I am sincerely hoping that NaPo this year will resurrect my inner poet. I am also attaching this to a different but related goal to focus on happy things. Little of my previous poetry has been about happy things, and I am going to attempt a different outlook. We will have to see how all of this goes. I am simultaneously VERY excited and uncertain how successful this will be. Wish me luck!
I have mixed feelings about the start I'm off to in this year's NaPo. On the one hand, I'm already a day behind. But on the other hand, this idea came to me out of nowhere (which hasn't happened in a while) and I wrote a kind of poem I've never written before... which is way NaPo #1 is in the attachment I'm kind of proud of it, even though I know it would need a lot of work. But it's a new form for me.
I don't know if I like this one... but I'm rusty, so I'm lazy. And I don't want to be behind.
The Beatles had it Right
It’s ok. Smile at him. They’re not all the same. Every time the last guy finds someone new? When you bump into him getting coffee And he tells you about his fiancé His wife His children You know. You just know. He wasn’t the one for you. Because he found her. The one. Every time you meet someone They leave You meet someone They leave You meet someone You leave... Check off another box. Cross off another Point on the map. Smile. Just a little bit closer. Another bend in the maze. It’s only the best game of hide-and-go-seek And he’s winning, standing there. Across the room. Across the table. Go on. Smile. Here, let me start. “Hello, my name is...
#3 doesn't quite feel complete... but it is what it is.
#3: Herb, Al, and Senna
When he yelled, "Hey, cow!" every nearby female turned her head. They all locked eyes with one another, full of appraisal, jealousy, judgment. One of them ate a steak dinner plus three bottles minus the steak. One of them went to the drugstore and carried away armful upon armful of placebos. One of them ate porcelain for months. One of them ran away and ran and ran and ran and ran until she fell asleep under a willow breathing in her earth stained skin and the smell of burning grass.
#4: Mr. President
Four years from world leader. A beat reporter observes his every brushstroke.
His every brushstroke forages for Putin's soul, four years from world leader.
Forages for Putin's soul, forays into peace-- he never knew that side of earth.
Forays into peace sent him to the mirror. Browns, blues and greys--mostly greys.
Browns, blues and greys--mostly greys Marching to identity's beat, South of Tennessee.
Marching to identity's beat, Home in their throats... Justice and honor are only words.
South of Tennessee Crying over Mama's photo at night and marching on Jupiter.
Marching on Jupiter, towed by a grieving nation, honor and justice are only words.
A beat reporter observes his every stroke Mr. President is still a novice Digging for a soul--
The heart of forgiveness-- Mr. President is still a novice Painting the Reconstruction.
#5: Stork
He's standing off in the shadows, enveloped in a swirling veil, smokey grey, like his breath when he sings words no one feels--with a waltz rhythm and dancing bare feet. He twirls me inside as I stand below the stage, inside my window, behind my bookshelf only watching him live. He stands (floats) on Pluto where gravity never ties his tongue and pins his words to simple minds. I memorized his half a smile so I know what the missing piece will look like, if I find it. So he dances in and out of view and off the map. The only original thought left in the world. God's last beautiful, mysterious piece of the puzzle. While here I am singing the same song dreaming I'm whole enough to hold a broken man.
One of my favourites so far. This one I will definitely come back to and make something better out of.
#6:About a sidewalk
I want to create a silent movie. It will be about a girl, and a boy. They will stand toe to toe on the sidewalk outside her door. Their mouths will move And she’ll lean close and He’ll lean back and she’ll Just graze his neck with her Fingers splayed and Yearning he grins and His lips move. Suddenly She leaps and twirls And raises her arms in A silent dance on the sidewalk finally flinging her arms around the boy. I want to create a silent movie. It will be about a sidewalk. A thousand girls Ten thousand boys Stand toe to toe on the sidewalk outside her door Their mouths will move Apart Together Their shadows will paint Moving pictures on the sidewalk as one by one each boy comes boy goes boy comes boy goes boy comes boy stays boy kneels on the sidewalk outside her door. Ten thousand girls A hundred thousand boys A slowly caving sidewalk Grass growing up underneath their Toe to toe. Miniature feet Tiny hands Folded Praying away the ghosts Outside her door—gone On the sidewalk—fading Into Alzheimer’s. I want to create a silent movie. It will be about innocence.
I believe in the good things - I love this, it really came out well and clean for it being an experimentation.
Beatles - I think the best thing about this is the leading up to that last line, this piece is cute <3
#3 - Oh, I absolutely love this :O I think it's my favorite actually! If you hadn't told me you felt it incomplete, I wouldn't have thought otherwise!
#4- Oooh the refrains here sound really lovely! Plus like, I just love political poems :3 #5 this flows, it's just mesmerizing!
#6 I'm not 100% clear on the premise but I really really want to see how this one turns out when you come back to it, because I like a lot of things like how it begins with the silent movie and I definitely dig that feel throughout the piece, where we're just getting images and images and we don't really hear a speaker rattling a pov/interpretation - I mean, that's a cool effect!
When I want to think, I choose the biggest mystery: Six feet tall. Shaggy blonde hair. Thrift shop clothes And a voice like Jim Morrison. On stage he comes alive, I think. At least he dances like a barefoot Marionette. When he speaks he sounds... Like a half-dead hippie kitten with chronic anthropophobia or mental disgust for normal human-to-human pleasantries. He plays with short friends with sticks short friends with beards short friends with balls and maybe that’s it? Chronic gynophobia? He ought to have been born during the Vietnam War. If he died in the jungles there His ghost would have driven me to the state of Yellow Wallpaper and semisynthetic-psychedelic-drug-of-the-ergoline-family induced hallucinations where I find myself small enough to explore his brain like a maze inside my own head his lyrics playing in the background all the time over and over, and over and over a theme song to my horror-esque mental movie. Stripping down and swimming inside an ocean-filled guitar I sing along pushing my words, inching them, toward his sleeping figure inserting my voice into his dreams like messages in a bottle. We wake sweating somewhere that is not our bed but somehow intertwined with lace and taking a breakfast of jungle juice.
Thank you fortis. I wish I could figure out how to end things... maybe it was meant to keep going. I lost my train of thought and gave up.
#8 I write poems about this boy. I wonder how his face would look if he read them, and what he would say. I am convinced he is Superman. So I keep writing, and watching. Waiting for the inevitable moment when into the booth and out of the booth he comes C.K. Flying on winged feet like Hermes wind blowing back through his growing mane and the world roars approval, louder and louder. And softer and softer the voice fades sighing into the wind dying the world dying buried slowly ever deeper ever faster ever further worm tunnels churning on the surface a stage is burning fear ripping at his throat as he stares me in the eyes. I am here. You are here. We are here. Who are you?
Number Five was an Oklahoma innocent. He imagined swimming with dolphins in the same breath as transforming into mythical creatures. A spiderman without the spider. I loved Number Four. Third spoke to the fear with effortless empathy that drove out demons. Blowing smoke over my eyes until I could see the future inside of it, at once silver-lined and Neverland. Two blinked in and out of focus appearing here then there a Winston Niles Rumfoord making a guest appearance every few years to kiss her on the mouth if only to remind her..."Oh. Love. No thanks." One thinks just like me and looks like a Christmas elf. His voice could tame lions and his hands can draw all the cold out of winter. Under the influence I crawl into their arms for five breathless minutes. Strength and safety bleed into my veins, an hypnotic IV of memories and heat and brown eyes.
Colder than Antarctica, under a blood-red moon, under a soft blanket he wrapped one arm about her waist. Her head just rested by his chin a whisper away from his lips as spoke the warmth of his breath dripping down her neck and flooding the night. He laughed a low chuckle that filled her head with butterflies and her chest with fog. Pretending there were no lies that one night, they held each other’s eyes.
Most of the credit for this goes to @PenguinAttack. This kind of happened by accident while she was trying to help me find my poem, and this happened between the two of us. She was asking me the questions in bold, and the rest is my responses. Pengu is a magician. And I decided that, different as this is and far from your typical poem form, I like it as it is--or, really, I *can't*change it, because it wouldn't represent the experience anymore. I'm trying really hard not to sound pretentious and I'm rambling in the process. Stopping.
#11: A Quiet Space.
The Dam: A block of mind/spirit/muse physical motivation. I went to the Hoover Dam once. It was so... concrete. Man-made. Impressve, but...cold. Grey. Too perfect.
Tell me your favourite colours: Aqua Tangerine orange
Tangerine orange is gorgeous. why are these your favourite? I love the taste and smell of tangerines. Aqua has a beautiful name and it isn't just one color. And it's almost impossible to nail down exactly what color it's supposed to be.
Take Aqua. Take Aqua and the impossibility of determination. That is a nice, solid concept to work around. Do you think if you could pin the colour, you'd stop liking it? If I could *actually* find it I think I would feel ownership. Which would either be a good thing, it would be personal. Or I would feel like I captured something that's supposed to be free.
Which is more important to you, the nature or the ownership? I like the freedom of it, that no one knows what it is... but that people enjoy that. Or I do, at least. Most people it probably doesn't occur to them. But I feel like I don't get to have that. People assign something to me anyway, when I feel like I'm only exploring. I don't want to be nailed down as something because it feels...unchangable.
Does this mean that you wouldn't search for the right colour? It means I can relate to the color. The way it is. Because it's a lot of things. It's not just one thing. It can't be nailed down. And people don't really try, in a way. It's something else to different people.
I'm having difficulty cause I'm a visual understander. Could you explain it in an analogy/metaphor? This won't be the greatest, most original metaphor. Maybe I'll come up with something better as I'm fleshing this out. But, it's a little bit like the ocean. Even though we all know some things about it, like its size, or its saltiness, a few of the creatures that live in it... it takes everyone to different places. Some people stand at the edge, some people travel carried by the waves and the wind, some people explore as far as they can go. Some people stay just within seeing and hearing distance and protect themselves with houses on stilts. Nobody pretends that they understand exactly what the ocean means or is or does. It's a risk... or it's not.
Which one are you? I love the ocean because I can't see the other side but I know it's there. Because it's big and powerful but we can tame it.
Okay. Now may i do something with everything you've told me? Yes.
We stand on the shore across From the clementine sky, Dreaming and plotting and spinning Like spiders who once befriended Silk worms. Speak with a necessity Pulled along, slowly and urgently, the gears of a clock telling us, “Steady, steady now. Just a second more.” So I take the pointed hand and dig through the sand, one square centimeter at a time, sobbing when I spear a fragile word which limps away and will not linger on my lips as I need. But she snatched my hand, Pricked my finger. Before my eyes I bleed out lilacs and maple trees, car radios and soft lips, and all the eyes I ever locked into the padlock to my soul never reaching further inside myself, and it all spilled into the wind. Strange souls will fill my veins again.
Don't spoil your pretty white oxfords, stepping in another girl's guts, whether or not they are lying out, airing on the line, whether they are hashtagged or photographed or sitting in your front seat until sunrise.
Wrap your headscarf carefully tomorrow you won't sleep so drink up that afternoon coffee measuring the leftover grounds into the flowerpot growing the sturdy sunflower--it's growing much much to large for its hole. Replant it in the atmosphere it will permanently jatlag its way into someone else's polluted breath.
Try on the thick-framed glasses, just the right wingspan for the green tunnels which captured the giddy finch. Your nightingale. Entice it with mockingbird songs swaying hips and ice cold fingers stroking his feathers knowing a single peck will turn him into a man, if you dare.
I'm kind of proud of it, even though I know it would need a lot of work. But it's a new form for me.
I believe in the good things coming.doc
