For the Month of April will be writing poem a day using the daily Prompts from http://www.napowrimo.net .
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And welcome to our last Challenge of the month!
See you again next year for more NaPoWriMo.
Day 30
Prompt -This prompt challenges you to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.
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This Beating Heart
Roll back the years
Through rainbow’d tears
Ten must pass
Twenty & thirty
Stop 48 long steps ago
Sunny that day!
Somehow it was safe
Understood this race
Ahh tender 11
Nose in books
Writing furiously
Dreamin’ of a big city
World that waited
Far, far away
Look close her face!
Day dreaming futures
Possibilities past here
Here
Where the pain was
Free
Just for an afternoon
All was right
Small bright light
A inner certainity
Key had turned
Lock set free
To know that girl
To know me now
Still her we see
Guarding a child’s dream
Of peace, safety
Serenity
– k
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Pizza
Round, the round cutting board,
left at the grader,
past the rain of falling cheese,
along under mozzarella showers,
right, clockwise, down stepping stones of black olives
spiralling into centre,
crossing a sea of red.
Waves ladled in of tomato sauce,
buoying pepperoni surfboards circle, counter.
moving sausage bits bob, Mushrooms add a flair,
Diving down to the center crust
Drilling into dry Flour,
beyond billowing measurement of yeast,
well past wetting of water,
sagacious pinching of salt,
over drizzling of olive oil.
Across, sprinkling of corn meal,
bellow to stop from getting stuck.
Slide, onto hot stone
This is the way to build a hunger
and how to stop it at the end of the day.
Slice by slice, is the best way.
– W.B.
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Day 29
Prompt-This one is called “in the window.” Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene. It could be your childhood neighbor’s workshop, or a window looking into an alien spaceship. Maybe a window looking into a witch’s gingerbread cottage, or Lord Nelson’s cabin aboard the H.M.S. Victory. What do you see? What’s going on?
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‘Shhh Quiet’
Libraries hold keys
Books,magazines & dvd’s
Computers to use with ease
For learning addicts:
Those of eternal curiousity
Like me
Yearning I stare
Shake & pull
Locked doors
Signs of closure pasted
Such inside knowledge
Impatiently wasted
Let me in!
Longingly I see
All I love just there..
So far away but so near
Separated by just
Inches of glass
Oh woe!
Oh dear!
I come by everyday
Searchingly look within
May it open soon
These hallowed doors
Once more to pass!
– k
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In the window
Rounded corners, flawless metal frame, frames.
Inside unfinished to save weight,
Silver and black, alloys and composites.
Row on row of darkened blinking lights,
Round bank of indicator dials, indicating past plights.
Billowing white, between lines of stitching, padding,
Not a thing out of place.
Three seats, harness hanging from,
The red tint hangs over everything,
streaming in,
Highlighting handholds, foot pegs, now unused.
Waiting for return,
Fuelled and set to burn.
The towering rocket waits,
For the red planet, closer to earth to turn.
From an alien gravity to churn.
Closed hatch, radio silent…
having come to study secrets, uncover new things to learn.
The rocket, back to the weightlessness of space,
neat wires and tethers everywhere lace,
waiting, empty, the black void across to pace.
Waiting to get in the window to launch, away from the Red base.
– W.B.
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Day 28
Prompt – to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The questions could be a mix of the serious (“What is the meaning of life?”) and humorous (“What’s the deal with cats knocking things off tables?”), the interruptive (“Could you repeat that?”) and the conversational (“Are those peanuts? Can I have some?”). You can choose to answer them – or just let the questions keep building up, creating a poem that asks the reader to come up with their own answer(s).
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Dandy Lions
Seeds
What is water?
How does a drop of H20
Begin
Magic messages
That open sealed skins
Minute ‘eggs’ of creation
Cliffside
City sidewalk cracks
Through slits in plastic tubs?
Rise flowers & fruits
Trees & shrubs
Oh! Barren tundra!
Oases unto desert
Up, up toward our sun
Living beings
Each so rare
So beautiful!
Rise & grow
How is this possible?
This miracle of life itself
Just how?
I’d like to know!
– k
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Questions, Answers?, a three ring circus of
Inward questions clown around until answered?
No one knows for sure how many hippos can dance on the head of a pin?
Curiosity wonders how many clowns can fit in a sub-sub-compact car?
Irritation at why there are so many Questions?
Rationalization, how can it be so hard to find the answer key?
Culmination of a journey , and how many miles must you walk alone?
Utter disbelief is welcome?
Still terrors excite and enthral?
Laughing When you feel the moment, do you realize?
In sitting in the crowd, Where stands the moment?
Forever is just slightly less that a drumroll?
Everything here is childish?
Quixotic things become you?
Unrealistic moments surround you?
Euphoric reflexes surprise?
Strange countenances gnaw at you?
Transitional pulls claw at your heals?
Indigo emotions draw closer or farther away?
Onion layers like feelings, to cut through?
Nominal perceptions find you?
Sentient moments unfold before?
Do you know the answers?
Oh so many questions under the big top?
The circus of life, is there a safety net?
Everyone wants to run away to join?
Vagabonds find the best short cuts?
Ever now and again, you can go home again?
Rome the highlands between shows?
Yield to no fear, grab the swinging bar?
Wonderment knows no age?
Houses of mirrors have but one exit?
Err on the side of caution when given a whip and a chair?
Ride the Elephant standing tall?
Escape the shackles of life, This way to the Great Ingress …?
– W.B
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Day 27
Prompt – I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows .. The entries are very vivid – maybe too vivid! But perhaps one of the sorrows will strike a chord with you, or even get you thinking about defining an in-between, minor, haunting feeling that you have, and that does not yet have a name.
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Hold the Sprinkles
Dip’t like vanilla into chocolate
Ice cream
I scream
At birth, since the beginning
All natural colour covered
Melting smears reality
Originality lost forever
Only I know
I am not this beige
Swirling mess
Seek clarity but alas
I know paro works here
Life crystal clear to others
Straight and true lines
While I wipe & wipe
Until the bones
Of I,
This used up
Soggy & bent
Waffle cone
Endure as:
All that remain
– k
pâro
n. the feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—as if there’s some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, “colder, colder, colder…”
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Star-scape
Snap, snap
The dark sky breaks around me,
Flowing outward on,
only intensifying.
Be any less so,
again same essence here shows,
Photo, turned on side.
vemödalen, degrassé…
The unindexed archive of the universe,
floats overhead.
at first I thought it sorrowful,
unoriginal and bleak.
But you have to look hard and long,
not just have a peek.
For the universe is vast,
of interest to peak.
Even is all you ever see is the same snapshot,
it is still ever changing around me.
While close, the photo is of the far away,
but I change the frame, night by night,
day by day.
Snap, snap.
My little light into the universe,
flash, into infinity.
For someone else to capture,
far out there, under a different time or sky.
– W.B.
vemödalen – n. the fear that everything has already been done.
vemödalen – n. the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.
degrassé
adj. entranced and unsettled by the vastness of the universe, experienced in a jolt of recognition that the night sky is not just a wallpaper but a deeply foreign ocean whose currents are steadily carrying off all other castaways, who share our predicament but are already well out of earshot—worlds and stars who would’ve been lost entirely except for the scrap of light they were able to fling out into the dark, a message in a bottle that’s only just now washing up in the Earth’s atmosphere, an invitation to a party that already ended a million years ago.
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Day 26
Prompt.- I’d like to challenge you to write a parody. Besides being fun, writing parodies can be a great way to hone your poetic skills – particularly your sense of rhyme and sound, as you try to mimic the form of an existing poem while changing the content. Just find a poem – or a song – that has always annoyed you, and write an altered, silly version of it. Or, alternatively, find a poem with a very particular rhyme scheme or form, and use that scheme/form as the basis for a poem that mocks something else.
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Un-day, Un-day
Un-Day, Un-Day
So bland to see
Un-day half way’. It was all so nothing that I could see
Oh un-day near half way, un-day all day’ couldn’t possibly be
that un-day all day’ you could still be near to see
Un-day, Un-day, can you truly want to stay
un-day, un-day, no time should it turn out to play
oh un-day near half way’ no forming of anything that could be
on un-day, un-day, no how could there be to leave or take me
Another other day, another other day
Another other day, Another other day of the week is weak, ohh.
But whatever un-day undone, whatever un-day undoes
But whatever un-day undoes, you can fine me for lying all of the time
Un-day, un-day
Oh no good you see
Un-day, near halfway’. it wasn’t all of anything too see
But un-day near half way, un-day wouldn’t plea
that un-day later, you could still be far from glee
not another day, not another day
Not another way, every other day of the week is fine. Mahh
What whenever Un-day comes, but what ever un-day un-does
But whatever Unday un-does, you can fine me for trying some of the time
Un-Day, Un-Day
Can’t dust that un-day
Un-day, Un-day
It must just turn away
Ohhh, un-day, un-day
Don’t say its a stray
Un-day, un-day
from the week to stray
Doh, un-day, un-day
Whoa un-day, Done-day
But then, would you rather a Monday, Monday?…
– W.B.
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Day 25
Prompt – write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. The poem you write can be for an occasion in the past or the future, one important to you and your family (a wedding, a birth) or for an occasion in the public eye (the Olympics, perhaps?).
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Woof
Feel like SPCA dog today
Unwanted, cast away life
Grown cold, old
Decades wild & alone
Live now only
Hopes of natural dying
& peace ever after
Mute & tired of trying
Leash dangles on ground
No caring hand found
Trapped in wire cage
A beaten down pup
Cannot break out of..
– k
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New couch day
An ode to old, Crumbs, Bottle caps and Loose change,
all the things found when cushions rearranged.
Found in an alley, balanced of two rear feet,
against a fence, woven, the colour of wheat.
Perchance to start again, Clean slate,
shopping find by chance, a stoke of fate.
Delivered to deliver us from worn arm rest,
Lumpy left side and rightly rough back at best.
Unwrapped, and set,
the old we should forget.
and yet…
so long since we first met.
Striking pattern of grey,
waiting for someone on to lay.
I weep for wheat,
as around grey I sweep.
New couch of grey renews the room,
all the visitors for it seemed to swoon.
But I have yet to be convinced of it,
Not even sure on it I wish to sit.
The long day,
but to it, I still by night, have not found my way.
Old couch, new couch,
by, I crouch.
Change comes today,
But I still wish I had not sent the old one away….
Though I am slowly starting to warm to grey.
We do love old, and new things, for different reason, you have to say.
– W.B.
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Day 24
Prompt = Find a factual article about an animal. A Wikipedia article or something from National Geographic would do nicely – just make sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot. Now, go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem.
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Cariboo (Porcpine Herd)
Brief
Flowering tundra
Cat next door
Artic summer
Migration, eons old
Travelling 170,000
Cat next door
Strong but vulnerable
Among predatory wolves
Bears
Buzzing insect hordes
Wild & free
Prices they pay
You see
The cat next door
Dreams to be
Out of this dusty city
– k
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How would you feel when the circus circled the world.
Even if you were to look hard and make lots of noise,
you would most likely not see the most prevalent tree-dwelling mammal in poise,
in Central and South America’s rain forests. The roaming antithesis remains still and hidden.
The rain forest is a tropical ecosystem characterized by constancy of conditions.
The sun rises at 6 am and sets at 6 pm,
Afternoon rains fall daily throughout most of the year,
Even as the circus minds to come near.
The air is humid and warm. The temperature varies little,
as they set up the big top in the middle
It is dark in the rain forest. Little light penetrates to the forest floor,
unseen, yet there is a circus of emotion, you can simply not ignore.
The uniformity of light, warmth and moisture,
in intensity and rhythm mark the rain forest.
And it is hard to imagine a rain forest dweller that embodies
this quality of constancy more than the ambivalence.
From meters below, the angst is sometimes described,
as looking like a clump of decomposing leaves or a lichen-covered bough, imbibed.
The vanity’s hair is long and shaggy, yet strangely soft,
Especially during the wettest times of year to accost.
The Envy is tinted green from the algae,
which soaks up water like a sponge, to thrive on its pedigree.
Since the progress moves very slowly, and makes few noises,
it blends into the crowns of the rain forest trees.
It took researchers many years,
to discover that up to 700 tears,
may inhabit one square kilometre of rain forest.
The uninterruptible Laughter spends essentially its whole life in the trees,
hangs from branches by means of its long, sturdy claws, by degrees,
or sits nestled in the forks of tree branches, in lees.
Instead of having a part on the mid-back,
with the hair running towards the belly,
the Humor’s fervour has a part on the mid-belly,
and the hardy belly laugh that runs toward the back.
The depreciation moves slowly through the big top of forest canopy
from a few, to rarely a few hundred feet in twenty-four hours.
Vagabonds were found to move during seven to ten hours of the twenty-four-hour day.
The remaining time jugglers are asleep or inactive.
Resting is the term often used to describe the Mimes’s inactive periods,
but this isn’t a Clown-appropriate expression,
From what activity is the ringmaster resting?
The curtain in the big top is soon to be cresting,
Crew, like Sloths, in the back resting.
– W.B.
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Day 23
Prompt = Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. This could be as simple as using a line or image from another poem as a jumping-off point, or it could be a more formal poetic response to the argument or ideas raised in another poem. You might use a favorite (or least favorite poem) as the source for your response.
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Buying the Green Eye
Theres a parking lot just north of Khatmandu
full of tourists with crowbars, just into town
a plaque paid for by a broken hearted woman about Mad Carew
next to an eyeless yellow gaze, the path goes down
Known as Mad Carew point, just off Khatmandu
and all manner of trinkets they feel inclined to sell
of noble past pranks
and wholly worshiped by the banks
and the board of truism as well
They loved it all along
with numbers and sales strong
a popular spot to come for all
a line up ahead of twenty-one
and movement had stopped as soon as it begun
yet one and all were here, having a ball.
What trinket would you have of ol’ mad Carew
hat,, shirt or maybe a badge of the squad
there were so many, many choices to thumb through
and then there was nothing, but the green eye of the yellow God.
So few left, but still there was a chance
as many others were after their cigars
Playing cards close to my chest, I failed to smile
and just tried to bluff them for little while
acting like I didn’t want it, even rated at five stars.
Yet all too soon on them it did dawn
my subterfuge away torn
across my face it was read
and the price went up straight away
from what it had been all day
much to my eternal dread.
My wallet opened at last, to see if my card would go through
and then they gave me a nod
my poor green eye slipped into pocket, from ol’ Mad Carew
Made in Taiwan, little green eye of the god.
poor copy of Trademarked Carew
a slightly flawed one too
but the excitement had been met
it was just exhilarating enough, being here alone
I wanted all I could get.
Still heady from the effects at its height
could this go on into the night
How would I sleep when I got back to the room
Or bring myself to cross the barrack square
after breathing all of that dreamy air
I was over the moon
The shops and parking lot to cross back through
the gem in my pocketed hand wet and slippery as I trod
past the bust of Mac Carew
Twas now the ʻVengeance’ of commerce of the Little Yellow God.
Theres a full parking lot just north of Khatmandu
full of tourists just into town
and a plaque paid for by a broken hearted woman about Mad Carew
next to an eyeless yellow gaze where the path goes down.
– W.B.
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Day 22
Prompt Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.
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100,000+ people
Showed up, rose up
Gathered to talk
Peacefully walked
Burrard Street Bridge
Arriving Sunset Beach
Scholars with small tents
Doctors w/o borders
Hari Krishna made free food
Until appetites were spent
Raging Grannies
Sang anti war songs
Peaceniks everywhere
‘1-2-3-4 We don’t want
Nuclear War
5-6-7-8
We don’t want to radiate’
I was proud to be there
Tho war still rages
Everywhere
– k
Vancouver 1980’s
Peace March
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Extracted
In the pit,
cut out, discarded,
the very seed of the matter,
interest is only of the rest.
this is where we sit,
good and bad parted,
pros and cons to smatter,
to lesser and best.
To excess, submit,
pit of truth away carted,
in repetitive patter,
puts to the test.
Discard, seedy pulp and grit
eyes for a perfect one darted
over the bruised, dented and tattered
seeking one to in, invest.
The world lives in a fit,
of false ideas started,
and of truths battered,
where the middle ground is but a pest.
But thank twice before you throw out the seed,
or there may not be another indeed.
– W.B.
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Day 21
Prompt. Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, ““
There was a man of double deed
It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “Twas like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre over the course of the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up.
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Wave, in cresting, flowing over.
In cresting wave, tide surges
Flowing over, surges across the sand
In cresting sand, builds castles
Flowing over, Castles fill the whole beach
In cresting beach into villages
Flowing over villages of sand castles filled with people
In cresting people mill the streets
Flowing over streets with traffic
In cresting traffic people move to suburbs
Flowing over suburbs leads to vacationers
In cresting vacationers throng to shorelines
Flowing over shorelines in a tide
In cresting tide in a midday peak
Flowing over peak, a ceaseless wave,
– W.B.
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=======================================================Day 20
Prompt for the day is to write a sijo. This is a traditional Korean poetic form. Like the haiku, it has three lines, but the lines are much longer. Typically, they are 14-16 syllables, and optimally each line will consist of two parts – like two sentences, or a sentence of two clauses divided by a comma. In terms of overall structure, a sijo functions like an abbreviated sonnet, in that the first line sets up an inquiry or discussion, the second line continues the discussion, and the third line resolves it with a “twist” or surprise. For more on the sijo, check out the primer here and a long list of examples in English, here
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‘SALE – Today Only’
Warranty extension needed but seldom purchased,
planned obsolesence nowadays built right in
Puddles under both fridge and washing machine,
power turned off in fear of electrocution at home
Trash pile grows steadily far from profiting share holders,
landfills like mountains rise busily each night
– k
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The Boat
Cresting waves unset sails billow,
bow wake cuts white waves cast aside
Damp teak deck under hot sun,
rolls on heeling slant traveling on
overboard washes spent water,
red wine stain on deck flows to sea.
– W.B.
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Day 19
Prompt I’d like to challenge you to write a humorous rant. In this poem, you may excoriate to your heart’s content all the things that get on your nerves.
For inspiration, perhaps you might look to this list of
Shakespearean insults
.. Or, for all of you who grew up on cartoons from the 1980s, perhaps this compendium of
Skeletor’s Best Insults
might provide some insight.
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Harumph!
Thick tined forks
Like ‘Really”?”!
Must stab to pierce
Arm muscles fierce
To use them!
-Get forked!
Teflon gives ill
Made with 8 strand binder
Which never leaves us
In fact,kills!
*Just a reminder:
-A margarine tub
For your corporate
Shareholders burial!
BC Low Income ‘Housing’
Snoops & fusses
NOTHING allowed!
In our car ports
All curtains white!
No frisbee or balls
No pets!
-May all your owned homes
Flood in the night!
Bah..I am so bad at funny insults!
What can ya do? Day 19
All i got so I am entering you!
– k
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Just
Just unjust.
‘Easy open, just tear along the dotted line’,
Just unjust,
‘Easy open, just peal apart here’,
Just unjust,
just un-openable.
Pull here,
push there,
no mater the force, it just tears,
resealable indeed.
It never works, though there is certainly the need,
unjust, it just won’t properly open,
nor re-close.
All this packing, who knows,
a designers vengeance on the world bestowed,
of great intellect that leaked out at the bottom where it out bowed.
– W.B.
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Day 18
Prompt – challenges us to write a poem based on the title of one of the chapters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. The book’s table of contents can be viewed using Amazon’s “Look inside” feature. If none of the 60 rather wonderful chapter titles here inspire you, perhaps a chapter title from a favorite book would do?
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We walked
Side by side
Hand in hand into dusk
Stopped just a moment
Gazed our sun down
Stars appeared horizen
Moon just a sliver
Just happy
Silence together
Balmy chatter soon again
Life was free that hour
Paid our dues
Now we collect
Our fullest selves
&
Rainbows
&
Rocks smooth skimmed
Across cool waters
Step by baby step
Together
– k
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Sleeping hippos
Zillabrando, Makahanaha, Tiffani Ann Walloby,
I name them as I see,
Gilliano swims by in glee,
wild hippopotamus, roaming free,
Ithotycromo stomps,
Kaley-yooho Chomps,
Pitancy’s thundering hooves flee.
Under the watchful eye of Tiffani Ann Walloby,
grasslands as far as the eye can see,
roaming the planes in glee,
wind blow tide billows in a dust sea,
hippos herd everywhere,
yet not to be seen of a hair,
nor a single decree.
There are no wild hippos,
No thundering hooves,
no grasslands as far as the eye can see.
Only dreams, only dreams,
by thundering means,
no hippo heard as far as the eye can see.
But the names still reside inside me…
of dreams, of dreams,
of hippopotamuses, I have never seen.
Naming wild hippos,
taming sleeping hippos,
framing running dreams.
– W.B.
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Day 17
Prompt. – Today, I’d like to challenge you to stop fighting the moon. Lean in. Accept the moon. The moon just wants what’s best for you and your poems. So yes – write a poem that is about, or that involves, the moon.
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Im’machinations
Self cleaning rover!
‘Opportunity’ we sent over
Inches of dust
Swept clean away
Off, under?
No wind, so ever left
In wonder
Flag that billowed
Astronauts stay pillowed
Deadly
Van Allen belt
Thro, yes through
No worry
Aluminum rocket skins
Fancy space suits
On moon ships
Will protect you
Opollo 1969’72
Houston repeats:
All systems Go!
Earth’s desert so similar!
Underwater moon scapes
Bubbles in photo’s
Shadow alignments
Just wrong
Moon conspiracies!
& Flat Earth
Serious or mirth’ed?
Eavesdropped at the fence
Arguing youth
Search for truth..
So this poem
Day 17
Hence
– k
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Keyhole
Locked up in the blue sky,
Blocked by crescent shadow,
Chalked into sharp white ark.
Talked to of a dark side,
Stalked by refracting sun,
Frocked by hovering clouds.
Clocked across darkening sky,
Rocked by impacts, footprints,
Mocked by gravities pull.
Pocked in craters open,
Docked, trapped, into orbit,
Hawked, tide surging across.
Unlocked at its zenith, full sphere released, the moon hovers overhead, tumbled free of safes tumblers, safely in the black of inky night blotting out the black in powerful reflection of the suns rays back, Drawing its way across the sky. A shifting keyhole, ready to unlock the sky, key to the oceans tides, and a piece of cosmic ground, that never made it to be formed as part of the Earth. Turning around us, unlocking dreams, unlocking stories, unlocking imagination. An empty room that we dream to enter, to visit, barren of anything… locked away, but just locked just out of reach every night. Waxing and waning away, across night, across day in its plight. To peep through the keyhole into the mysteries of the universe beyond, and its freehold.
– W.B.
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Day 16
Prompt = The rather silly form called Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. In this form, there’s no specific number of syllables per line, but each line should be short, and should aim to have two or three stressed syllables. And the lines should rhyme. You just rhyme the same sound until you get tired of it, and then move on to another sound.
Skeltonic verse is a fun way to get some words on the page without racking your brains for deep meaning. It’s a form that lends itself particularly well to poems for children, satirical verse, and just plain nonsense.
—————————————-
Push & Pull’d
Thyroid tug
Slipped rug
Compatibility glove
Gift from above?
Aligned immunity hub?
Cupid’s sharp, quick shove
Or the Devil’s rub?
Already love!
Sings the white dove
1st sight, Guv.
Auric field
Both kneel’d
One heart we wield
Truth becomes shield
This light we yield
Cracked & peeled
2 fish reeled
Heart anew guild
Today, today we build
Suddenly filled
Soul mate
Somehow ‘we’ rate
Examining traits
Soon or late
Give n take
Spade or rake
Together now Mate!
Destiny or fate
100 1st dates
Unlock consciousnesses gate
Both wraiths
Those good hearts of forever
– k
—————————————–
Sci Fi’s evils weeder
Take me to your leader
the endless repeater
reptillian alien feeder
crazy half plant spore seeder
galactic charter cheater
planetary balance to teeter
tipping readings meter
inner hull breached by beater
a five handed metal eater
giant hovering skeeter
awaiting universal translator greeter
bartering something unknown by the litre
Purple yet smelling faintly of cedar
until out finally to peter
its claws slowly it would whetter
the intergalactic weeder
sun
run
spun
ton
by ton, wanting to exterminate
with no intention of being late
or in anyway fourth or fifth rate
head to patronizingly pate
grinning all the while, to grate
bound to fail, its fate
only able to blow up freight
scraping its armour plate
using the others as bait
in wait,
ambush behind obvious create
blinded by unrelenting hate
postponed until a later date
sequel, by critics to berate
again they just had to state
take me to your leader, no debate
the plot done, patience not a trait
it is not hard to keep it all straight
they really just are not all that great
in one ear out the other it does skate
evil sci fi killing machines failure to integrate
leaves them wholly unable to conglomerate
and us unsympathetic to the whole bad guy slate.
– W.B.
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Day 15
Prompt = Think about a small habit you picked up from one of your parents, and then to write a piece that explores an early memory of your parent engaged in that habit, before shifting into writing about yourself engaging in the same habit.
———————————————-
Scallop’d
Peel & slice potatoes
Onions,chop n dice
(no crying please!)
Great,
I mean grate
Some fresh cheddar
Add tablesppons of flour
Dots of real butter
Scald milk
Stove element turned
Just to boiling power
Then layer,layer,layer
Big roasting pan
Into oven with small prayer
Divine smells
From oven for hours
This was one
Of her super powers
I helped her prepare
Huge cassaroles
Comfort food
That fed our souls
(tummies too)
Then when I left home
I cooked that too!
– k
———————————————-
Here
Habits of habitat are hard to half habituate,
Haggling held to hold halation here.
Hear all the little things you pickup along the way,
Haul of traits, in pauses that makes you wait.
How held hearth holds heat,
However haltingly.
Hitherto comes and goes,
Had what was and what one knows.
Heliotrope highlights heady headwaters,
home holds headstrong headwinds.
Hearty heath hedges.
Held In a garden of corn,
Have later tomatoes,
Here in still of corms, the tiny flowers bloom still.
Height hews helically,
Heist hefty hyalite heirdom.
Here,
Here holds the seed.
Hyaloid hands hold home,
However hybrid, hypothetical
Hoary, hardened hands
Hobby hoes herein
Here,
Here holds the wintery outline of a garden
Holding on for the next spring….
– W.B.
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Day 14
And last but not least, our (optional) prompt for the day. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that delves into the meaning of your first or last name.
——————————————-
Pure One!
Hah!
One laughs
Covered in your violence
Silence
World’s dirt
Since birth
Kept N.I.M.B.Y. ‘ed
Buried deep
Can’t move at all
Or your Teeth
Carried your secrets..
Young body owned
By others
Tiny sufferers
Blank smiling zombie
Decades sick
Stumbling
My soul lit
Smallest burning light
Shadowless footsteps
Should have named me
Gretal!
For how deep
Been tested my metal!
Where’s my medal!
Life is war
From 1st breath
Walk with death
Hand in hand
Born into wrong time
Place
Abomidition
Our Human Race
Criminal were those
Demands
Such abuse
At your hands
Yeah
Strong name
Cute little girl
Such trouble awaits
Her future unfurled
Like a nightmare.
– k
Meaning:pure. Katherine draws its power from a saint martyred in Alexandria known in Greek as Aikaterine; the Greek word “katharos” means “pure.” This regal name has been in use since the third century and has evolved into many forms in different countries, from Katarina to Kathleen and Kaitlin.
——————————————-
Your name here
In every space, line, pop up
I feel I am stuck
What is it all to mean now
if continually rewrote
does it fast erode
drained of meaning, devoid form
I am of a mind that I am me you see,
feeling no need to be copied or re-signed.
I have resigned to just being me,
Fleeting forms and storms pass,
and I again feel me at last.
I can sign anything, and still be me.
Signed, sealed, and delivered forms,
now what meaning has all that.
Doppelgangers are no doubt also accomplished forgers.
– W.B.
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Day 13
Prompt -This one is short and sweet: write a poem in the form of a news article you wish would come out tomorrow.
————————————————————
FREE THERAPY!
Extra, extra
Read all about it
Canada has decided
To FUND free therapy!
Recognizing value
Healthy populace
Thousands of quality
Trauama informed
Counsellors
Standing by NOW!
Predictions of
Lower crime rate
Violence way down
Less penal
Institutionalization
Higher school grades
Lowered domestic violence
Huge cut in addictions
Millions diverted
From war schemes!
Into health & healing!
Sweeping reports
Coming in..
Country by country
Free mental health care
For the people!
You read it
Here 1st folks!
Underdog Daily News
– k
———————————————————–
Pop!
This just in, popcorn trees explodes in heatwave.
just about an hour after noon
The buttery yellow flower blooms fell, the ground in pale yellow to pave
All the kernel like buds blew up, having had no one to properly prune
White inflated forms flew from the tree, then to the ground to cave
Mixing with the yellow flowers there strewn
Light buttery scent, a pang of hunger gave
Churned by a crosswind though bare branches that did croon
Shovelled up into large paper leaf bags, to save
Hurried to home, to the movie just as it started with a short cartoon.
and handfuls of popcorn over to rave.
– W.B.
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Day 12
Prompt – “Past and Future.” This prompt challenges you to write a poem using at least one word/concept/idea from each of two specialty dictionaries: Lempriere’s
Classical Dictionary
and the
Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
..
————————————–
Low Tide 2091
Unbound to flesh
1st drifted coreward
Summersaulting
Freedom exhaulting
Deep dive into our
Milky Way’s
Mysterious black hole..
That region of spacetime
Where gravity is theorized
To be so strong!
Nothing escapes
But I will!
All personal
Mud & meteorology
Left back ‘Home’
No longer
Dirt or bone
Look, just breautiful..
Us
Rainbows refractions
Everywhere!
Souls glistening
Sparkling like crashing
Waves
Push particles
Quantum miniscule so tiny
Terra forming
Distant ‘also worlds’
Takes consciousness
Willingness to work
Like a mirage
In a ice chip
Rest a blink
A eon
But then always
Come back to you!
– k
—————————————
Unobtainium, Tellurian Ostia
Sitting at the mouth, flowed by the river of Tiber.
Under the shadow of the tower,
a symbolic port of commerce of ancient Rome,
shifting by the day, as the sun moved across,
two moons sat low in the sky,
over Ostia to fly.
The Tellurian delegation was again late,
it always seemed a part of their history and fate,
no wonder they never managed to manage to obtain any unobtainium to date.
Even in this age, bureaucracy was still largely untamed,
controlling the planetary weather had proven far simpler gamed.
So many opportunities to set the future had already passed.
Just as the sands had once drowned the port,
the slowness of the hourglass, away plugged,
slowed negotiations, as away at they tried to sort.
for a future large share of unobtainium home to be lugged.
– W.B.
Ostia –an ancient city and harbour which was situated on the western coast of Italy at the mouth of the River Tiber. It was the first colony founded by ancient Rome and was a major port and commercial centre.
Tellurian –a native or inhabitant of Earth
Unobtainium –a hypothetical substance that would be highly desirable but is unrealized or unobtainable; a notional substance with exceptional or ideal properties
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Day 11
Prompt -Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a two-part poem, in the form of an exchange of letters.
The first stanza (or part) should be in the form of a letter that you write either to yourself or to a famous fictional or historical person.
The second part should be the letter you receive in response.
These can be as short or long as you like, in the form of prose poems, or with line breaks – and of course, the subject matter of the letters is totally up to you.
——————————————————-
In a Gazebo by the Sea
Do you remember that gazebo by the sea, cantilevered out over the rocks
carved into the landscape like all the initials into its soft grained railing blocks.
Perched in the middle of nowhere
So many promises there did you swear
Do you remember hiding out there from the wind in its lee
The storm of life eroding away the shore, your screaming at the wind in a plea
Step by step down to the last drop down to the shore
just above high tide mark, the power of the sea was something you could not ignore
nor they, as the last steps off it would have tore
recall what you did implore
standing in the middle of the storms immense lore…
\\\\\\\\\
Read, replied, signed, I sealed it up again in envelope white and stark
I look upon this tattered envelope, worn postmark,
of this letter sent so long ago on a lark
How do you think I would ever forget
that tatty old gazebo, where land and sea met.
Last I was there, its tall peaked roof long ago fell to the rocks below
but the stairs still perch at the shore, as in and out the tides still go
now calm, the tide low
A gentler pace of life, restful, slow
Frenetic foaming sea, I cower in the lee no longer
Like the storm I have grown stronger
life around me does not anymore monger
Phases of human nature that come to be
I know now that I am free
No mater the state of things, land or sea, I alway have the air of me.
– W.B.
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=======================================================Day 10
Prompt It’s called “ Junk Drawer Song ” and comes to us from the poet Hoa Nguyen.
First, find a song with which you are familiar – it could be a favorite song of yours, or one that just evokes memories of your past. Listen to the song and take notes as you do, without overthinking it or worrying about your notes making sense.
Next, rifle through the objects in your junk drawer – or wherever you keep loose odds and ends that don’t have a place otherwise. On a separate page from your song-notes page, write about the objects in the drawer, for as long as you care to.
Now, bring your two pages of notes together and write a poem that weaves together your ideas and observations from both pages.
——————————————————–
The Sound of silence:
Hello, paint pots
My old friends
Table top
In creeps
Once more
Major upend
Brushes,tacks
Glue & safety pins
ALL call out
I wish to talk
With you!
Again
Orange bag, neighbor
Hath sent cheezies
Dust above
Breath too deep
Get the wheezies!
All a vision of madness
Tho my heart but see’s
Gladness
Possibilities rise from
Dusty seeds
To grow this mess
Takes creativity
Indeed
To me -art
You-wrecked train
Unique answers
Give forth our brains
Life does remain
Within this
Riot
Of silence
– k
——————————————————–
Closed openings in the opening of a drawer.
Past life shelters in an old drawer,
the forgotten soundtrack to days of past glory.
Unneeded items that you feel a need to keep
Melancholy of items slowly shuffled into it, and then to the back to sit.
The slow intro of the opening drawer that you always ignore
familiar faces of unneeded things with no tomorrow
No tomorrow.
Worn out things from places you will not go back to again
Then no one knew, no one knew, that the old calculator would not be needed anymore,
A compass of no arcs or circles that will not give direction,
An old voice recorder that don’t listen to you any longer,
Its batteries removed, the connection cord mislaid.
To sit and listen, waiting. very nervous, wondering if they would ever leave the drawer again.
The old first aid kit in the broken green box
Held together by elastic band, wrapped twice around
Its a very very mad world….
Enlarge on your world,
But keep all the past,…
past over, left over, pieces locked away in a drawer.
– W.B.
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Day 09
Our Prompt for the day is to write a poem in the form of a “to-do list.” The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character.
————————————————–
We:
Ginger root
&
Golden Seal
Datura
Garlic
To dry & peel
Mixt, mixt
Cauldron heavy
Iron pot
A cat to sit there
Some picturesque spot
Walk me path!
Seek I do
Small warm cabin
Misty woods
A long full cloak, Yes!
Deepest purple
Jewelry too
Branches for the fire
Grinder (electric Thank You!)
Nahuatl Peyotl
Candles that all night
Burn
Wizened, lovely
Old Crone
A dropt’ list
Rise sisters
Brothers
I do insist!
Off to forest,
Marsh ,
Sea
Plains
Collect,collect
Ancient Plant Medicines
To heal us all
Once again!
Together
– K
————————————————-
Do too
Do to
Oh what to do, what to do, what to do….
From the desk of WWW {The Wicked Witch of the West, malevolent ruler of Winkie Country}
TO DO
-Get dog
-Urgent!! -Fix roof leak!
-Get Dorothy to surrender. Surrender Dorothy Surrender!
-Get back at Academy Awards people for giving Best Picture to Gone with the Wind.
-Get silver shoes… Or perhaps Ruby…
-Buy more winged monkey food
-Buy OZ Shower curtain for Birthday
-Lunch with WW of the East,
-Renew subscription to the Emerald City Times
Oh its all such slog,
dealing with the overly meek,
Getting an appointment with the pointed hat mender,
Finding small shoes for the thin shinned.
Flying housed going by all spinning and cube-y,
uncouth animals that are overly rude.
Getting home before the suns last ray,
Munchkins cleaning their plate of the last piece of the feast,
What a world, what a wold, what a world…
as melting crooked nose curled, as the echoes fade out in rhymes
– W.B.
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Day 08
And last but not least, our (optional) prompt. I call this one “Return to Spoon River,” after Edgar Lee Masters’ eminently creepy 1915 book Spoon River Anthology . The book consists of well over 100 poetic monologues, each spoken by a person buried in the cemetery of the fictional town of Spoon River, Illinois.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead.
—————————————————————————————
Ohh Death
Again, again
Last gentle breath
Expelled
Spirit soar’d
Released
Look there!
Just at horizon
Cloud with a rainbow
Bird in full flight
Butterfly in mass
Following tradewinds
Thro windy night
Past all seas
This pass of me
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Embraced eternal souls
Life so full of love
Amid harm here
Even as I leave
I dream
If I can return
I will
I must
– K
—————————————————————————————
Kipper Knoll
I always found life a little fishy,
coming from an area of low tide, if you will, of Spoon river to reside.
A writer of more years than I would care to count,
so many things seen, too many to accurately account.
But over those years, looking through my dirty window at the street,
I saw all the little things that fell right at my feet.
Step by step, booking time, I wrote.
Of fishy characters and plots, in layers to coat.
Of all of all of this, I made sure I left just this one little wish,
and rewrote my whole life, my whole life posthumously out to dish.
All but one little nugget of truth, sure to be missed.
I lived the script, of the rest I was wholly tightlipped,
a fiction left to be of great of extol…
The life of Kipper Knoll.
I leave you to wonder, and wander of Spoon river’s hills that roll,
and all of the fishy stories and bull.
– W.B.
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Day 07
Prompt- There are many different poetic forms. Some have specific line counts, syllable counts, stresses, rhymes, or a mix-and-match of the above. Of the poetic forms that are based on syllable counts, probably the most well-known – to English speakers, at least – is the Japanese form called the haiku. But there are many other syllable-based forms. Today, I’d like to challenge you to pick from two of them – the shadorma, and the Fib.
The shadorma is a six-line, 26-syllable poem (or a stanza – you can write a poem that is made of multiple shadorma stanzas). The syllable count by line is 3/5/3/3/7/5. So, like the haiku, the lines are relatively short.
Our second syllabic form is the Fib is a six-line form. But now, the syllable count is based off the Fibonacci sequence of 1/1/2/3/5/8. You can link multiple Fibs together into a multi-stanza poem, or even start going backwards after your first six lines, with syllable counts of 8/5/3/2/1/1.
——————————————–
We were love
Stardust ‘s own pure hearts
Love was us
Pouring out through in
Mere mortals wide arms outstretched
Swallowing moons whole
–
You
Your
Smiling face
Such earthly joy
How dear each dimple
Eyes that shined like stars brought so near
– K
——————————————–
Egale
Soaring flight
banking around cloud
dropping wing
pulling tight
angles back towards water
to cross the shoreline.
Caught in light
of strobing sun proud
out to sing
in its might.
Beaches the oceans blotter
below, over pine.
Shadows plight,
across echoes loud,
of something,
soaring kite,
across sand dunes to totter,
of talons sharp tine .
– W.B.
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=======================================================Day 06
Prompt. Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely.
———————————————
OchRED Hands
Beautiful flowers
There…outside
Sunlight & good days
Clear running rivers
Just waiting
Turn, turn around
Crawl for freedom
Don’t let this cave
Entomb you
Sips of nectar overwhelm
Those 1st needing just water
Roses have thorns
Slim hand reaching
Out of such darkness
Emerge dirt covered
Alien
Even cleaned up
Strange to each other
So strange
To each other
– k
———————————————
Posed to Bloom
The rose holds its pose, but is best seen from front or sides,
its back hides among thorns, and under leaves
budding it opens its beauty into the world
but how to hold its still in a breeze
All around a churning, gusting wind billows and across rides
natural beauty of its splitting petals cleaves
twisted in deep reds inward it swirled
holding its forward pose to please
Does anyone take photos of the backside of a rose, or seas at low tides,
naturally nature regardlessly, in its self, believes,
inward its confidence tightly curled,
opening up just slightly to tease.
– W.B.
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=======================================================Day 05
Prompt – I call this one “The Shapes a Bright Container Can Contain,” after this poem by Theodore Roethke, which I adored in high school – and can still recite!
This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “W,” and the third line with “A.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong, but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas.
——————————————
Unicorns Ahead
Softly, they ran on by
Long multi-coloured manes
Flowing like dance
Perfect counter gait
Each step, Oh!
Music of their equine selves
Standing,I, bewildered
Smiling
Just aware
Day dreamed
Perhaps shape shifted
Here,Hear!
Wide eyed
Mid-herd
Far seeing such
Plains I did not know
Prairies, purple
Velvet blue
Flat & shimmering
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Hooves fell
But then more slowly
Giant but gentle
One steadily approached
One
It seemed maybe
I already knew!?
At least reminded me
Of you
A/wake or A/sleep?
Real or imagined I,
Nuzzled by warm breath
Love peering thro
Huge caring green eyes
Deep into mine
Greeting Yes, Welcome
Shared dimensions
Love’s promise
Coming through!
I believe in Unicorns
Forever
Do you?
A Blessing!
-K
“What is a group of unicorns called?” is a pretty popular quiz question with an absolutely magical and unexpected out-of-box style of answer. According to DoYouKnowStuff and Quora, a group of unicorns is called a blessing.
Blessing of Unicorns!
——————————————
A Hard Run
I crossed the raging river, The wooden deck under foot,
I didn’t look back at all, railing solid and deck stayed put.
As by I flew from bank to bank pushing on my way across,
As content as I could be, for hardly any time loss.
Moving through the country side, stride by stride in fluid gait
Ahead to the next waypoint ahead more road lay in wait.
I push on, the end in sight if only inside my mind,
No obstacles allowed in form, or of any sort or kind.
Between me and my goal there must be nothing to intrude
As I run hard through the pain in beautiful countryside
-W.B.
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Day 04
Prompt. Poetry often takes us to strange places – to feelings and actions that are hard to express except through the medium of a poem. To the “liminal,” in other words – a place or sensation that exists at or on both sides of a boundary or threshold, neither one thing or the other, but something betwixt and between.
In honor of the always-becoming nature of poetry, I challenge you today to select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting
@SpaceLiminalBot
, and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces.
——————————————————–
Soul
Quantum snow
BOOM this our astral
Skies fell that day
Soft, glittering
All unique & none the same
Imperfection within every centre
How we hung on..
Sparkling
Together..
To melt , become bound
Swirl
Swept into a sea
Sweet choir of angels
Looked out my window
Just what did I see?
– k
——————————————————–
Threshold
When the night comes,
in the shadow of a tree.
Dim transitions one can trip over,
Last flickering candle light cast,
framed, from a lone window.
Again repeated at the dawn, if in reverse.
The first rays of daylight broach.
The underdeveloped colours,
the insubstantial status of fading things…
whether fading in,… or out.
Stopping, or starting, the un-startling effect,
happing so gradually for the senses to collect,
so effortlessly to project
fade in, fade out, the twilight landscape in-set.
The world flattens, the sky joins into the ground…
as inky blackness descends all around.
Until dawn, and again the lightening of the sky and birds start to sound,
Solitary blues take to flight, as the sky overhead again mounds.
But between there is transition that creeps
as most everything else still sleeps
un-vibrant, un-contained
and far too easily disdained.
I can hardly see it myself I have to say,
this odd twilight that happens well after the end of the day,
happening just after you realize that the light is starting to go away…
and darkness across the threshold starts to lay.
-W.B.
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Day 03 NaPoWriMo 2021
Prompt. -Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a “Personal Universal Deck,” and then to write a poem using it. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper)
Don’t agonize over your word choices. Making the deck should be fun and revealing, as you generate words that sound “good” to you. The fact that the words are mainly divided among the five senses should be helpful in selecting words that you like the sound of, and that have some meaning personal to you.
Once you have your deck put together, shuffle it a few times. Now select a card or two, and use them as the basis for a new poem.
——————————–
Chalk
Limestone, crumbled
Reformed
Weighted,crushed algae,shells
Minute marine of old
A memory
Dream of falling
Softly
Slow, slow zig zagging
Descent
Adding layer after
Eons long gone
Then whoosh
So urgently bold
Earth quake shifts
Sea bed up-rising
Continent sharp lifts
Into existance
How white the cliffs
Of Dover
– k
———————————-
At the window
Sat at the window, the street an arms length away
People probably rushing home, passed, at the end, another long day
The musty smelling motel room
the worn, outdated furniture, the smallness managing to cocoon
Sitting off in the distance, along, another world away sat the sea
Its water had an almost pearlescent quality
I waited
being still here, I hated
Still, I knew you were not coming,
we were through, as my heart again started drumming
My excused were running thin though
but I convinced myself ‘Just little longer’ I would wait at the window….
– W.B.
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=======================================================
Day 02 NaPoWriMo 2021
Today’s prompt. In the world of well-known poems, maybe there’s no gem quite so hoary as Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about your own road not taken – about a choice of yours that has “made all the difference,” and what might have happened had you made a different choice.
——————————————
Path
Was there ever one?
Might I have
Stepped off
At birth?
Crawled the wrong
Direction?
Missed a turn?
Were unicorns & fairies
Just right..
Over there?
Fate & destiny
Karma & synchronicity
Madness & mystery
Death & energy
Crunch…
Another Rain Forest
Forward step
Taken
Always wondering
Deep
Curiousity
For what..
Will be
Next 2 C
– k
——————————————
Unturned
Shhhhhh
Is there something at the corner…
Shhhh, there is something around the corner
Shhh, the world can turn in a moment
Shhh, The world can change in a moment
The world can change momentum
Shhh, The quiet comes, momentous
The moment slows, as pondering quickens
There was something around the corner
I went straight on, perhaps never fully to know
what around the corner there was into to go…
looking back, there is nothing to be seen off to the sides
No one will ever know
only I, of what, in passing, I glanced off to see what there did bide
Now, there is just a quiet emptiness there
The space I left empty, gone on, it sits, around the corner, bare of despair
That I left, for the straight path to disrepair.
Only occasionally in passing, my pair of eyes over fondly to stare
for just a moment until I remember, there is nothing today any longer there.
– W.B.
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Day 01 NaPoWriMo
Prompt (optional, as always)! Sometimes, writing poetry is a matter of getting outside of your own head, and learning to see the world in a new way. To an extent, you have to “derange” yourself – make the world strange, and see it as a stranger might. To help you do that, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by this animated version of “Seductive Fantasy” by Sun Ra and his Arkestra.
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Croak
Froggish
Dry mouthed mid sleep
Mid night
Woke gasping as if
Kissed by pool side
Princesses
Check myself
Hand to chest
Hip, face
Am I
Transformed?
Wet with pond sweat?
Deep darkness
I listen
Ahh still one
Of our human race
Slow waking dream
Slips away
Of
Her dreamt soft kiss
No trace
– k
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A world runs around me,
Turned inside out.
The pressure of a kazoo counters the flow of light into spectra.
The more I focus on anything, the more it shudders and shifts away into something new.
The old shutters, churns, pans, reforms into another inclined plane,
burst forth, Reforms from the strain,
tilts, the pinball rolls off, there are no rules.
These are the mirror of other others dreams that play out onto insides of my eye lids
Transition unheard sights and unseen sound into tactile numbness.
Minutia of transplanted dreams, distorted brainwaves made of a different wave length,
tinted by another’s Blue eyes, realties of retinas not mine, filtered unknowingly behind.
Bespoke lines wrote, onto wind to coat
the world stuns around me
shocking re-perceptions float.
Turned inside out, now upside down.
The world falls still, without a sound… into my ear drums again to pound.
Meaning, a Rosetta Stone, your buried treasure, yet to be found.
Your world swirls
Distorted vantages, alternate disadvantages highlight.
Your dim view of coming night,
To me, you see, never quite to seem right
My perspective runs from me
ricochets and returns in kind
yours in, a balance I can not find…
the world runs around me to flee.
I know not what to make of it, and its longings, but only of its need to run free
– W.B.
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Day 00- Early-Bird Prompt -NaPoWriMo
Today, we’d like to challenge you to spend a few minutes looking for a piece of art that interests you in the online galleries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. After you’ve selected your piece, study the photographs and the accompanying text. And then – write a poem! Maybe about who you imagine making the piece, or using it. Or how it wound up in the museum? Or even the life of the person who wrote the text about the piece – perhaps the Met has a windowless basement full of graduate students churning out artwork descriptions – who knows?
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Cuxa Cloister | Catalan | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
–] https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/470314
Cuxa Cloister
Of legs of arches,
framed of leggy shadows
running off into the distance
across the grassed courtyard
Of Northeast Pyrenees
Cuxa Cloister sits
low fountain center around hunched down on its knees
intricately carved unmoving eyes, across a small bird flits
Of Pink marble capitals that squat overhead
stood at the foot of Mount Canigou
watching walkers march, in rows under led
or across to cross through.
What scale, what sight
to somehow proceed, its distance starts to recede
oh the magnificent view to a millipede
crawling alone along, steadily into the night
-W.B.
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