Napowrimo Early Bird: A Flute

Tomorrow starts National Poetry Month. Each year I follow NaPoWriMo here and use it for inspiration in a daily prompt. I post those results here. Today's "Early Bird" prompt was to take a term from a list and write an alternative definition.  

[I am not sure] song to and from my soul. this mirthful smirk. the sketch of errant laughter. poltergeist [if this is coming or] behaviors, noticed on the peripheral. Knowledge [going,] unavailable through [interjecting or] a glancing denial of service [silencing]. “hey, aqualung” as sung by a tired forest spirit [the interruption.]. limited time. 

rest stop

 

Today I will write something.

Step into the face of creation, stare at it,

Be blinded by the force of the collective will

Existing within me.

The will to take the winds of time and push sand from the desert to a city

and to get in everybody’s expensive coffees.

Goddamnit, they’ll say, this was 8 dollars.

The sand will only be up to their ankles.

Driving will get harder. Traction being what it is,

And speed being something of a prerequisite.

I have only just begun to reconcile the urge

To dismantle, to build, 

casting sand in all directions, whistling like a desert storm, and you are all fishtailing out of your company parking spaces

Lost in the sand piles. Tires crying a lament as they struggle for purchase.

Time, is not on our side.

As the monuments rise from the piles, as the sand burns to glass, 

Encloses us.

I have made us a record of its passage.

And we are now up to our word holes, spitting grit and trying to speak.

Soon, the sand will cover everything and the time will be complete.

Soon, we will flip ourselves over and see what stays

This sand, a record for something else. 

Will we be a mark on its ledger?

Watering Can

 Raining down love 

and warm feelings

doesn’t grow a person,

doesn’t feed a family,

doesn’t secure a nation,

barely the sound of a single hand

straining to applaud its own 

ingenuity, barely a 

trash bag cut lengthwise for a blanket

in the evening swell of wind, as it rises

like a starlet’s dress over a street grate,

that warm rush of summerish air kissing exposed flesh,

blowing the covering up to the sky and blotting out the moon,

I am so proud of myself

for all I have accomplished

in your names,

I’m just going to give myself a minute

and soak up the goodwill with this unspent rag, saturate it,and 

ring it over the mouths of the thirsty, then wait to be washed clean in their adoration.

Era of Good Feelings

I may be finished with this era of good feelings

though I haven’t decided the consequences of such a declaration.

Each day is a scratch against the wall from my overgrown nails.

Unkempt rows of 4 and a diagonal slash to finish the grouping.


I’m counting down to the day it ends

where I am met by angelic trumpets and barbershop quartets,

everyone applauds, even if they are only doing so out of social pressure.

Friend and foe alike here to watch the light extinguish itself.


Curiosity killed more than a bunch of cats, I’m told.

They have lists down at any city hall rife with the victims of

exploration in the face of what is safe.

Profiles in courage.


I push back my unmanaged hair, tie it off in the back.

My work can meet no interruption, even from me.

Especially from me.

Even in this new era of unknown feelings, I have obligations.


I’m almost to the gold watch.

I’m almost to the clap out on the final day.

I’m almost to the cold stare from Saint Peter.

I’m almost there.


But, first, one final sleight of hand.

One more trick to leave them all guessing.

Before I disappear into the maw of time.

You will know my work. Behold.

 

Highlight, Reel

Sometimes, the possibility snaps into place

and the vision of the golden future shimmers before me

with ease, it is within my grasp, things have never been quite

so obvious. so available to pluck from the ready and waiting 

vine. washed and peeled, unnecessary to cook. each bite

a fulfillment of hunger, satisfying crunch, the gratification of 

friction on the teeth as the food gives way under duress.

I am full. content. waxing poetic, reflective, in rumination. 

thankful. it was here, all along. waiting. 

Wound

 

Give me each piece of the shard of glass I stepped on and you ceremoniously extracted from my heel. Blood-stained, uneven and jagged edges. Found weeks after the cup was dropped. Found in my skin. Found on the splatter-plot of my gory steps to the bathroom to sit on the closed toilet, perform yoga poses to try and identify what has penetrated my foot’s feel good sense of exploration. I want this souvenir. A necklace to wear around my neck. A reminder. No, don’t clean it off. Let it be how it was, fresh in the air as my wound congealed and set itself right and we began to blot up the evidence of my travels.