Today's prompt. For today's poem: I chose to take a poem from Donald Justice. After completing the prompt from Sunday, I grew fascinated with his name and this particular poem, "About My Poems" is a a lot of fun.
hear the crack and crash?
the bell tower is falling apart.
endless chimes and thuds, silenced.
grandfather's grandfather's clock
a stew of bronze,shingles, and wood splinters.
how will we know the time is right?
Had to wait until later in the day to get this one together. Here's the prompt. Here's a poem from Gabrielle Bates because she is great.
single gasp, swirl like
a distant, muted howl,
wind,
crack of old forest
leaf skittering
gather and claw
the ground with
gentle, sandpapered
edges. rock dislodged
rolling
away, more following now.
another gust and a symphony of
flailing branches. somewhere,
a single plunk into the river.
silent ripplings. in
between the wind and adjustments
nothing makes itself known.
My poem's title today comes from the poem that was used as the inspiration for Napowrimo's prompt. The poem I think you should read today is by Franny Choi, you can read it here.
donald justice wrote something that made me jealous
so i broke into his prius and stole some change and sunglasses.
i spent the change on a bad coffee at a sheetz, vile swill
swirled through me, i felt dark inside, still wearing his sunglasses.
i went home to our room with no windows.
i sat in silence dreaming of light from no windows.
i was not satisfied with my decision. so i went to his house.
i knocked on the door, but nobody was home.
or donald justice saw his sunglasses and stayed away.
who was this poemless lunatic outside his home?
i left and went to our car and wept softly.
rain started falling on our rusted out car softly.
i called donald justice's phone number, my call was disconnected.
i knew i was losing control, but i needed some closure.
i knew that an answer was out there, in his possession.
his glory, his light, your winning smile, some closure.
i have been such a wreck since you left me.
look what i've done and what you've done to me.
Today's prompt is a big ol' behemoth. Today's poem is a big ol' powerhouse. Everything is bigger today, I suppose.
I.
"big, dumb, stupid heads doing big, dumb, stupid things
with a big, dumb, stupid voice and looking so proud of
themselves but only spewing out sludge mixed with
disappointing fudge and overcooked chicken with a side
of canned greens. the dumb ones nightmares inside my
dreams. nightmares like the ones where i profusely vomit
at the end in surprise and i know that's supposed to mean
something psychologically but i'm not listening when you
try to warn me. not anymore. my fingers are firmly in my
ears and i am humming off-key to drown out the bad feelings...
III.
we should have known you were here.
we should have seen the wind shifting.
we have never doubted our fear.
and left ourselves open to splitting.
II.
and sure i'm madder than heck because it hurts
something awful to slam my fingers into my ear-
practically touching my brain-but i'm not trying to
hear your dumb witchcraft, your drops in the
dumb bucket. contributions to your idiot 401k of
dumbness, celestial mappings of idiot. you've made
it a dang art. the Michael Angelo of stupid. The Ren-Wah
of moron...
V.
the crowd likes to bellow, the crowd likes to speak.
the crowd has now spoken, the crowd eats the weak.
the little boy jesus is in his crib sleeping.
or up on the cross and collecting his weeping.
IV.
a full renaissance gallery: ode to dumber.
plug and play, insert coin and lose brain cells."
...i got a million of these in my back pocket. i'll
give 'em to you for a low price, too. i got some
ads on the late night television shows. we've been
spending good on commercials. there's a something
for everyone. we just have to find the right "market
opportunity" as my ad-guy says. one born every minute.
we're gonna make a lot of money, you and me, kid. stick
with me, like snake to glue trap. we're gonna hiss and slither
and be richer than a villain from a dickens novel. on our way.
Today's prompt. I wasn't feeling a villanelle this early in the morning, but here's something. Today's poem is from R.L. Swihart. For this poem I took lyrics from PremRock and billy woods excellent new song "Receipts" and from The Hotelier "Dendron".
the universe repeats itself
slurring its words, getting louder with each word,
each misunderstanding. flustered, stern and reddened
face. it's a late lunch in a run down applebees. a wednesday
the universe was insistent that this place did good mojitos.
"tell me again, that it's all in my head."
i say nothing.
"i know you know exactly what i mean."
"i know you know exactly what i mean"
the universe repeats itself. everyone is turned around, staring.
i want to point this out. it barrels forward with explanations
"i know you know exactly what i mean"
tell me again. i am still dog paddling, fighting against
the wake and pull of what the universe is struggling to share.
i nod to the waitress, hoping she understands this to mean
bring the check...now. perhaps she is scared of the universe.
perhaps she knows it knows she knows exactly what it means.
perhaps she is uniquely aware of whatever hell it is trying to
conjure in front of our small mountain of napkins meeting
boneless buffalo wings. wish i was home.
"tell me again" it says. i can't speak, it's all in my head.
the universe repeats itself. we are both its audience. the
industrial microwave hums its song of plenty. making
food for the rest of us sinners, just trying to get a bargain.
i know you know exactly what i mean.
Today's prompt. The poem I want to share with you today is "Bay Window Lauds" by Marcus Wicker.
pun's worth was rock bottom, rarely seen at scenes worthy of rollicky
rolls on the ground, screams of surprise disguised as laughter. No, pun
was passé, past his prime. left behind, unable to find a guise worth
gussying up. reinvention was out of the question. pun was past tense.
the shakes gave way to tall tremors. gone werethe times of trembling-
he had to get right with the god of humor: pitiless, unblinking, a deity
worth its wait in circus peanuts, fifteen dollar well drinks, dripping with
irony and indifference. sometimes sporting a crown, other times a "smart"
beret. the god of odd things. the god of oblong observations, old ministrations
pointed pontifications, stern cynicism.
pun dreamed a laughter invincible. steeled
by the sweet soundtrack of actual pleasantry, absolute in its entropy. destructive,
undeniable, unrelenting. pun played with his wares, said his joke rosary, and hoped
his future was not stuck in the past.
day 9 of Napowrimo. Here is the prompt. I want to share this poem by Li-Young Lee today as well.
always, not quite, a roar
in between the combusting yowl and the
thrum of passing by, from before
bearing down, coming through, fly over, fly by
vintage wheels and shitboxes and whatever
holds it up, in between, maybe more.
always at night, like the sun is some kind of
noise cancellation device. cues the sounds of life,
sure.
comings and goings, stoppings, flowings,
slow rolling doom, hell on wheels,
i'm just trying to sleep here. nothing to see
maybe the ground shouts in protest
or maybe just me.
Well, there's not a prompt currently; it appears my prompt site is down so I'll just freestyle this one. Here's a poem I read this morning and really liked though.
sing now, bird of paradise; make tomorrow's sun a trifle warmer.
divest yourself from the stunning failure that was today's sunlight-
obscured, cloud cover-the past is a ledger of failures.
do as you are told. i see your majesty and raise you
brute force. the swing of a fist, the knee cap ascends-
pain, collapse the lines of clarity. perhaps a palliative is in order?
perhaps, another reminder? demands are made to be met;
your song is past due, it's nearly daybreak-
glimpsed: a vision of warmth, sunflowers extending in devotion-
it is you and you alone, singer of miracles, maker of mercy, the one
whose warbles clog the air above us. you and you alone:
open your beak and let song do the rest.
Today's prompt. Here's the poem that inspired the prompt; this will work well for poem to share today as I am running short on time.
i'm not equipped to look myself in the face for long periods of time, unwilling
to reconcile this eye's asymmetry and the uneven pattern of the electric razor's
laconic march forward across my cheeks, my neck, the switchbacks of the chin.
my hand is a cruel minister, my heart a cold mistress, my brain a sad labrador retriever-known he's done wrong and returning to the scene of the crime for an inverted reward.
this line
angled just so,
flattens me;
reduces the
charm and
unloads
fine-motor
deficiencies.
so much erasure shrapnel
so many sighs. grunts of
disapproval.
i've been wrestling with
the me here and there
and the limitations
of this vessel-the hand,
soul, brain, heaps of
praise, admonishments...
the masterpiece is on back order. we'll settle for what we've got today.
Today's prompt. I'd like to share a poem I admire from Nate Marshall (sorry for the cursewords, y'all).
exhale, chill from
the wind of your
lungs--boing, rushing and
cleansing. aquifers-swimming holes
deep and hidden by shade-springtime-
chill like
self-preservation:
reliving the primitive
(heat, scorch marks, the
dry season's lasting scars),
made right through the gentle
falling of rain, the budding of leaves,
cloudcover and winter's last gasps
injecting themselves into the scene--
exhale, new-cast off slumber, take up
the yoke of day, face set in the strokes
and patterns of the standards of the day;
exhale, the well is full. each breath, a new-
ness, each breath, a bargaining with the future.
see me, hear me, be close and
be safe.
Today's prompt asks us to pull terms from 3 columns. You can check out the columns in the first link, but here are the terms for inspiration I have selected: “play like you are about to start crying”; "novelty song"; "sharks", "concrete", and "snow". Lastly, I want to share Chris Perry's poem from yesterday "on the piss".
the sharks are circling the
last crate-thrown overboard; remnants
from prosperity, endless earworms,
known everywhere. hummed and needed, but loathed
in equal measure. divine scales, tilting to a balance,
the blind lead the more-blind. impressive range.
larvae wriggle to the surface to inherit their destiny.
and just as soon as
the commercial concludes, the chord resolutions
fade. our joy is gone, our
crops murdered by the snow of
a contempt-filled winter. fallowed land
made concrete. our ship has run aground.
everything must go. soon the fins, silent, patient.
vultures of the sea begin their patient laps. soon,
the correction. soon, the gnashing of teeth. soon
enough.
Day 4 prompt is here. In keeping with the idea of sharing poems (disclosure: this is something I am borrowing from the same place where I get my prompts [link above]), I'm going to try and link a poem from someone else each day too. Today, I want to share a poem I read yesterday from Rook.
when i was a child, we'd say the "our father" prayer at night. "our father, who art in heaven".
i imagined god as a french painter. beret. full black beard. off-white smock. smile of concentration. sitting and painting a globe in broad strokes;
painting the world where i lived. was i too be part of his canvas? also, if the art was in heaven,
was the world not in on the act?
god was a painter and i was unsure if i was part of the masterpiece or just a discarded palette of spent paint.
little did i know, art was a verb, but not an action. i can't art (oh, but how hard i try), maybe god could though. god was in heaven. i was on earth. two bills, one show?
was he still painting? was he ever? did he have a beard?
are we all just paint
waiting to be painted?
Today's prompt has me considering why I am not a painter, so I also decided to consider why I can't be Frank O'Hara, writer of "Why I Not A Painter" Also, you should read the 3 pounds of flax's poem linked here.
Frank O'Hara and I met at a temporal bar somewhere between Heaven and pontificated about process. We were drinking the house wine because everything else was marked up to Hell. There was an irony in that as we weren't in Heaven, but he swears that's where he came from. Hell, he said, has everyone drinking domestics that aren't properly cooled, probably on account of the flames. Nothing worse than a lukewarm Budweiser, we agreed.
We were served by a poltergeist with a lazy eye. His name was Beeartis Filluthwaven Smith-Jones Arch 21st the Lesser, but we were told just to call him Arch because his mother liked that. He told us to stay away from the artisan meatloaf. Heaven, Arch warned, did meatloaf much better. It was something about the water.
O'Hara told me that everything had synergy. We all feed off of an idea together and when we put it together it becomes a tapestry of meaning. I said that all good ideas were taken. He told me that was the sort of talk that paved the road to hell. Arch shouted that there isn't really a road to hell, it's just a poetic device. O'Hara told Arch he'd probably be a pretty good poet with observations like that.
Arch said there's no use for poetry in the place between Heaven and Earth. We, O'Hara and I, expected that Arch was drinking on the job. I don't think he can drive at least, said O'Hara. You know, he added, pointing to his feet, I don't think poltergeists can operate the pedals.
We were on our 5th House Wine. Arch had a heavy pour. I was worried that I was learning nothing in our conversation. O'Hara told me that we paint with the tools we're given. The room itself was starting to blink in and out of focus. How strong was this wine? It's not the wine, said O'Hara, the time was almost up.
I was overcome with emotion, not all of it the product of a day drinking wine served by a poltergeist. I still have so much to learn, I said. O'Hara smiled. You kids, he said, always looking somewhere else. He shook my hand and stood up, waved at Arch, and the two left together. The room itself swirled, I stood up myself and my vision blurred. Nothing was going the way I expected.
I was back in my living room, sitting with the radio on, listening to today's hits. I wondered if I dreamt the whole thing. I wondered what it all meant. Maybe it was the time of my life. Maybe it wasn't.
Maybe I'd write something. Maybe I'd make dinner. The world, it was starting to seem, was mine.
Here is today's prompt for Napowrimo Day 2. I opted to play with the concept of Echo and Narcissus, sort of.
sing sweet, old timey radio songs to the river
because i've seen my face and failed to
understand what it was i was seeing. caught
up in love. caught up in the sweet nothings
of an exacting jawline, such profound eyebrows.
i'm gonna let the horns wash over me like
the spent flow of a lackluster water heater;
in the dead of winter.it's just to cleanse myself.
were such things possible!
i can't unsee-
what i feel. can't unfeel. from a distance.
from up close. distortions. contortions.
my love an unfinished dream, eyes wet
with taffy tears and dried by night's remains.
i am beholden. i depart. i return. i remain.
little comfort, when the voices blur and
harmony locks itself into a three minute
resolution of my problems. still, i remain
forever yours. forever my own.
still.
Day 1 of Napowrimo. Here is the prompt. The term I chose was Sinfonia, defined as "Sinfonia (Italian: symphony) in earlier usage indicated a passage or piece of instrumental music, sometimes an introductory piece; it led to the Italian overture, known as the ‘sinfonia before the opera’: the origin of the Italian symphony."
little did we know it. these happy accidents, delightful breadcrumbs of a familiar shape and acceptable taste, were part and parcel for a new movement. heir apparent to a symphony, our symphony. taking up our instruments like metal in arthurian legends-like gun powder in the unsettled west-like fire for the malcontents. swirl and twist-our notes pirouette and bound and fall and screech, beautiful and uninhibited, noble-feral. what began as misfires, errant notes askew on the sheet music, the cough of an uneasy patron of the arts shifting his mass on the metal folding chair, takes beautiful shape-and in slow, uncertain steps- becomes a movement.
