4.5.17

Today's prompt dealt with writing a nature poem...I'll just let you guess what's going on in my kitchen currently...

April Invasion

Shiny brown ants seep

as rainwater through kitchen

walls: warmed soil’s spring flood.

4.4.17

I didn't follow the prompt today. I got sidetracked slaying Donald Duck and helping the Ponies win the  war against the Bergens and then we all ate Trolls.  And we were happy.  Such is motherhood.

Playtime with Miss N, Age 4

Fluffy Bear has lost his hair

and doesn’t know where to turn.

The dollies march to Bergentown

and pause to watch it burn.

Board my boat and cross the sea

and return Cinderella’s shoe.

Minnie Mouse has trashed the house

but left this cake for you.

Princess dress and blankie cape

and glowing Jedi sword

are her armor when Mom finds her

curled, napping on the floor.

4.3.17

Monday's prompt dealt with writing an elegy ( a poem that mourns the loss of someone or something), and urged writers to include odd little details about the deceased. Mine went on the abstract side of all that.

Elegy

Who were we, once

upon another spring,

wearing smooth masks,

eating chocolate cake

on the city’s roof?

Years were heavy boots

to wear, flights were grounded,

children born. Change,

death’s hippie sister.

Have we become more

or less ourselves? I don’t

remember my mask—whether

I fit it on, or peeled it off.

4.2.17

The prompt for Sunday was a "recipe" poem. I did a "place" recipe.

Recipe for FD

Shake railroad ties in a bag

with gypsum dust, then drop

haphazardly on an uneven surface.

Repeat with potholed streets.

Number them, but not in order.

Add round-abouts at awkward junctures.

Pepper with little square houses

and little square bars.

Drop in rogues and cads,

church ladies and writers,

disheveled men to pick up the cans,

by the teaspoonful.

Marinate in Natty Light and rainwater.

Welcome home.

4.1.17

Today's prompt urged us to write a "Kay Ryan-esque" poem, with short, tight lines, interwoven rhyme, a little philosophy, and maybe an animal. If you want a primer, a couple of my favorite poems by Kay Ryan are ""A Certain Kind of Eden" and "A Hundred Bolts of Satin."  Enjoy!

Lizard Memory

Reptilian impulse—slanted sunlight

cues the past with precision out

of my control. Lower brain runs

the course of habit. You rise whole

out of ten years’ thick honey.

We once sat in the sun

on a western Nebraska

butte, resting our hiking boots.

We watched a lizard bask

on a rock, still as a church. Clouds

built arches to everywhere, and

in that moment, we could not be touched.

And we still cannot—not the we

we were, that day. Cornfields and miles

and mis-numbered days push out

from that butte. Even so, when the sun

overshoots its mark, and

a certain breeze doubles back

to pick up what has fallen,

something primal scrabbles in

to scratch on the present.

Earlybird poem

Let it begin.

As I have in the past, I'll be loosely following the prompts on the official NaPoWriMo site (www.napowrimo.net ). This poem is in response to yesterday's "earlybird" prompt to write a haibun (a prose poem that ends in a haiku)--and, quite unintentionally, it contains an actual early bird.

Cold Spring, 2017

Winter keeps the tail of March between forefinger and thumb. The snow is gone, but we can’t shake the habit: boots and coats, chili and heated van seats. Watery sky is crisscrossed with sycamore skeletons and flocks of starlings that turn on a dime. The crocuses are bullets waiting to fire. As usual, the housecats don’t care. Dawn is pale blue; coffee, at least, is hot. Outside

one bird scratches the

fat glossy silence, early

for choir practice.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Incoming!

Poem-a-day for 30 days starts tomorrow!  (Maybe today!) Stay tuned! Life happened and I fell off the poetry wagon last year after one day. Let's give this another go.