Offerings to Mud Puddles

Gonna try to follow the official prompts again, here: https://www.napowrimo.net/

Past NaPo years:

Spoiler

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

1.

under the raking light of dawn

a new texture is revealed the city
takes on new dimension
diamond-studded asphalt a chill

waters my sleep-soaked eyes turning
its sparkles to prismatic beams
it is april again trees stretch into

the oblique rays that lay their weightless
bodies over everything i see
the streets the sky the stoplights as

if printed in imperfect stereograph
here the crocuses and daffodils strike
nearly the same corners the clouds

are almost as they were the world
a faulty mirror of too much counting down
the days until the illusion is complete

until your absence is shown

in both images

2.

to the moon, after storming off the bus and walking around town for an hour

only the frogs can pull me out of it
and even their midnight songs are love songs
so my feet keep pulling me further, away,
but not forward, not with direction,
just along the sidewalk as if by coincidence

the branches of a tree dark as the sky
are lit in threads by the streetlight above
and as I move, the light jumps from twig
to twig. i imagine i am stepping through
a spiderweb ghostwise, leaving nothing broken

it’s as if i don’t exist to anyone but the dog
forgotten on the lawn and barked by every shadow

my face is still a mess and i feel
so awful i even start to hate you,
your hangnail low, dull and dim as reproach

i stare instead at the bright LED lamp outside
the self-storage facility. the shade is broken
but it’s still too cold for bugs. i am the only one
who sees its suffering and loneliness

as you cloak yourself in cloud to make love to the stars
i say good riddance to that dusty rock
who never kept her promises
or ever loved me back

3.

Why I am not a horse caretaker

because they are god's perfect weapons made of crystal and dung
because i would eat all the sugar cubes
because their marble eyes would roll across my face and read that i am not made of grit and guts
because they would have no respect for me
because i am afraid of being truly free and that is what a horse stands for
because i think it's cosmically cruel that the symbol of freedom must live in a cage even if i agree with it on a practical level
because I'd rather be a horse rustler than a wrangler
because the flies make me nervous and sad
because horses know their lineage better than i know mine
because their names are things like thunder or devil or victory
because their sweat is foam
because they were born from the crests of the waves
because they have whole latitudes named for them
and constellations and years
and cars and football teams and what do i have?
a fear of horses, an english degree, and a pen.

4.

Spoiler

[removed for submission]

5.

Tonight

Tonight I will drive home after seeing the people I love and I will turn off on the road that takes me through the wheat fields, where the sun dips low and red, and I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not dwell in my loneliness. I will dwell in beauty. I will not let my bones grow cold and bitter. Tonight, I will let the wash of stars sweep over my head, I will tell the moon I'm sorry for the things I said. I will not get angry. Not tonight.

6.

Cilantro

I don’t know if it tastes like soap, but I feel cleaner for eating it.
My mouth tastes like a bright green garden, with rain or hose water
dripping from leaves. My childhood vegetable garden wasn’t mine
but my mother’s. I helped water and dig. I watched the tomatoes
grow tall and blush in the same way I did. The smell of their leaves,
like something warmer than dirt, is in the taste. Is that soapy?
Is the memory of the squishy white swirl of grubs a pleasant taste?
I don’t taste the raspberries, sweet as they were, but I can feel
the prick of their thorns. Notes of the shortleaf pine’s sap or
the tulip tree’s smooth and vegetal leaves. But there’s nothing
from the magnolia, the lily of the valley, or the bleeding hearts.
The few grape hyacinth—almost a weed where I live now—
that my mother prized, but which I would gently crush
to feel the sticky liquid and smell the herbal scent left on my skin,
yes, the grape hyacinth may be there, but not the tulip. Yes, the worms,
always the worms, the dust, the mulch, the gravel, the grass.
It’s all here, in my mouth. What does that say about my genetics?

7.

I could be Paul Klee's Fish Magic

Spoiler

I’m always peering around corners
with an impish grin and I’m not even joking,
ask my roommate. Ask her how many drawings
of fish I have hung up on the walls of our apartment
and she won’t be able to tell you the correct number
because she doesn’t know about the 25 I’ve hung
in my bedroom, and that’s not an exaggeration, I counted.

Some days the fish are all I need to be happy. Some days
I am the fish. Some days my eyes are wide and unblinking.
I used to think fish were boring. I don’t know when or why
I started loving them. Just like I don’t know when or why
I started loving clowns, which is a question my roommate
asked me literally two days ago. I have 18 clown paintings
hung on my wall, all clustered together into an extravaganza
of diamonds, stripes, ruffles, and funny hats of every color.
Some are happy but most are sad because I painted them that way.
None of them are scary. The pictures in my bedroom that aren’t fish
or clowns are mostly landscapes, flowers, or monsters. But there's bugs
and decaying rats and clockwork birds too. My window frames
the moon. I sit in the dark, both a man and a woman, and feel like a flower.
According to the internet, 90% of flowers are bisexual, meaning
they have both stamens and pistils. This is also called "perfect."

My roommate and I joke that I have the perfect body because
I never get headaches or nosebleeds or seasonal allergies or
things like that. I'm not in pain. I’ve dreamed a tornado, a senseless
clock, I’ve cloaked myself in cloth. I’m down in the corner and floating
in air. I’m telling you, Klee somehow painted a picture of me from every angle.
This is all true. Ask my roommate. Ask anyone who knows me.

8.

Extinction Blues (a ghazal)

I tell you, as I soften in the sun my dear friends,
the bugs and moss can become dear friends.

Overshadowed by white pines, I snap a branch,
and six mule deer all run, my deer friends.

In a rushing stream, a snail clings to a rock. Where
will you rest when your work is done, my dear friend?

I read another headline. More senseless death.
I’ve always sworn: I’ll never touch a gun. My poor friends…

At midnight, I know bats fly above me. The stars
wink in a line, one by one, my dear friends.

I marvel at the treasures of the world: frogsong,
kindness, silver that a spider spun, and my dear friends.

I see the ocean and know a foreign world welcomes
me home. I’ll meet a ton of new dear friends.

Even the croaking call of the Rook, if you listen
with wonder, can amaze and stun, my dear friends!