)

March 31, 2010

April Poetry Clock

April is National Poetry Month.  This “tradition” was started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets.

I guess the idea was to hook people’s love of targeted celebrations to poetry.  April seems to have been chosen because it followed Black History Month (February), and Women’s History Month (March), and because it did not include Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s, was during the school term (schools are natural candidates for the celebration of poetry), but not at the busy beginning of the school term, or at its tousled end.  (Of course, Easter and Passover sometimes fall in April, but as religious holidays, these are not big competitors for concentrated school celebration time.)

April may have also been chosen because it already reverberates with specific poetic associations.  Yes, it’s the cruelest month, but it also (and perhaps more popularly) hosts “shoures soote.”  It’s (presumably) when lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed, and at least one of the times when it pleured in Verlaine’s coeur.

April also seems to be a popular month for relatively new, made-up, sorts of holidays like April Fool’s Day, Professional Administrative Assistant’s Day (the fourth Wednesday) followed by Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day (the fourth Thursday, perhaps intended as payback to Administrative Assistants), Earth Day (April 22nd), Tax Day (April 15th).  While “Tax Day” is not exactly a holiday (unless standing in a long line at the post office is your idea of a good time), it is a day of national observance.

Then there are other newish April holidays that seem too obscure to warrant mention, but are just too goofy to leave out: Zipper Day, National Honesty Day (date of George Washington’s inauguration), Girl Scout Leader Appreciation Day, National Pineapple-Upside-Down-Cake Day, National Read a Road Map Day, and, my personal favorite No Housework Day (April 5th), which also falls on World Health Day.   (In keeping with these holidays, April is also Stress Awareness Month.)

In celebration of National Poetry Month (and perhaps also Stress Awareness Month), I am proposing to replace the daily ruminations I post on this blog with a new poem, or truly, the draft of a new poem, each day of the month.

This will be an interesting exercise for me; and I hope you’ll find it one as well.  It is intended to follow up on the various posts about blocking writer’s block, the theme being how to write poetry with no clear inspiration other than a (relatively short) deadline.

This may also be a way of celebrating April Fool’s Day (all month long.)

If any one has topics, suggestions, poems of their own, please note them in a comment!

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writer's block, writing exercises
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