Watermark

A New Wor(l)d Order

Both Dave and Andrew have posted this poem, Andrew because he likes it, and Dave . . . I'm not sure. Dave did, though, remind me of my inspiration: The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder, by Ian Bogost.

I read this piece, and then forgot it. Woke in the middle of the night and wrote the first draft of the poem. Really, I understood little of the Atlantic article. I had intended to Google "the new aesthetic", but forgot that, too. 

I'll do that now. 

And, I love the title Andrew came up with. 

NaPoWriMo - a traveling poem

Today's prompt at NaPoWriMo is to write a traveling poem:

 

 

We know this path well, both of us.
We meet, and begin to walk together,
stepping around potholes, exclaiming
at this wildflower, that view of blue
mountains. One trips on a rock,
the other offers a hand-up. The path
narrows, we are touching shoulders
now. Our hands brush. We help
each other through treacherous

passages. The sun is straight over-
head. We pass the canteen back
and forth, tie our shirts around
our waists. At the spring, we dash
icy water on our faces, our bare arms,
on one another. Now we are laughing.
Soon we will turn back. Soon, the sun
will fall down the sky. Until then,
there is no place to hide.

 

 

 

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

 

NaPoWriMo - dream poem

This is a (forgotten) poem from 2006: NaPoWriMo ~ #29

 

Messages From the Deep Past

Follow the trees, the green. Carry 
a lantern through the wide fields.

Sing against the wind. Follow the blue 
line. Why would I lie, when the sun

is so bright? Isn't this what you wanted? 
Nothing left to lose? I am encased

in a woody, thorny vine. I am lost, though 
everything seems familiar. There are twin

daughters; one is evil, the other weak. I've 
crossed from the bright to the dark side

of the road. One must ingest the venom
of many snakes to reach enlightenment.

How did a whole race of people lose its sense
of rhythm? She lays herself across the lake,

on thick grey ice. There is much poverty 
and sickness. Flooding, swamps, war, disease.

It takes three people to reproduce here: a man, 
a woman, and another kind of woman, who

lives in the sea. There is little I can do, these 
late, swift years, but watch fate unfold.

 

NaPoWriMo - This is not a poem

 

He uses his post-post-modern perspective
to deconstruct the new aesthetic. It’s no longer
about gender; it’s about synapses. Her emotions
are binary, randomly generated. He lights her heart
afire with disposable flame. Ablaze, she lifts
her arms and twirls like a figure skater. The ashes 
shape themselves into an egg. All his friends 
are virtual. These lines cast off in multiple, nested 
dimensions. Black holes are not the only voracious 
things in this universe. Parentage becomes obscure. 
What is eaten changes places with that which eats. 
Look into the whale’s eye. Each day she becomes 
a new thing, resurrected from dead stars. His edges 
are amorphous. All boundaries are permeable. E
approximates MC². Motionless, we move. It all 
depends on where you stand. Stand somewhere.

 

UPDATED: This poem was inspired, I think, by The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder, by Ian Bogost.

NaPoWriMo - no poem today, this will have to do

It's sort of a poem:

 

 

Art Journal Caravan w/Tangie Baxter: Itinerary #15: My Inner Compass: trapped

 

UPDATED: Wednesday 18 April

A message today from Paula Kesselring tells me "Congratulations! Your layout has been featured on the GSO blog today! 

 

www.flickr.com sbpoet's Noticed photoset

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

 

Watermark 10th Highest-Rated Poetry Blog?

I just don't see how this is possible:

Since I've been blogging again, I took a look at my stats, and discovered several visitors from this site (images are linked.) How can this be? 

Watermark was neglected for a long time. I recieve fewer than 200 visitors a day, and most of those are looking for Friday Cat Blogging posts.

I rarely get comments, I suspect because I rarely comment myself. This is partly by choice, and partly not. That my energy is so limited is not by choice; that I spend what energy I have on writing poems and making collages rather than commenting on the work of others is by choice. 

(Though I would really love to get more comments.)

So how can Watermark be #10? 

I'm guessing that this site doesn't index a good number of us: if you have a poetry blog, get over there and add yours. Push Watermark down a bit. 

There is some reason for optimism in these numbers:

Clearly, there is an audience for poetry; it's just a bit limited in what sites it goes to. The big shots, Poets.org and Poem of the Day get most of the action. Which is fine, but where's trickle down when you need it?

Where is Poetry Daily? Where is Via Negativa? 

So, it's somewhat gratifying to see my own blog ranked so high, but it certainly would be more so if I could believe it, if I got lots of hits on my poems, if readers left comments, if the other blogs I read were on this list, and if I thought we blogging poets had more of an audience than each other.

 

 

NaPoWriMo - when the winds come

I've decided that the only way for me to manage NaPoWriMo is to play. This rather odd poem began scattered across the page (see text below) and then I decided to do something entirely different:

 

when the winds come
                            and the fire

blue veins swollen
                    tick tick tick

pacing, swinging
            the language detector

searching     searching

for just the right word
                        clickclickclick


when the winds go
                        and the fire

                ash smoke debris

tick tick tick

    pale roots
            green shoots

                                    unfurl

 

 

 

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

 

NaPoWriMo - It's Not You

 

 

 

What you read in these lines
is not you. A kestrel takes
a sparrow from the garden.
Neither of them is you.

The crudely carved bowl
on the pine shelf represents
nothing; not you, not the poet,
not the cruelty of love.

It is just a bowl on a shelf.
The tangled blackberry bush,
the arrogant crow, the dead
snake on the asphalt

have nothing to do with you,
your life, your pain. They
simply fell into the poet’s gaze
and migrated to the page.

They mean nothing, nothing
at all. They are not about you.

 

 

 

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

 

NaPoWriMo - blood and salt

 

 

 

this metaphoric heart
we all claim to carry

is speechless, wordless
drowned out by the

sha boom sha boom sha boom

of the embodied one

these metaphors
they bore me

i want real blood
the sharp taste of salt
on my teeth

 

 

 

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

 

NaPoWriMo - fragments

 

 

 

 

the sky falls down 

its darkness, its light 

shadows 

    linked to bodies 

moving on the horizon 

blink 

    it's another day 

who are you now?

 

 

 

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