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NaPoWriMo - I remember spring ...

Today is the last day of NaPoWriMo 2012, and I managed to post every day! Today's prompt is to write a poem incorporating at least three “I remember” statements. A nostalgic exercise.

 

 

I remember when spring
meant hop-scotch & skip-the-rope,
neighborhood street games
after dinner, hide-&-seek,
kick-the-can, olly-olly-oxen-free!

I remember hot breakfasts,
bacon & eggs, biscuits & gravy,
kitchen counters floured for
drying pasta, tart fruit pies &
cookies fresh from the oven.

I remember barn smell, kittens
and cats all lined up behind
the cows, waiting for the teat
to be aimed in their direction,
calves sucking at the milk pail.

I remember another body,
lived in without attention, absent
of pain, up in the mornings
without thought, dreams left
drifting on embroidered pillows.

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - the space between

Yesterday's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write ". . . about the experience of spaces, their psychological and perceptive implications."

 

the space between

the dream
between sleeping
and waking  

the pause
between breaths
of a dying friend

the silence
between
waiting 

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo - Discombobulate {my head, my head}

Friday's NaPoWriMo prompt was to "write a nursery rhyme or clapping rhyme. Most nursery and clapping rhymes have strong rhythms, use rhyme and repetition extensively, and aren’t overly concerned with making sense." 

Friday's Art Journal Caravan {Wordography} prompt was "Discombobulate."

I'm not sure it would be fair to hold me responsible for the results:

 

 

 

Oh, what did I do with my head, my head? 
I fear I may be dead, be dead.
How can I find my head, my head
Without my head, my head, my head?

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - In a different time, at a distant place

 

 

 

In a different time, and a distant place
lived a people with hollow bones.
Their feet were like sturdy hands
at the ends of long, thin legs.
Six-fingered hands extended from
wrists where their arms attached
to their bat-like wings, wings
brightly colored in designs like
butterflies. The people ate well
of the fullness of berries and nuts
and sweet flowers, and the spicy
red moss that grew on the trees.

Another people lived in the sea.
Their feet, too, were like hands,
and their hands, too, were on wrists
that held their long arms and soft wings
together. They flew in the water. Extended,
their wings gave them buoyancy. They
could hang still in the water for long hours,
watching, and meditating. With their wings
held close to their bodies, they shot through
the water like arrows. The people ate well
of mollusks and seaweed and small fish
that swam innocently into intricately
woven baskets.

The sky people had gills, and in the hot
seasons, they would lie flat in shallow
water to cool themselves, lifting their heads
now and then for deep breaths of the sky.

The sea people could breathe air, and in
the cool seasons, they would sun themselves
on blue sand beaches, soaking in heat
and spattering themselves now and then
with water they carried in shells from the sea.

At night, the sky people slept, hanging from their feet,
in dream temples shaped from the hollow trunks
of trees. They also carved nurseries and food rooms
and teaching rooms from these hollow trees, different
rooms in different kinds and colors of trees. In the cliffs,
they made rooms for leaping and flying and being alone
and making art and poetry.

The sea people slept with feet anchored to the sandy floor
of the sea. Their dreams came to them from the water.
But for all else, all waking times, they built elaborate
edifices from sand and stone and coral and abandoned
shells. In the deep dark, they could see what others
could not, the subtleties of colors and shapes that seemed
dull to sky eyes.


One day, in another time, at another place,
a boy from the sea met a girl from the sky.

 

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - The Consequences of Falling

 

 

Yesterday's NaPoWriMo prompt was to "write centos — poems made up entirely of lines from other poems." 

I did something a little different. I put Pandora on shuffle, and listened. This happened:

 

The Consequences of Falling

What if no one’s watching
When the evening shatters and stars appear
And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table

Though hope is frail, it’s hard to kill
Till the heart caves in
Wrapped in a ribbon of glass

To tread this fantasy, openly
Crashing me by, crashing me by
But love forgot to make me too blind

Alone in the city infested with faces
And in the shadow I find a way
Inventing ways to play out time, like us all, like us all

Do you know this? Do you know you did not find me?
Now I can’t disappear
When everything else is a fade

 

The lines are from:

      Title: K.D. Lang, The Consequences of Falling

1. Ani DiFranco, What If No One’s Watching
2. Adele, Make You Feel My Love
3. Ana Nalick, Breathe (2 AM)
4. Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston, When You Believe
5. K.D. Lang, Till the Heart Caves In
6. Annie Lennox, Cold
7. Portishead, Over
8. Mazzy Star, Blue Light
9. Jane Siberry, Love is Everything
10. Ani DiFranco, Pale Purple
11. Tori Amos, Girl
12. Ani DiFranco, Recoil
13. The Cranberries, Ode to My Family
14. Mazzy Star, Disappear
15. Corinne Bailey Rae, Like a Star

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - sunshine | in the shade garden | yellow tulips

 

 

 

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - Calling the Ghost

The NaPoWriMo prompt for yesterday was to "write an ekphrastic poem — that is, a poem that responds to or is otherwise inspired by a work of art."  I have no energy for a new poem today, but I have an old one that suits:

 

 

How long must I sit on your grave
to elicit a visitation? Must I fast?
Must I meditate on the vastness
of the universe of death? Must
I count my own? Must I arrive
at midnight to pull your ashes
back to some semblance of you? 

If I wake, if I sleep, will you come
to me, shambling, silent, silhouetted
against the summer moon? Will you
speak? I closed your eyes with my own
hand. I sat at your side and waited. 

Now I sit on your grave, and wait.
I wrap myself against the night,
I sit on the cold ground, where you
are not. And wait.

 

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo - Elders

 

 

 

now that we’ve transcended
pursuit, ambition, and certainty

now that our bones and hair have thinned
now that we’ve failed, succeeded, failed again

now that our hearts have learned their limits
and hardened, or become like clouds
            accepting any intrusion 
            but holding to nothing

now that we’ve reached the age of wisdom 
            but our memories shed
            like persian cats

now that our sex may stir, but our legs lapse
now that we’re assumed to be past 
            longing, lust, and coveting
            what is not ours

now that we’re presumed to know 
what’s wheat, what’s chaff

now that we see the door opening

what happens next?

 

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - in the garden at dusk | one little bird singing | all by itself

 

 

 

 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]

 

NaPoWriMo - hay(na)ku

 

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a hay(na)ku:

 

 

grief
takes you
at unexpected moments

washing
the dishes
a cloud descends

dark
it lodges
in your throat

broken
crystal slices
across your hand

blood
spreads color
through clear water

 

 

 

This collage was done for Art Journal Caravan w/Tangie Baxter: Itinerary #16 {Wordography: Lachrymose}

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]