April 30: Correction

 And so ends Napowrimo. Thanks for reading. Maybe I’ll post more than twice a year this time!

A.

Earlier, I scorned the ocean and the sun. I forgot to mention that we came from the ocean

You and I

Crawled out in full jump suits

Found each other

Lost each other in a salty

Embrace,

One ringed with the terror of existence

and the joy of a companion,

And created all of “this.”

How could I stand to turn my back on it?

On you?

On this “this” that we’ve built?

C.

One day, I’m going to acknowledge

The regret I felt

As you packed your things

and strapped them to your back,

Slowly marched back into Gateway National Park

and lost yourself in the ocean.

How you told me that 

Walls

were more than what held

The spoils of our cohabitation

They were invented

To keep us contained.

Invented by me.

How I still see your jump suit

In that closet that we put everything we didn’t have a place for anymore.

I’m going to acknowledge that I should have grasped your hand and marched into the ocean.

I wouldn’t have anything on my person of value.

I would be content with “that.”

B.

I should hold onto this picture.

The one where you and I are linked

In an inner tube

Lazy in our travels

Down the river that 

We’ve been advised not to swim in

Anymore.

I have never known a happiness outside of

Home 

Like you.

I reached across for your golden hand

With my own

And just missed it

As a yawning rapid pushed you past me.

We laughed

And life was still 

“This.”

April 29: Apples

 The penultimate day of Napowrimo’s prompt.

I.

The Apple: old reliable.

Constant as the day is sure to occur after night.

Like a warm blanket

The handshake that is of appropriate firmness.

The gaze that doesn’t linger.

Words of encouragement that are measurably appropriate to a situation.

Your honest heart’s true beat.

Something you’re happy to find close to the tree.

II.

I was told

They keep the doctor away.

But just like these apples

I’m growing soft

And lumpy

And I taste my own rot.

Near or far from the tree

Is really beside the point

When everything is

Telling you

That honesty

Isn’t going to make you

Live forever.

And if there is a forever

Holy hell.

I’m already halfway to interring 

Myself into the mud.

What’s it going to be like

When it swallows me whole?

Maybe I’m marked as eventual food

For some other enterprising

Apple picker.

Instead,

I’ll just settle in

And let the mud take me

Until it’s time

For the honest beating

To go off rhythm.

April 28: index poem

Today’s prompt. 

People some eggs in no baskets. A horn shouts. Dissonance in a growing ruckus. I see my foe. This taped fist splits his nose. It is behind my mask. With friends in a cloud of imaginary smog. Told we would be the future. With each new destination, another ghost is in the hard wiring. I won’t be paying attention to the rhythm tapping the word “help.” We mind our feet on uneven terrain. What wouldn’t I give? What is already lost. those eggs won’t crack themselves. 

April 27:The Spiny Bear’s Breeches of Aristocracy

 Today’s prompt.

God help them,

In the flight path of the falling axe.

Let them eat all the cake they want,

It’s fueled with substitute flour.

It’s gluten-free friendly!

Immersing our valuables

In an obscene pile of salt.

Sailing them, unsupervised, to the Americas. 

Trinkets and spoils.

Groceries of Discontent.

Liturgically speaking,

We were ordained

to conquer

To make waste

of lesser spaces.

These are the rules

As outlined in

The bylaws of our 

Enterprise.

Let us,

All of us,

Guide ourselves by

One true light

The light

Of the sun

Glinting

Off of the falling axe.

May we always

Know it well.

April 26: Ulysses

 Today’s prompt

Born to be a wanderer

Fight confederates and Cyclops. Really the same thing as far as vision-

Worldview-

Is concerned.

A foe appears great

then displays obvious weakness.

…Like petals, drifting along the breeze. 

The gods are indifferent and my fist is clenching itself in the old rage again. 

Conquests and conflicts ruminate in my lower intestine. Felt in my spleen, felt in my bones, absorbed through the aged moisture hovering around my foot’s flight paths.

…tree limbs bend in the storm.

The siren song

of Old Granddad, 

The dull whir of the television

After another long day at the mattress factory.

Each day a 20 year exile.

…Haze of afternoon heat rising from pavement.

Claw back.

Rend mud with fingers.

Spit dirt and the detritus of the past

Out.

Breathe.

Welcome to life again, brother.

Welcome home.

…dead grass in the front yard.

Winds from the sea,

Lead me to the next bar stool

Guide my stumbled steps home.

Never let me out of your dull embrace.

This is all I have ever really wanted.

…wooden fence weathered by storms.

The end to the fight

A dull lit room. 

Hunched in the recliner.

Examination of the scars hidden under the uniform.

Under the skin.

Under the soul.

Take another slug right from the bottle.

…Thorn bush slice and pulls from below.

At the end,

There was supposed to be the grand resolution.

The spilling of suitors’ blood.

The casting out

The reclamation of what is rightfully mine.

Penelope.

…lost between the the boards.

Instead

I sit here,

Embracing the penultimate sip,

The last good one 

before

The only resolution

I’m entitled to:

One that is riddled by backwash

…And the taste of broken glass.

April 25: Love Poem

 Today’s prompt!

A daisy, 

for all of its mythology, 

smells like urine.

(But then,

So does a home

with small children)

[Can’t get it

Out of the rug]

Believe me,

I’d take all, 

all

The daisies

In the universe

(Pre-heat death)

[will there be?

Flowers? After

we are gone?]

To have that

smell,

(A toddler’s calling

card)

As long

as the smell

shall stay

(Not even 

Urine-Annihilator

sprays can make

it stop)

If it meant

I get you

([All of]you)

in the deal.

April 24: Query=Marriage+Review

 Today’s prompt tasked us with unlikely reviews.

A fine way to spend time.

A combination platter of 

Loving platitudes

And battles of wills

Puréed together

And shotgunned with a funnel.

Best if taken daily.

-Marriage Monthly

A beanstalk that grows from germination to heaven’s gate. Not even errant lightning, strong winds, and enterprising birds can slow its ascent. A path immortal, forged through time.

-Brides United Monthly Newsletter

The relationship plays in the kinship of sherpas, mid ascent, but occasionally one of the sherpas is secretly a hungry Yeti in a well-crafted disguise. 

-Living in Zin Magazine

Forging gold from communion. An iron truth meanders on a noble path with spectacular displays of heart-shaped tomfoolery. I was hoping for more car chases and explosions though.

-Couchlover4747 on Social Media forum

Words and hope spring eternal from this foundation. A testament to time and honesty and the noble belief that two people can keep the walls from caving in and fill the rooms with fairly-acquired treasure at the same time.

-USA Yesterday

I supposed it was a good idea. So far, so good.

-Highlights Magazine

Sometimes you’re the tiger. Sometimes the cheetah. Either way, you’re a wild animal with teeth, claws, speed, and a fur pattern worn at unsavory events by unsavory people.

-Big (Married) Cats

Results may vary.

-Ranger Rick

Each of us: an island. Then, one day, we meet someone else and become an archipelago. Let the plates move us where they may on this ocean! For I am yours and you are mine and we will weather it all in a fierce land-based embrace. No storm, no catastrophe, and no errant cartographers can undo what binds us together. Let the lighthouse light burn out, let the clouds swirl and ruminate above us. Together, we dream a place unchainable.

-Found on a distant shore, Anonymous

April 23: King Tut’s Other Cottage

 Today’s prompt:

I.

A room becomes a haunted house.

Without costumes, it’s just a series of predictable jump scares.

We’ll shuffle through the order and try and surprise someone with timing.

It’s something of a ritual.

2 by 2

In and out the rotating old, wooden door.

II.

This was cavernous

Until I grew a little more.

Before we spent more time on the games and the computer

It was an endless runway.

Feats of amateur acrobatics.

Each of us: a ball of frenetic energy.

Now, it feels like a hallway to a smaller space.

The tunnel to the hovel.

III.

I went in the last time I was there.

So strange that nothing is the same.

Everything is familiar.

A museum for simple joy.

Every time I think this is the last time

I’ll come here,

All I think about is how perfect this place is.

It might be because the past is powerful magic

It might be because I am nostalgia’s willing accomplice.

It might be because I’m on the nose with my feelings. Maybe not, too.

All of the adventures and the miracles of this place screech themselves to a halt in my mind matinee.

IV.

So strange that you’re not here to see it.

I feel like I should call, but then I get stuck in the present

And then the Future Dread

And then the Dread Immortal.

I feel like sometimes I’m waking up

And realizing that I’ve been stumbling asleep through life like that haunted house

Looking for jump scares

And squealing with laughter each time it happens.

Infinitely surprised.

April 22: Emily Dickinson’s Madlibs

 Today’s prompt is stolen from Dickinson’s poem found here.

Banish!

Air from Air 

Divide 

Light, if you dare.

Light likes to remain whole

Those who dare-divide 

a soul.

They'll meet While Cubes 

in Drop shot Pellets 

of Faith fall on unsuspecting

heathens.

In all 

Seasons.

Films cannot 

annul a miracle of 3 pt 

conversions. Recorded in divine ledgers.

No erasure can penetrate the penitent,

Even the hedgers. 

Ignored Odors 

return whole 

Force Flame through aged ductwork.

Warm the machine.

Miracles of tepid praise

And with a Blonde push Over 

your impotence Flits Steam

in less than exceptional

whimpers.

April 21: Anxiety

 Today’s prompt had me choose a word and write about it.  If you were wondering, that word is the title of this piece.

Worm yourself in 

through microscopic holes.

On my skin.

In daylight

Or the cover

of darkness.

Rend your body

In harmony

With the other

Vermin.

Metronome

Guide your rhythms.

Move through them

make me shake

In the key of

Motherworry.

Create in me

The wave

The flow of time

in circularity.

In the ebbinflow

of the great pulses.

And magnets

Of our dimension.

Mother Earth,

In your majesty.

The glory of

Spring. And now.

I am your disciple.

Your devoted,

a true Admirer.

What will it

take? For you

To remember me?

When I need

You?

April 20: bookwork

 Later post tonight, but here is the poem based on today’s prompt.

Video fun time with Video Fun Time Host version 156.3 year 5XXX. Beta Mode.

A Book?

Explanation of the way

Words reveal

How some guy, or gal,

Deals with situations.

Attends a master class on life

Shape shifts over arcs

And set of pages

And durations of time.

Adorable cat loves to play outside. Watch adorable cat play with adorable dog and adorable fish outside. Swing set and Pool SKIP AD

People used to gather around.

Talk about pages.

Go to libraries-Public House of pages.

People also enjoy private pages.

People with pages do the following:

Borrow pages. Store pages in boxes. Own pages in home. Display pages in wooden vessels.

Read?

Broken automobile problems? Take the broken automobile to the broken automobile repair institution. The broken automobile institution will un-break the broken automobile SKIP AD

A conversation?

That’s what it was.

Tin cans on wires telling stories.

One tin can always in a different place. A different time. A different somewhere.

The other tin can, anchored in the tin can’s own time. The tin can’s dimension. The tin can’s own somewhere.

No time for that anymore.

Give words

Give pages

Give…story?

To Fire

Enjoy sound

See picture. Still and moving.

Move self. Continue motion.

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Hooray! Success and Victory! 

April 19: Jump scare

 The arrangement is simple:

I’m bathed in a streetlight

Or the light of my backyard

Or any other light that creates a spot in the darkness.

Reprieve.

I’m always waiting,

Maybe my parents can’t find the keys to the house.

Maybe we are at the tail end of a conversation before we walk to our car.

The sense of it

Sneaks just below my vision

Peripheral adjacent.

The snake blanket sneaking onto the scene.

The crescendo of bat wings before they take flight.

And every time,

It arrives to try and take one of us.

A simple figure

Red hood

No face. A perfect replica of the bad guy in an old DOS game that eats the hero.

You’d think that’s the scary part.

And it certainly would be.

Because it’s always a near miss. We barely make it out, but succeed.

Me though,

I think that feeling

The knowledge

“It’s real”

Even though it’s just a dream

Even though you survive.

The realization

That the thing you’ve been waiting for but were told wasn’t real

That thing

Is right in front of you

And nothing is going to be the same.