NaPoWrimo 4/4/2013

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to use the name of a spaceship from Scottish sci-fi author, Iain M. Banks as the title to start your poem. Many of the spaceship names suggested (apparently they are quite common in this author's writings) are quite creative and silly. We'll see how this goes.


Irregular Apocalypse

It had been so long
It was difficult to remember,
Even for a person such as Apocalypse.
And its true his diet could be better
He's been so obsessed waiting for Revelation,
Dabbling around with plagues and famine,
Engineering natural disasters
Up for weeks on end, eating nothing but death and conquest,
It simply isn't good for the bowels.
The awkward fact: Apocalypse is constipated,
And he's annoyed, because, to be honest
When he was crafting his devious plans
He had no idea that finicky bitch, Global Warming
Would make such a popular name for herself
Which wouldn't be such a problem except for the fact
That people keep confusing their works.
(It truly is difficult to tell the difference)
It gets tiring trying to distinguish oneself from a similar other,
And although Apocalypse will sometimes try to convince himself that
Although he and Global Warming may have some overlapping traits,
In a Vin diagram-ish sort of way,
He has enough of his own unique trademarks and talents
People should be able to distinguish the two,
But truth be told, most don't pick up on those differences.
He used to try to correct people, if they wrongly tried to credit him
With something that was actually Global Warming's handiwork, or vice-versa
However, that eventually became too tiring and
Apocalypse chose to keep his mouth shut,
The confusion created by people's inability to discern the difference
Between the works of Apocalypse and the works of Global Warming
Became an awkward fact for which he developed a fine disregard,
But sadly his heart is no longer in it.
So, I guess if we let ourselves be generous for a moment,
It might become easier to see why Apocalypse is such an ass.

NaPoWriMo 4/2/2013

Ignoring the NaPoWriMo prompt for today, I feel compelled to free-write on twelve. My youngest daughter turns twelve today, and I can't help but be a bit introspective.



Twelve

Twelve was a good year, decent enough for
Having been completely uprooted from my idyllic,
Slow, southern drawl, country girl existence
And set down abruptly in the middle of upper crust
Old Republican money horse country Northern Virginia.

Sixth grade was a mishmash of discomfort and discoveries
Oh, shopping for clothes in thrift stores is not cool
Oh, brand names are cool (but I never figure why),
Oh, we're like some of the poorest people on our block,
Oh, I have little breasts growing in,
Oh, the porno mag that some classmate stole from his dad's closet
Shocking my brain at recess one late spring afternoon.

And there were horses and stables,
Friends with in-ground pools and three-story stone mansions,
Homes For Sale In the Low $500,000s.
Everyone's father worked for the military, or the government, or large private corporations.
I barely had a clue
I spent hours choreographing dance and gymnastics routines
Running through the woods, discovering, pretending, hiding,
Collecting old glass milk bottles and other abandoned relics with
Stories to tell of some time long since gone,
I listened to these stories while rooting up salamanders and turtles by the creek
Twelve and not yet cynical,
Still believing,
Forever dreaming of some sort of being free.

NaPoWriMo 23/30

Today's prompt...to write an ekphrastic poem, a poem in response to or about a work of art. I like learning new words, and ekphrastic is particularly fun to say, but I'm not sure I'm in the mood to search out a work of art to be inspired by, and nothing has come to mind. 


Possibilities

When I grow up, 
I'll know the answers 
to all the questions my daughters ask me, 
and I'll be able to speak 
perfectly in all the funny character voices
I've never been able to imitate. 
When I grow up, 
I'll be able to jump through all the hoops 
and never get burnt or trip and fall, 
maybe I'll even Waltz, Fox Trot 
or do the Charleston through rings of fire. 
When I grow up, 
I'll be able to split time, like men split the atom, 
only instead of causing fear and destruction, 
I'll get the laundry done, and catch up on dirty dishes.

NaPoWriMo 22/30

Yesterday was Earth Day and the prompt was to write a poem about a plant. I write about plants all the time, so I thought I'd do something different. This is actually one I've been working on for a while. 



 A Birth of Sorts


The universe was born on a particularly dull,
totally-nothing-to-remember and even cumbersome evening
during which for its entirety, absolutely nothing of note occurred.

This is mostly because humans had yet to emerge to give meaning to anything, 
So it was all quite blah really.

When finally the universe had fully erupted 
from its black hole womb of nothingness incarnate,
no one could even be sure it had made a sound at all,
although for a sound to be perceived, there must be ears,
or some other sort of organ to sense it,
and those things had yet not become.

So, really, the idea of a big bang is hilarious,
and one could spend innumerable hours musing
at the silliness of it all,
which is just about enough time
for complexity to start to arise.
And when complexity rears its ugly beautiful head,
beware boys, for anything goes
and when you mix it with infinity
it is bound to get wild.  

NaPoWriMo 21/30

NaPoWriMo's prompt for today is to write a hay(na)ku, a 3-line take on the haiku only without attention to syllabics. The first line has one word, the second line two words, and the third line three words. I love haiku and haiku-esque poetic forms for several reasons. One of the main reasons is I think they are a great form for encapsulating and remembering facts and information, and defining things in an easy to remember way. They are also just fun exercises in concision.


Parthenogenesis
One word
Makes men uncomfortable.


Gorgons
Furious Women
Calculated Bitch Fest.


Censorship
Political correctness
Self inflicted silence.


Vespertine
Nighttime flowering
Nocturnal pollinators wonderland.

 

NaPoWriMo 19/30

On day 18 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a lullaby. Mine was so good I fell asleep during its creation and didn't wake up until the next morning, where upon no trace existed of said lullaby of such potency. 


The prompt for day 19 is to take an already existing poem and rewrite it in opposite. I think this idea sounds interesting, possibly fun, possibly frustrating; we'll see. 



Nothing Gets Found

Out holes of empty
Out vacant minds
Out pristine deserts
Where everything loses
Nothing sinking through the chaos
Of preserved amnesia

Nothing is discovered
So difficult
Remembered

In evenly divided piles
And burial mounds
Out of a single burst of nonsense
Climbing inside the undone threads
From an empty pocket

Nothing gets found.



The original (unfinished old poem I wrote) poem is below, neither of them is any good, but...so it goes (though I think I prefer the opposite, now that its written).
  
Things get lost

In piles of stuff
In stuffed up minds
In waste-filled oceans
Where nothing finds
Everything floating on tides
Of wasted memory

Things get lost
So easily
And forgotten.

In disparate holes
And fox hole ditches
In repetition of words
Falling out the stitches
Of a broken purse.

Things get lost
So easily
And forgotten

NaPoWriMo 17/30

Today’s prompt was to write an epistolary poem, a poem written in letter form, with the added fun of trying to incorporate at least four of the following six elements: 1) a song lyric, 2) a historical fact, 3) an oddball adjective-noun combination (like red grass or loud silence), 4) a fruit, 5) the name of a street in your neighborhood, 6) a measure of distance. This should be fun.

Dear Chester the Cheetah,

It pains me to see you on the bag,

Cheddar jalapeno, with your spotted cheetah tail curled 

Perfectly around the plump green pepper. 

You're wearing white high tops, and your black sunglasses and cowboy hat make me cringe. 

Oh, Chester! The original mascot for Cheetos was a mouse, 

But that wasn't extreme enough for the cocaine 80's, and thus in 1986 Chester the Cheetah was snatched (from the local zoo on Friendly Ave where he'd been studding in largely unsuccessful cheetah breeding and reproduction programs)
And a new era of crunchy corny chemical goodness was born. 

But Chester, 

I worry for you, and all of wildcat kind. You used to roam miles of expansive plains, from Africa to Asia, keen and swift, 

Once-upon-a-time alpha predator, now the cheetahs days seem numbered, 

Populations dwindling, it may soon be that you will be the only remaining representative of your species, 

Diminished, a cheesy mockery,

A two-dimensional pussy cat, with paw pads stained a queasy neon orange.

NaPoWriMo 15/30

 Prompt 15 of NaPoWriMo is to write a parody of a poem. Instead I wrote a silly rhyming poem about a bad date.

Bad Date

Too much "you" and not enough

Woo makes me weary, 

Tough eyed, bleary, 

Ready to throw the towel in, 

Pick up the dust bin and shake 

Off my broom. A woman like me

Needs more room, to exercise and 

Exorcise my demons.

I've got plenty of reasons, so please understand why 

I don't think it grand. 

Too much about you and not enough woo makes me weary.

NaPoWriMo 14/30

You may or may not have noticed that I failed to post my poem for the 14th day of NaPoWriMo. I just didn't make it home in time, so today I'll post both yesterday's and today's. Here is yesterday's poem. The prompt was to write a sonnet. I was NOT in the mood for any kind of strict form, but I was in the mood for a bit of word play and rhyme. 

Criticism

Seen it, sawn it

Been there, dun it

Politically punned it

Retro-activated

Glitch slapped

Saturated 
Strapped

Scrapped

Half-assed, 

Wholly blew

If the worn out shoe fit, 

Sing the blues bit.

NaPoWriMo 13/30

I didn't even look at the NaPoWriMo prompt for today. I've had this poem in my head for years now, and it popped into my the front of my thoughts this morning. 


I've Always Been Fond of Salamanders*

On a particularly frustrating night I found myself sliding 

Open the back door to sneak out for a quiet smoke.

I sat down on the green cooler, my usual resting spot

Along the strip of cement I call backyard. 

I puffed and sat, lamenting life, 

Immersed in the push and pull of breath and idea

And the seemingly infinite night sky, 

Then it was over, a final exhalation, I stood, 

Turned, glanced down at the cooler, 

And saw I'd been sitting on a salamander.

I wanted to cry, bent to gently prod its tacky skin 

To see if it had survived,

And because the salamander was in a groove 

Running along the front of the cooler lid 

Meant for measuring fish, 

It was alive, had somehow managed to escape 

The pressure of being sandwiched
Between the weight of my body and the cooler's coarse plastic.
  

Shocked, I picked the creature up, 
Wondered how, why it was there. 

My house is nowhere near any real source of water. 

I'd never seen a salamander anywhere in the area. 

It was weird, too synchronistic.

There's no denying it. 

My totem animal paid me a visit 

And I sat on him and smoked a cigarette. 

*This poem is based on a true story, wherein I did sit on a beautiful salamander, possibly an Ensatina. I had never, before or after that time, seen a salamander of that kind (or any else) anywhere around my house, never.

 

NaPoWriMo 12/30

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to take a poem written in another language and translate it homophonically. I'll pass, and go on my own here. 


Cleavers--Galium aparine

My daughters used to have cleavers wars
when they were younger, they'd race 
to grab the biggest, longest runners
joyfully flinging them at each other, whoever 
got the most to stick was the winner. 

Cleavers are like that, 
their long stems and whorls of leaves 
covered with Nature's own version of Velcro, 
microscopic curling fingers that cling,
grasping onto shirts and skin,  
rough and scratchy. It used
to remind them of the prickles of their father's beard.

Their father is gone now, 
and they don't have that carefree time
to play with cleavers anymore
and I see how every day they might be slipping
away from me and one day
poof! off like dandelion seeds under a single breath
to college, careers, jobs, and lovers, apartments,
they will fly away on the wind currents of life.

And yet they will remain.
They are sticky, little whorls of Galium 
Wrapped snugly around my tattered patch-work heart.

NaPoWriMo 11/30

Today's prompt is to write a poem incorporating the five senses. This poem does not apply to my life right now and, as I explained to my older daughter earlier today when she asked me if Eminem was singing about things he'd done in real life, narrators and writers are different--we cannot assume that the narrator of a poem (or rap song) is the writer himself. That being said, this is a poem I could and should have written some time ago.


Watershed Blues

The smell of cottonwood buds comes rushing through the open window,  
A sweet vanilla balsam reminder that it is spring now, 
I'm late for work.
Breakfast is a ancient memory. 
Salty bacon and creamy glide of yolk, 
I remember you like old friends who never visit. 
Its all rush rush now, coffee and coffee up and at 'em, 
Shuffle girls off to school, 
Commute, work, unappreciated, commute, cook, clean, etc. 
I want to run away, to the river
To wrap my arms around a cottonwood tree, 
Tickle my tongue across 
The dew on its spade shaped leaves, 
Press my cheek against its bark, memorizing 
Its particular roughness until I can tell it by touch alone,          Listen closely until I hear the rhythmic flow of its xylem and phloem 
Deftly transporting nutrients and water from roots to crown, Look with an eye keen enough to see its cellular divisions,       The inner workings of its chloroplasts, diligently converting starshine into sugars
Absorb its language and intelligence, 
Growing ever steadfast,
My toes deeply submerged in cool Willamette waters.
 

Populus patchwork--Cottonwood leaves in the Fall

NaPoWriMo 9/30

The prompt for today, the first day of the second week of NaPoWriMo, is to write in a persona. I love assuming a persona, and the one below is one of my favorites. And because that is the kind of mood I am in right now, I thought it would be ironic/interesting to write this persona poem in a few haiku.

Salix species are common riparian residents.

Yeah, I'm Mother Nature, Bitch

Rapid climate change

Midst the sixth great extinction

Human induced death

Suck out my entrails 

With oil drills, pipelines, coal mines?

I'll show you who's boss

NaPoWriMo 7/30

The last day of the first week of NaPoWriMo. Prompt for the day: write a poem of color. 

Beetle on Ranunculus uncinatus--the unseen buttercup

Being Five was Yellow

Sweet cream rising, 

luminescent buttercup under my chin, 

afloat in a sea of goldenrod and tansy, 

sun speckled creek banks shining, 

pick mint for the lemonade like mom does, 

rolling in moss watching daylight

melting like butterscotch into the forest, 

glimmering yolk of sun, 

hopscotch all the way home.

Viola species

NaPoWriMo 6/30

Today's prompt is to write an animal poem. Being the Oregonian that I am, I decided to write on coho salmon. Consider this another work in progress! Oh, and the pictures here are all mine (all the pictures I post with the exception of my Outfits of the Week, are my own).


Oncorhynchus kisutch--Coho Salmon

Slick and silver
Time traveler, oceanic wanderer
The smell of your freshwater birthplace is calling you home.

Journey weary, hook-beaked warriors 
Build redds in the riffles 
Spawn on gravelly beds of ripples and current
And die.

Coho and Chinook Fry from Knowles Creek, Siuslaw Watershed

Salmon Smolt, Knowles Creek, Siuslaw Watershed

Spawned out salmon carcasses contribute nitrogen and other nutrients to forest-stream ecosystem

  I had the wonderful opportunity to work two seasons monitoring native fish species in a mid-coastal creek in Oregon where I developed a love of these sacred animals, which were a main source of food and currency for the  indigenous people of the area. Coho are anadromous, and spend part of their life in freshwater and part of their life in salt water. On average, coho spend 1-2 years in the stream of their birth, covered with speckles and parr marks that provides camouflage from predators, helping them hide among the stream detritus. As smolt, they "silver up" before heading out to sea, where being silver protects them from predation in the open ocean. Coho will spend one to three years at sea before they are driven to return home to their natal stream to spawn and die. Oncorhynchus literally means hooked nose, and refers to the fact that spawning male coho develop formidable looking hooked jaws. 

And now, a video I took of a spawning run at Fish Creek in the Siuslaw Watershed, Oregon, November of 2009.