poem 4/30/10 – Breathe

NaPoWriMo 2010’s last day! ReadWritePoem Challenge #30 – Free day (and farewell).

This has been great!  Propitious just stumbling on it early in the month.  I do post a blog entry every day – a project and personal challenge in 2010.

I’m looking for other writing challenges – some have committed themselves to continuing this kind of effort, perhaps not so Herculean. I’ll be reading and in touch. In the meantime don’t forget to…
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Breathe

Now you are thinking
looking at the title
but take that breath
then the next
it waits patiently
for its simple turn

It has waited
forever
one in a billion
two billion?

All patient
all here
in their single file
each one stepping up

yes
now
finally its moment

A few breaths
while you
were in an ICU
a plastic tube
up and down your gullet
but it let you know
there would be more

A few breaths
while you
surfaced in a pool
chlorine stinging up your nose
until you could turn your head
open wide
draw them in
push them out
the sun in your eyes

And a few while you
chased after your baby
her own breaths squealing
giggling barreling fearless
you scooped her up
the little silly!
and kissed
kissed kissed kissed her
your breaths packed against
her happy cheek
for dear life

poem 4/29/10 – haiku/Darkness

NaPoWriMo 2010, ReadWritePoem Day 29  – “Front page news”

“Man stabs 28 children in kindergarten in China”

Not precisely on prompt, but I was heartbroken and furious when I saw this.

Several kids and teachers in critical condition. Such selfish evil – obviously not in his right mind and China has a huge stigma and almost zero help for the mentally ill, but still… – wielding an 8” knife storming into a kindergarten class of 4 year olds – apparently, this was a copycat of an similar attack yesterday.
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haiku/Darkness
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incessant squalling
tiniest birds so cherished
now I crush your wings

poem 4/28/10 – Wait for her name

NaPoWriMo 2010 winding down… ReadWritePoem Day #28: “Let’s prepare to write a poem using our intuition intentionally today. Write this prompt on your page: “…I understand the place I am meant to go with my words and poetry today is … ” And wait 2 hours before you write.

Practiced Buddhism for 27 years, til I dropped it a year ago.  I’ve had my fill of intuition, of looking for meanings whether from my mind or from how the world settles around me.  so, I pushed back against today’s prompt.
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Wait for her name

Walk down the street
or stand in line
wait for the sign
no not that one
that other one
yes the way her words fall
yes the way his footfalls
snap on the sidewalk

Wait for her name
the letters come together
the word two voices make
clashing stupid wrapping
snaking making meaning

All symbols signs
everything a breath
nothing is wasted
it’s all so deep
you feel like Rumi
just wait for her name

poem 4/27/10 – Clunk

NaPoWriMo 2010 ReadWritePoem Challenge Day 27 – “Take a word that’s part of you — your name, your birth month, your favorite animal, your guiding principle. Write that word vertically down a page and use the letters to start the lines of a poem. When you’re done, you’ll have an acrostic poem.” I think acrostics are childish, but I’m game.

Was inspired by viciousorvirtuous’ poem today.

My family traditionally pronounces our last name with the G silent – [Kahn-din] – and a bit casually.  But I find it easier in the world, especially with all the people I contact through work, to say it as spelled, saying the “-ng”.   Also with the family’s way, you can imagine how it gets pronounced sometimes.
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Clunk
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Consonants clash
One too many there, always
Never tripping sweetly off my tongue
Gripped by that family choice –
Do or Don’t pronounce the Gee
Onomatopoeia would be easier, just say – Clunk!
Now that rings truer, somehow

poem 4/26/10 – The Department of Good Morning

NaPoWriMo 2010 ReadWritePoem Challenge Day 26 – “Find a poem that you started, or perhaps one you abandoned… You now have two choices: finish the poem or take the parts you like and begin a brand new piece.”

The title and opening is a phrase that’s been rattling in my head for a while. I may have actually heard it, or misheard it, from a TV commercial.  This is one I can easily go back to and put some more work into.

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The Department of Good Morning

The Department of Good Morning
a wholly owned subsidiary of Have a Nice Day
wishes you a safe and happy journey

as you enjoy your day
find directions on Mapquest
so you know where to stop and think
when is a good time to smile
and when to nod sympathetically

friend us on Facebook
find out what’s on our mind
and see what everyone you
will meet today is talking about

Justin Bieber, Twilight
who’s shaving their head today
to raise money for cancer
who bought a cow on Farmville
who’s saying RIP to her favorite cousin

go to Mapquest to see where you will
run into her, so you know when to nod

follow us on Twitter
subscribe on YouTube
sunrises now stream in HD

and if you find yourself alone
it happens to all of us
join our gold member pay site
where you can find someone
young and supple and smiling
to wake up with tomorrow

until then
have a good morning
and a wonderful day!

poem 4/25/10 – Furbulous

NaPoWriMo 2010 ReadWritePoem challenge Day #25 – “Keep an ear out for the first sentence (or even word) that is said to you after you read this prompt…(Poetic license: If the first few words are exceptionally boring, wait for the first uncommon or peculiar one.) … and build a poem around it…. Trust in fate.”

Well I didn’t trust fate – asked the young woman taking my clothes in at the Laundromat this morning to say something interesting.  She said “Furbulous” – a word they use at her other job at Build-A-Bear.

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Furbulous

Almost inexplicably
his plan falls into place
little Ashley hugged him
squeezed and squeezed
told her bff he was perfect
thought a moment then decided
there I’ll put him right here
so now on the dresser
by the pile of pastel socks
leaning on the neon pink and blue heart
that her other bff got her at Spencers
the bright curled tube
flushes his brown fur fuchsia
but it is cool
like his heart
+I am Teddy, Destroyer of Worlds

poem 4/24/10 – swallow this sunshine

NaWriPoMo 2010 ReadWritePoem Challenge # 24: find a phrase – “Clichés, idioms, what-have-you. As points of inspiration, you might think they’re dead in the water, but that’s a load of codswallop… So for today’s prompt, travel a while on The Phrase Finder (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html) website until you find the phrase or phrase origin that most interests you.”  This was inspired by the phrase “God is dead” – as explained there, attributed famously to Nietzsche, it was actually earlier written by Gerard de Nerval, from whom I took the first four lines. I am a former Buddhist, always been an atheist, but I do understand and even feel the impulse toward believing in a god.

Working to trust myself more while writing – I tried to just let this just happen, as I have lately, for better or worse.
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swallow this sunshine
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Dieu est mort!
God is dead
Heaven is empty!
le ciel est vide
and words are empty
sepulchres whited
the clouds will part
the clouds will seal
now look up and gape
at the face of the sun
at the belly of clouds
now swallow this sunshine
open your mouth
say something something
breathe His face
speak the words
that roll upon the hips of the world

poem 4/23/10 – Sarah Palin writes haiku

Today’s NaPoWriMo 2010 Challenge….

Read Write Poem member Sage Cohen has a terrific suggestion for today’s poems: Write a poem in which you combine a speaker and an event that normally don’t go together (such as sports broadcasters and poetry writing), as Jay Leeming does in his poem, “Man Writes Poem.”

Sorry! I couldn’t resist…
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Sarah Palin writes haiku

One two three four five
One two three four five six seven
Oops, that’s one too many!

poem 4/22/10 – Opening Day

NaPoWriMo 2010 readwritepoem Challenge Day #22 – a Wordle from http://www.wordle.net.  Finagled all the words into eight lines about baseball – pepper is a warm-up exercise.

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Opening Day

Dizzy Dean and the boys play pepper
out on the emporium of grass
the diamond a saffron square
amid the fresh green tendrils
tomorrow is the day
when fierce cheers will reverberate
like a squall of crows flinching up
shaking winter’s rust off the scoreboard

poem 4/21/10 – kiss it (Cy Twombly has left this white for me)

NaPoWriMo 2010 April Challenge, Day 21 – “perfectly flawed” – write bout perfection, imperfection, where they touch, where each is within the other…

~ NOTE: I place a white square, a jpg image, at the end of each post, for spacing, since I cannot find WordPress coding to create several blank lines.
~ Apparently a lot of you can see them, somehow, which I didn’t know (a square outline?) But on both computers I use to access my blog, they are not visible, so there’s just an inch or so of blank screen down to the “categories” list.

This was inspired by an event that happened in an art gallery in 2007. She was arrested and fined.
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kiss it

Cy Twombly painted a painting
across three canvases
white cotton white paint
it was so perfect
he left it unnamed
it was white
just white
taller than you
wider than you
really, it’s that big
and all white, white
a painting so perfect
it is worth 2 million
worth more than you

and Rindy Sam
she came up and kissed
it ruined it pink
she said

“I left a kiss a red stain remained
on the canvas
this red stain is testimony
to this moment
to the power of art
Cy Twombly has left this
white for me”

there is a white square
at the bottom of this poem
at the bottom of all my poems

it is so perfect
you cannot even see it
that’s perfection for you

kiss it