Day Seven of NaPoWriMo. The prompt:
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of gifts and joy. What would you give yourself, if you could have anything? What would you give someone else?
What better gift than nature?
Spring’s blanket of blooms
spreading of it’s own accord
Gaia arises
Day Six of NaPoWriMo. The prompt:
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of the possible… not on what has happened, or what will happen, but on what might happen if the conditions are right. Today, write a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.
If that’s what you want, I guess I could do that:
If
you got to work in the early morning and began wondering what time I would rise from bed and what I might make for breakfast and whether I preferred my eggs scrambled or poached and did I sit at the kitchen table with the newspaper as I ate or maybe on the porch swing so I could smell the spring flowers,
would you call me and ask?
If
I wondered what you were thinking as you gazed silently out the car window on those hot summer days when we drove through the valley with the fields full of big round hay bales that remind me of cinnamon rolls,
would you tell me when I asked?
If
we walked together along the beach in the waning hours of a warm autumn day and spoke of our dreams and hopes and fears and those silly notions that pop into our minds sometimes or the songs that get stuck in our head all day or what we like most about Sunday mornings,
what might happen then?
When
winter comes, perhaps we can sit at home before a warm hearth, enjoying one another’s company, comfortable in our answers,
no questions asked.
Day Five of NaPoWriMo. Lots of choices for the prompt today. I chose to write a villanelle, which is defined as such:
The classic villanelle has five three-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the last lines of the following three-line stanzas, before being used as the last two lines of the final quatrain.
Clear as mud? I thought so, too. But I gave it a go anyway.
If we only had the time –
just imagine if you would –
all the mountains we could climb.
Wouldn’t it be fine?
Leisured strolls in shaded woods
if we only had the time?
If we let the years unwind,
wove the hard times with the good,
all the mountains we could climb.
We’d pick peaches in their prime,
dine beneath the cottonwoods
if we only had the time.
If we heard the clock bells chime,
left our worries where they stood,
all the mountains we could climb!
How might our futures be defined
if we only understood?
If we only had the time,
all the mountains we could climb.
Also posting on dVerse, where the poem form for the month is the villanelle.
Day Four of NaPoWriMo.
And now for today’s (optional) prompt, inspired by Teicher’s poem “Son“. One thing you might notice about this poem is that it is sad, but that it doesn’t generate that feeling through particularly emotional words. The words are very simple. Another thing you might notice is that it’s a sonnet – not in strict iambic pentameter, but fourteen rhymed, relatively short lines.
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own sad poem, but one that, like Teicher’s, achieves sadness through simplicity. Playing with the sonnet form may help you – its very compactness can compel you to be straightforward, using plain, small words.
My post from yesterday was sad enough, but okay. In sonnet form, here goes:
I don’t recall the last time we had dined
with just the two of us away from home.
I guess we’d never found ourselves inclined
to try relating one-on-one alone.
Conversation did not come easily,
but not for lack of words that need be said.
In short, your failing ears could not hear me.
Nonetheless you’d smile and nod your head.
A gentleman you’ve been for all your years,
your empty wallet drawn to pay the bill.
You needn’t pay, Dad, now that you live here.
I bussed the table once you’d had your fill.
A nurse came by and took you by the sleeve.
It’s best, she said, that you not see me leave.
Also posting for V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #42: farewells
Day Two of NaPoWriMo. Today’s prompt:
Write a poem that resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.
End with a question? Are you sure?
Say, did you hear that noise just now?
No? Neither did I.
What do you suppose it was?
Or wasn’t.
Could have been most anything,
but you know what I think?
I think it was nothing; a very quiet nothing.
Came out of nowhere, and went…
nowhere.
You think I hear things that aren’t really there?
Where did you hear that?
Never mind, that’s neither here nor there.
Fact is, I’m not hearing things that aren’t really there.
Nothing wrong with that, is there?
Who am I to judge a sound by its absence?
Speaking of sound judgment…
are you thinking what I’m thinking?
No? Me neither.
What do you suppose it was?
Day One of NaPoWriMo. The prompt:
[W]rite poems that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something.
Herewith,
There’s so many things I’ve yet to learn,
like where and why and what and who.
So who said what, why is it where
most try to teach “how to?”
How to fall in love;
how to win it back.
How to lose the oaf
when his façade cracks.
How to earn big bucks
quick and easily,
how to file the forms
for your bankruptcy.
How to win respect from
those you disdain,
how to show concern
with sympathy feigned.
I won’t tell you how
to live your life.
It takes patience, care
and sometimes strife.
But I’ll gladly show how
to change your and my luck
with just four installments
of twenty bucks.
NaPoWriMo celebrates National Poetry Writing Month, where one writes a poem a day for the entire month of April. As I did last year, I am participating by responding to the prompts given at the site NaPoWriMo. net.
The “early bird” prompt for today: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poetic self-portrait. And specifically, we’d like you to write a poem in which you portray yourself in the guise of a historical or mythical figure. “
So here we go!
It seeks me out,
hunts me down…
the commotion, the cacophony, the confusion.
I want none of it. It hurts my head.
I seek refuge in the cooling shadows of the forest.
I become curious, though, and
come out of the woods,
down from the mountain,
dare to be seen
only to discover nothing has changed;
the commotion, the cacophony, the confusion…
my head hurts.
Retreating back to the shadows, I content myself
with the serenity of keeping my own company.
The warmth of the sun brings sustenance to my soul,
but it’s not yet time.
Shed no tears; wear them.
Shed not your humanity.
Wear love on your sleeve.
The clock shows six a.m. Maybe. My eyes don’t quite focus first thing in the morning. My dog Chules has awakened me with his gentle “woof” from halfway down the hall. I don’t know how he expects me to hear such soft greetings, but I do hear them, almost every time. I rise and make my way down the hall to the front door where Chules now waits. “What kind of day do you suppose it is today?” I ask. Chules answers as usual with a generous tail wag and an expectant smile. He doesn’t prejudge days. He’s very Zen about that kind of thing.
I prop the door open with my Himalayan salt crystal. The lamp inside broke some time ago, but it’s quite heavy and makes a perfect door stop, so there it sits. Chules steps out to the porch and plops down on the cool cement. The lyrics from a Dan Fogelberg song enter my head.
Yes it’s going to be a day // There is really no way to say no // To the morning.
Chules’ eyes meet mine. Does he hear the song, too? In my imagination, I hear us both saying, “Yes.” A most hearty yes to the morning.
morning stirs awake
day unfolds to greet the sun
petals of summer
Snap! smacks the mouse trap,
as the spring is spryly sprung.
The trap slaps shut with a jolt abrupt.
Now the deadly deed is done.
Wheeze! breathes the brave mouse,
as she gasps to grasp some air.
That’s how it goes when the cheese she chose
is a ploy plied to ensnare.
Voilà! exclaims the vainglorious vole.
“You disdained and disbelieved
that a twig tip-tapped could trip the trap.
Such a clean scheme I conceived.”
Shush! shouts the shaking mouse.
“It was I who death defied.
Put a plug in your pompous prattling
while we partake of our purloined prize.”
What Rhymes with Stanza? 