PAD: The Month in Review

Another April, another Poem-a-day Challenge, is history. Overall, I was fairly satisfied with the poetry I wrote this past month - a total of 37, including the haiku and the one-word minimalist poem I wrote on the 30th. In addition to those, there were two sonnets, a villanelle, a triolet, a double tanka, and abecedarian, a blank verse, a monorhyme verse, a prose poem, a bunch of free verse, and no less than three take-offs on Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of :Looking at a Blackbird". I wrote 638 lines of poetry, an average of about 21 a day. As I usually do, I've assembled some of my favorites of the month here, for those of you with neither the time nor energy to scroll through thirty days worth of blog entries. So here are my highlights, with reference to the prompts that inspired them: PA = Poetic Asides; NP = NaPoWriMo.


[Day 9: PA - "Love' and/or "anti-love"; NP - a list poem (inspired by the lists of The Pillow Book by the medieval Japanese writer Sei Shōnagon); plus word bank from The Sunday Whirl]

[poem deleted]

[Day 11: PA - a "dedication" poem]

[poem deleted]

[Day 12: PA - a poem entitled "The Art of ______"; NP - a poem about a dull thing you own, and why you love it.]

[poem deleted]

[Day 17: PA - a "reason" poem; NP - a poem that presents a scene from an unusual point of view.]

Thirteen Reasons You Should Look at Us Blackbirds

1. Because we are ominous,

    like crows and ravens,

    though we don't say "Nevermore."

   

2.  Because we weren't in that playground scene

     in The Birds (those were crows),

     but we could have been.

3. Because we don't guard the Tower of London

    (those are ravens),

    but we could.

4. Because in the colorful pageant of nature,

    our darkness is our brightness.

5. Because we can be striking.

    like our red-winged cousins,

    with sergeant stripes on their shoulders.

6. Because you shouldn't confuse us with starlings.

    They think they're pretty,

    but they look like oil slicks.

7. Because a group of us is a cloud,

    or a cluster, or a merl,

    not a "murder" like those dodgy crows.

8. Because when we swarm in the air,

    it's like a plotted equation

    performing a ballet.

    It's called a murmuration,

    and oh, it's a sight to see.

9. Because Paul McCartney liked us

    singing in the dead of night.

10. Because when we sit on a snowy branch

       it is a haiku.

11. Because four and twenty of us

      can be baked in a pie. (Oh, wait...)

12. Because you can pack up all your cares and woes

      and tell us bye-bye.

13. Because Wallace Stevens said so.

[Day 18: PA - a poem titled "Little ______"; NP - an elegy.]

[poem deleted]

[Day 19: PA - a "license" poem; NP - an abecedarian.]

Zero Tolerance

You

xenophobic

wall-building

violence-inciting

unrepentant

tyrant,

systematically

revoking

quintessential

policies,

ostracizing the "other",

normalizing

mendacity with a

license to

kill dreams,

justifying

immigrants

housed in cages,

glorifying

family separation,

egregiously

direct our

country

backward, like

an alphabet in reverse.

[Day 20: PA - a "dark" poem, NP - "write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life." ]

[poem deleted]

[Day 22: PA - a "correspondence" poem; NP - a poem that engages with another art form.]

To a Young Musician

Dear Student,

I sit in the next room during your lesson

trying to come up with a poem

while you and your teacher distract me

with a flute duet by Kuhlau.

The two disciplines seem to clash -

your weaving arpeggios slide up against

my thumping iambics, till finally I give up

and let the music seduce me. I sink into

the couch's soft cushions, my notebook

lies open on my lap, my hand

relaxes and drops my pen to the floor.

There will be no poem this evening,

but I am still nourished, not from

the satisfaction of cobbling words together,

but from notes already composed,

perfectly read, and swirling in from the study

on a spring breeze. Thank you for the respite.

Thank you for your exquisite art.

Yours,

An Admirer

[Day 24: PA - a poem titled "Complete ______"; NP -  "Locate a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day."]

Complete Guide to Page 427 of the Dictionary

What a flavourful, flawless fleet of entries,

fleshed out for the flexible mind.

For instance, "fleur-de-lis" is a stylized iris,

though the word derives from the French for "lily".
Fire consumed the Notre Dame spire, called a "flèche".

You "flay" the flesh off a person's back,

but you "flense" the skin off a whale,

and of course you "fleece" a sheep.

And I finally found the name for those

silly folded diamonds with messages

we fashioned as kids, that we called

fortune tellers. They're a form of "flexagon".

"F layer" is the top of the ionosphere.

"Fleishig" means made of meat in Yiddish.

And it's obvious that a Fleming speaks Flemish.

Fleas, mere flecks of insects, flit around here,

as in fleabag, fleabitten, flea collar, flea market.

And I learned everything I need to know about flax,

except why folks eat the seeds.

I knew a "fletcher" is an arrow-maker,

but I didn't know that a fledgling could be fledged

before it flew. And by the way, "flews"

are the flappy upper lips of a bloodhound.

Okay, enough. I feel a need to flee this page 

before you all fleer at me. (Look it up.)

[Day 26: PA - an "evening" poem; NP - a poem that uses repetition.]

Serenade

The colors shift red to blue, clouds form this evening;

it's in the bones - likely it will storm this evening.

Like damp laundry, humid air hangs on all of us;

even fans can't save us, it's so warm this evening.

Verandas, open porches may give some relief,

but the bugs revel - mosquitoes swarm this evening.

With distant rumble, lightning flashes cloud-to-cloud;

our cold drinks sweat, waiting to transform this evening.

And I, the sly guitarist, neatly tune my strings.

Damn the heat, my love - I will perform this evening.

Some other poems that get "honorable mention" and you may want to check out: 

The Worst (Day 2)

Frida Kahlo (con Collar de Espinas) (Day 4)

Thief of Time (Day 5)

Giving (Day 7)

Origin Juice (Day 11)

Six More Weeks of Zombies (Day 13)

State of Confusion (Day 14)

Like, Sonnet 18 (Day 27)

PAD Day 30: Made it Again!

Yup, today's the last day of the Poem-a-day Challenge. The final dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "stop" and/or "don't stop" poem, and (2) write a "minimalist" poem. After spending a lot of time composing poems especially in the last three days, I appreciate the break that Maureen offers in suggesting a very short poem. She linked to a very interesting essay on the history of minimalist poetry, which you can find here. An extreme example of minimalist poem is one the article cites, written by Adam Saroyan (son of author William Saroyan), considered by some the shortest "poem" ever written: the letter "m" with an extra "hump". (I remember reading Saroyan's work in college.) I thought that I could actually do something minimalist with Robert's Poetic Asides "stop/don't stop" prompt, using a single word:


                                                                        STOP,


...but I won't count that one. Actually, the shortest poem I ever wrote was probably this haiku, published in the online journal tinywords:


dandelions
all over
again


So I'll go with haiku today, and use the more "minimalist" 3-5-3 "American" model for this one:


birdsong stops
for the approaching
thunderstorm


I'll be back soon to summarize my month. Thanks for reading!

PAD Day 29: On Grandparenting, and Happy Belated Brithday to Me

Two poems today!  The prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo are (1) Write a poem entitled "_____ Again", and (2) write a "meditation" poem; that is, in Maureen Thorson's words, "a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully." I'm not sure how successful I was with the latter prompt, but here's what came out of it:

Attempted Meditation While Parenting Again

I really don't have time for reflection -

One has a poopy diaper,

the other has alphabet homework.

I 'm not sure where I expected

to be at this juncture of my life,

but raising kids again wasn't part

of the plan. Yet, I still seem to do okay

despite some stress, those moments

when patience is thin and time is thinner. 

I know it's not twenty-four-seven,

this grand-parenting, but for me it's at least

eleven-four. Don't get me wrong -

I love them dearly, and as "Pop-pop"

I have license to spoil. But I still have

regrets for mistakes I made when I raised

my own, like the times I lost my temper.

Did they turn out fine because of me

or in spite of me? Maybe a little of both.

Yet somehow they trust me with theirs,

and for that I am grateful.

Besides, that's what family are supposed to do -

take care of each other.

My wife's parents helped watch over our boys,

and my sisters and I took shelter and guidance

with our grandparents too.

Another afternoon. I put them both in for a nap,

those two beautiful granddaughters,

ornery and loveable, smart and willful.

I am exhausted, but instead of taking a catnap

myself on the couch, I clean up toys, do the dishes,

put in some laundry, and write this poem.

Almost every year during Poetry Month I've written a poem for my birthday, on my birthday (the 27th) but this year I missed it, having caught myself up in writing two sonnets that day. So here is my belated birthday present to myself. I guess it's a meditation too, in its own way.

17 Again

This is my fourth 17th birthday,

and each one has been radically different.

                        

My first seventeen, I was a skinny dork,

pegged as a "smart kid", getting a driver's license,

trying to figure out girls,

and the Beatles sang "Hey Jude".

My second seventeen, I was a dad twice over,

with a third on the way,

and a civil service career in full swing,

Everybody and their brother

wanted to help Africa, so they sang

 "We Are the World".

My third seventeen, I was starting to feel

the effects of job burnout, had a fourth

soon-to-be-son in our home, and had just

navigated some marital speed bumps.

9/11 was still fresh in my mind

when Springsteen sang "The Rising".

Now on my fourth seventeen, I'm hardly

winding down, retired but busier than ever,

with two grandchildren in my weekday charge,

four grown kids of my own, a wife

who's stuck with me for the duration,

and everyone still wails on American Idol.

If I get to my next seventeen,

it will be a doozy,

and so will the soundtrack.

PAD Day 28: Meta-poetry Remix

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "remix" poem, and (2) write a "meta-poem".  Yeah, I just had a "remix" prompt yesterday from NaPoWriMo, but instead of remixing a Shakespeare sonnet, I'm supposed to do a remix of my own poetry. A "meta-poem" is a poem about poetry or the process of writing poetry, a poem that is "self-aware", as it were. A similar term for this is "ars poetica". I've written a number of these over the years, and at least a couple I've written this month allude to writing poetry. I thought an easy but effective way to write a "meta-poem remix" would be to employ the "13 Reasons" framework again, even though I've done it twice already this month. So here goes. (After the poem, I list each section and the Day Number of the poem(s) I excerpted for each one. I did some minor editing and addition, but for the most part the lines are as they appeared in the other poems.)

13 Reasons Why We Write Poetry

1. Because of a broken wind chime,

a robin with a broken wing. 

2.  Because the apple holds the world

and the world holds the apple. 

3. Because of words -

we smelt them and grind them down. 

4. Because we like a flavorful, flawless fleet of words

fleshed out for the flexible mind.

5. Because even if there will be no poem this evening,

words still percolate up through the muck and clay. 

6. Because we write despite the fact

that words come harder now,

like an alphabet in reverse.  

7. Because of our miscellaneous pages

released into the wind. 

8. Because you the sly guitarist

neatly tune your strings,

and your weaving arpeggios slide up

against our thumping iambics. 

9. Because we are ominous,

and our darkness is our brightness. 

10. Because we stole a moment, then stole two -

but we promised they'd come back to you. 

11. Because we try in vain

to contain our unbridled joy. 

12. Because we live on in verse -

we've got it made. 

13. Because what's the worst that could happen -

indeed, what's the worst? 

[Poem sources:

1. Day 9

2. Day 21

3. Day 6

4. Day 24

5. Days 22 and 10

6. Days 12 and 19

7. Day 16

8. Days 26 and 22

9. Day 17

10. Day 5

11. Day 11

12. Day 27

13. Day 2]

PAD Day 27: Props to Will S.

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWruMo: (1) Write a poem whose title is a direction, such as "East", "South by Southwest", "Into the Woods", etc., and (2) write a "Shakespeare sonnet remix". As Maureen describes it: "You can pick a line you like and use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a “word bank” out of a sonnet, and try to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem. Or you could try to write a new poem that expresses the same idea as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, like 'hey baby, this poem will make you immortal' (Sonnet XVIII) or 'I’m really bad at saying I love you but maybe if I look at you adoringly, you’ll understand what I mean' (Sonnet XXIII)." I only realized when I was most of the way through my rewrite of Sonnet 18 that it was one of the examples that Maureen cited here. I also realize that there's a lot of mixed vernacular in here - I doubt most millennials, for instance, really talk this way. But oh well, I had fun with it


Sonnet 18

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Like, Sonnet 18

(props to Will S.)

What's up with you and summer, anyway?

Okay, you're prettier, but not as hot:

You know, the wind will blow the blooms away,

And summer's three months long - that's all it's got.

And man, that sun is brutal in July,

Except when it gets dimmed behind a haze,

And pretty stuff gets tarnished, by and by,

By bad luck or by nature's aging rays.

But babe, to me your summer is forever,

Your foxiness, I think, will never fade,

And when Death comes you'll answer, "Like, whatever,"

'Cuz you live on in verse; you've got it made.

      So long as geezers wheeze and peepers peek,

      So long this poem makes you look on fleek.


The other thing I did for the "Shakespeare remix" was to make a wordbank, based on Sonnet 29 ("When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes..."). I took one word from each line of that sonnet and made it my word bank to create a new sonnet. The fourteen words were fortune, outcast, deaf, curse, rich, possessed, art, enjoy, thoughts, state, lark, earth, sweet, and kings. (I also, more or less coincidentally, used "heaven" and "desire", both of which also appear in the sonnet.) What I came up is a bit of a screed against the "One Percent". (The title satisfies the Poetic Asides prompt):

Toward Heaven

O, all you kings and all you would-be kings,

Who horde your fortunes like you were obsessed,

Deaf to the world, the desperate state of things,

Who on a lark count what you have possessed,

Who enjoy art for its appraisal price,

Who see the earth as something sweet to plunder,

Whose starving masses you don't think of twice,

Now turn your thoughts toward Heaven - do you wonder

how hard it just might be to get you in,

Your avarice no blessing, but a curse?

While being rich itself is not a sin,

Your selfishness made your position worse.

Embrace philanthropy as your desire

Or you'll be outcasts, twisting in the fire.

PAD Day 26: A Ghazal Serenade

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write an "evening" poem, and (2) write a poem that uses repetition. I thought immediately of using a poetic form based on repetition. There are a lot, especially the French forms, but I decided to go with the ancient Middle Eastern form of the ghazal.

Serenade

The colors shift red to blue, clouds form this evening;

it's in the bones - likely it will storm this evening.

Like damp laundry, humid air hangs on all of us;

even fans can't save us, it's so warm this evening.

Verandas, open porches may give some relief,

but the bugs revel - mosquitoes swarm this evening.

With distant rumble, lightning flashes cloud-to-cloud;

our cold drinks sweat, waiting to transform this evening.

And I, the sly guitarist, neatly tune my strings.

Damn the heat, my love - I will perform this evening.

PAD Day 25: An Honor, and a Dog's-eye View

First things first: Thanks to Maureen Thorson of the NaPoWriMo blog for featuring my blog post from yesterday (with my poem "Complete Guide to Page 427 of the Dictionary") on her site. It's an honor to be singled out - I guess my poem really amused her. 

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write an "exile" poem, and (2) write a poem about a season or seasons, using all five senses and a rhetorical question. Here's one from a dog's point of view.

Exile

Banished to the back yard

for the crime of taking a steak

from the kitchen counter,

I'm literally in the doghouse,

limited by a leash. It's spring, though,

so I don't mind so much,

though the smells drive me crazy -

squirrel and rabbit mixed with bird.

I want to find them all, but in restraints,

I have a limited radius. Why can't they

just trust me to stay in the yard?

I hear the neighbor's dog whine plaintively -

I wonder what he did -

and I see that roaming tabby cat

trotting through the garden.

I bark and strain at the end of the leash

but she ignores me, as usual.

There are some flowers in the grass here,

the kind my master always kills.

I nibble at them - yuck, bitter.

No wonder he doesn't want them.

I slurp some water from the bowl

to get the taste out of my mouth.

It's not so bad out here, really.

A warm breeze tousles my fur,

and I lie down to doze in the cool shade

until they let me in for dinner.

PAD Day 24: Getting Wordy

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem titled "Complete ______", and (2) "Locate a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day."
I used one page of a dictionary rather than two: page 427 of Webster's II New Collegiate Dictionary (2001), Why page 427? Because that's my birthday (later this week, by the way). I took the prompt rather literally, I guess, focusing more on the entries and the word meanings instead of going on a true creative tangent, but I did have fun with the alliteration, wordplay, and little revelations from reading the page, which went from "flavourful" to "flexible". (The poem contains 29 words or forms of words that appear on that page, not to mention a bunch of other "f-words".)

Complete Guide to Page 427 of the Dictionary

What a flavourful, flawless fleet of entries,

fleshed out for the flexible mind.

For instance, "fleur-de-lis" is a stylized iris,

though the word derives from the French for "lily". 
Fire consumed the Notre Dame spire, called a "flèche".

You "flay" the flesh off a person's back,

but you "flense" the skin off a whale,

and of course you "fleece" a sheep.

And I finally found the name for those

silly folded diamonds with messages

we fashioned as kids, that we called

fortune tellers. They're a form of "flexagon".

"F layer" is the top of the ionosphere.

"Fleishig" means made of meat in Yiddish.

And it's obvious that a Fleming speaks Flemish.

Fleas, mere flecks of insects, flit around here,

as in fleabag, fleabitten, flea collar, flea market.

And I learned everything I need to know about flax,

except why folks eat the seeds.

I knew a "fletcher" is an arrow-maker,

but I didn't know that a fledgling could be fledged

before it flew. And by the way, "flews"

are the flappy upper lips of a bloodhound.

Okay, enough. I feel a need to flee this page 
before you all fleer at me. (Look it up.)

PAD Day 23: Free as a Bird

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "free" and/or "unfree" poem, and (2) write a poem about an animal. This is actually the second "animal" prompt of the month.(Poetic Asides had one earlier.) I've been struggling for inspiration the last couple of days, even with the prompts, so I decided to kick it up a notch and added a third prompt to get the creative juices flowing, by using the Sunday Whirl word bank for this week. The words were shack, ridge, power, spring, glass, tree, park, spray, wings, sight, limit, and salt. All twelve are in this poem, which may not be my best or most original of the month, but hey, it's a poem.

Cardinal

Here in my tiny shack on the ridge

I'm free of the power grid,

the sun and wind my providers.

A late snow has dusted everything

this spring morning, and as I look

through the glass over my kitchen sink,

I spy a cardinal in a nearby pine tree,

parked on a snow-covered branch.

I've just begun to appreciate

his red swatch of plumage against

the green and white, when he takes off,

spraying snow from the bough, his wings

flapping furiously as he soars out of sight.

I've found a kind of freedom here,

but even this life has its limits, while he,

like any wild creature worth its salt,

has none. Fly, brother. Fly.

PAD Day 22: Sonata for Distracted Poet

Today's dual prompts form Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "correspondence" poem, and (2) write apoem that engages with another art form. After struggling all day to find some inspiration, I finally came up with this, ironically, while trying to write during a music lesson. This is for my favorite flute student - you know who you are.

To a Young Musician

Dear Student,

I sit in the next room during your lesson

trying to come up with a poem

while you and your teacher distract me

with a flute duet by Kuhlau.

The two disciplines seem to clash -

your weaving arpeggios slide up against

my thumping iambics, till finally I give up

and let the music seduce me. I sink into

the couch's soft cushions, my notebook

lies open on my lap, my hand

relaxes and drops my pen to the floor.

There will be no poem this evening,

but I am still nourished, not from

the satisfaction of cobbling words together,

but from notes already composed,

perfectly read, and swirling in from the study

on a spring breeze. Thank you for the respite.

Thank you for your exquisite art.

Yours,

An Admirer

PAD Day 21: A Cosmic Sketch

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "sketch" poem, and (2) write a poem that incorporates wild, surreal images. The key words "sketch" and "surreal" triggered a reminder of one of my favorite songs, "Spinning Away" by Brian Eno and John Cale, which begins as a scene of an artist drawing on a hilltop as night begins to fall, and evolves into a surreal or impressionistic description. Musically and lyrically, it's just a gorgeous song. You can hear it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-INeMspNSQ0

I used a line from the song as an epigraph, and I spun off from it with my own interpretation: I always imagined the singer floating off and spinning into space. If I were an animator, I would have loved to make a video of the song with that theme. Anyway, here's my slightly surreal take on "Spinning Away":

The Artist Celestial

With every single line moving further out in time...

Brian Eno and John Cale, Spinning Away

Sketching the world from a hilltop,

I am the scribe for the end of the day,

but as dark encroaches I cannot tell

where my hand ends and the line begins,

where the stars end and the sky begins,

and the sky pulls me up and out

and stretches me to a sketched-out line

as I watch myself on a hilltop

watching myself in the sky

and the panorama grows, pulling back

and the world holds the apple

and the apple holds the world

and the moon rolls round its orbit like a pinball

and the line pulls me out into a cosmic string

drawing on, and I tumble past the planets,

and my hand becomes a comet streaking

through the gases of the stars,

and I dissipate into cosmic dust, and

the galaxy pinwheels back to the beginning

when everything exploded from nothing

and my hand and my pencil draw it all again.

PAD Day 20: The Darth Side

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem about "dark", and (2) "write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life." I must admit I "stole" the idea for this poem from Poetic Asides host Robert Lee Brewer, who gave as an example of a "dark" subject the fact that when he was a kid he thought Darth Vader's name  was "Dark Vader". I was too old to make that mistake, one that still makes a certain logical sense (there's a word for that: "eggcorn"). So I did a sort-of stream-of-consciousness conversation between a dad and a young son - one I could have had with one of my own kids - kind of in the style of the poem by Diane Seuss, which NaPoWriMo's Maureen Thorson used as an example for her prompt. Okay, too much talking. Poem:

"after seeing Star Wars"

after seeing Star Wars he says why is Dark Vader so bad and

I say you mean Darth Vader no he insists it's DARK Vader and

his young pink brain can be so set sometimes as he explains

he wears that black suit and he's so mean and he went to

the dark side so he's DARK Vader okay okay I concede you can

call him DARK Vader and anyway he says I just heard about

black holes and I'll bet Dark Vader lives in a black hole because

they say it's so black nothing can get out not even light but

I say if he went in he could never come out like a roach motel

what's a roach motel he asks never mind I say but maybe he says

he lives in a cave like Batman they call Batman the Dark Knight

so why can't there be a Dark Vader I can't dispute this flawless

five-year-old logic so I say you've got a point he goes on I'll bet

it's dark in the Batcave like a black hole except Batman can

come back out in his Batmobile why doesn't Dark Vader have
a Darkmobile let's go get ice cream I say 

PAD Day 19: Like an Alphabet in Reverse

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "license" poem, and (2) write an abecedarian (a poem whose lines use the alphabet in order). There are different types of abecedarians - the "classic" one uses just one word per line that starts with each letter in order from A. This one I wrote is a "reverse abecedarian", and the order is part of the theme. Note I didn't adhere strictly to the classic one-word-per-line rule. Again, apologies for getting political (sorry, not sorry):

Zero Tolerance

You

xenophobic

wall-building

violence-inciting

unrepentant

tyrant,

systematically

revoking

quintessential

policies,

ostracizing the "other",

normalizing

mendacity with a

license to

kill dreams,

justifying

immigrants

housed in cages,

glorifying

family separation,

egregiously

direct our

country

backward, like

an alphabet in reverse.

PAD Day 18: For Frances

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem entitled "Little _______", and (2) write an elegy, "one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail." The prompt seemed to beg a short poem today, and since my time is short in preparing for the upcoming holiday weekend, it's a good idea anyway. This triolet was inspired by my late mother-in-law, who was a little woman with a big heart.

Little Elegy

The little things she left behind -

pearl earrings, hand-scrawled recipe -

again I have her on my mind,

the little things. She left behind

some trinkets, but I wish I'd find

her giant heart, her legacy.

The little things she left behind -

pearl earrings, hand-scrawled recipe.


I'm going to post this older poem here, too, because it fits the NaPoWriMo prompt so perfectly.This one won a "Poetic Form" contest several years ago on the Poetic Asides blog, and was published in Writer's Digest. It's a French refrain form called the quatern.  This one, too, was indirectly inspired by the passing of my mother-in-law, but it's in the voice of a grieving husband.

Purple Heart

I gave away your clothes last week.
A truck rolled up and took six bags
to some forsaken warehouse where
they’d be passed on to people who

cannot afford to buy them new.
I gave away your clothes. Last week
I couldn’t stand the closet full
of coats and dresses, hung like ghosts

and so I yanked them off their racks,
stuffed plastic bags with memories
I gave away. Your clothes, last week,
went to a world that never knew

how fine you were, how beautiful

in that red dress, that silken blouse
some stranger walks the street in now.
I gave away your clothes last week.

PAD Day 17: The Blackbirds Reply

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "reason" poem, and (2) write a poem that presents a scene from an unusual point of view. I have written several poems that are parodies or homages to Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" (as have many other poets. I'm sure) - in fact, I just wrote one yesterday. But here's one from the point of view of the blackbirds themselves - not so much a "scene" as a list of opinions and observations.

Thirteen Reasons You Should Look at Us Blackbirds

1. Because we are ominous,

    like crows and ravens,

    though we don't say "Nevermore."

   

2.  Because we weren't in that playground scene

     in The Birds (those were crows),

     but we could have been.

3. Because we don't guard the Tower of London

    (those are ravens),

    but we could.

4. Because in the colorful pageant of nature,

    our darkness is our brightness.

5. Because we can be striking.

    like our red-winged cousins,

    with sergeant stripes on their shoulders.

6. Because you shouldn't confuse us with starlings.

    They think they're pretty,

    but they look like oil slicks.

7. Because a group of us is a cloud,

    or a cluster, or a merl,

    not a "murder" like those dodgy crows.

8. Because when we swarm in the air,

    it's like a plotted equation

    performing a ballet.

    It's called a murmuration,

    and oh, it's a sight to see.

9. Because Paul McCartney liked us

    singing in the dead of night.

10. Because when we sit on a snowy branch

       it is a haiku.

11. Because four and twenty of us

      can be baked in a pie. (Oh, wait...)

12. Because you can pack up all your cares and woes

      and tell us bye-bye.

13. Because Wallace Stevens said so.

PAD Day 16: On Weeding and Clipping

Todays' dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "catch" poem and/or "release" poem, and (2) "write a poem that uses the form of a list to defamiliarize the mundane."  I wrote two today: The first one, which I don't consider entirely successful, takes a mundane object (perhaps too mundane) and dreams up alternative uses for it, some a little strange. I also use the words "catch" and "release" throughout the poem, which is loosely inspired by Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", one of the great "list" poems. The second poem, a two-part tanka, is inspired mainly by the first prompt, although one could argue that the subject is one of the more "mundane" plants in nature.

13 Ways of Using a Binder Clip (Catch and Release)

1.   Press the wire handles,

      the  spring steel triangle opens.

      Snap it shut, like an alligator mouth.

2.   Catch your report,  your tax return,

       your miscellaneous pages.

       Release them into the wind.

3.  Clip some together in a chain,

      a necklace or a choker

      around your pretty neck.

4.   Catch your hair,

       pulled back in a pony- or pigtail.

       Release it; let the tresses fall.

5.   Catch your lip, your eyebrow,

       your earlobe.  Release them -

       much more  painful than a piercing.

6.   Catch your finger, inadvertently.

       Release, and nurse the purple bruise.

7.  Collect a few thousand

      and build a scale model

      of a new office building.

8.   Clip one to your wall calendar.

       Release one month at a time.

9.   Clip some to your cherry tree

      to keep the blossoms on -

      some call them "spring clips".

10. Catch a fish without a hook -

       pull it up by a pinched fin

      and release - it's too small.

11. Set some at the dinner table

       to clip your spaghetti in place.

12. Send some to a space station -

       they are a cure-all

       for weightlessness. 

13.  Catch a cold, catch a bus, catch a baseball.

       A binder clip is of no use

       for any of these.

14. Toss them to random strangers -

       they catch, you release.

In the Yard Galaxy

I.

Dandelions -

little sunbursts catch the sun

on suburban lawns

and later, supernovas -

seed globes released in the wind

II.

Dandelions -

I must catch the yellow stars

invading my lawn

uproot their sunshine before

kids release seeds with their breath

PAD Day 15: The First President on the 45th

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "prediction" poem, and (2) write a "dramatic monologue" poem. I interpreted "dramatic monologue" as a sort of "persona" poem, which I have enjoyed writing a number of times. This one may be more prose than poetry, and the "prediction" comes at the end of this piece. I hope the Father of Our Country hasn't been overly optimistic. (P.S.: I also used a previous word bank from the Sunday Whirl blog, one that was unusually politically loaded for them. The words were refer, sing, liar, public, ugly, try, compromised, proof, guilt, despicable, trump, tyranny.)

Washington on Mt. Vernon and Other Things

I have been told that a man who refers to himself

as one of the greatest presidents of these United States

thinks me foolish for not naming my homestead

or my other properties after myself.

This man never misses a chance to sing

his own praises, and burns his brand

on everything he owns, no matter its merits.

It is ironic that I had a reputation for truth and integrity,

while even his own allies know him for a liar.

I will admit, my public persona was idealized,

but I always believed in the strength of our union,

and I knew it would be stronger if I was not its leader for life.

I fought in a war against oppression,

so in my office I had no desire to embrace a kingship,

unlike the ugly, petty man who holds it now.

But citizens, take heart:  I predict that you will rise

above these trying times and repair all we have built

that he has compromised, and that proof of his guilt

and despicable behavior will be his downfall,

because democracy trumps tyranny every time.

PAD Day 14: Those Wacky Homophones

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem about a state (or territory, region, etc.), and (2) write a poem using homophones, homgraphs, and/or homonyms.
The second prompt was much harder than it seemed, and all I ended up with was this silly little riff on triple homophones (words that sound alike but are spelled differently).  As far as the Poetic Asides prompt goes, well, the title is a bit of a cheat, but I made up for it with a second even shorter poem:

State of Confusion

"I hate triple homophones!" he cries.

"Even two are too confusing to me.

Holy, wholly, holey cow!

They scramble my brain, so

I can't remember whether to sow or sew,

I'll be unable to tell an aisle from an isle

or you from a ewe or a yew.

Aye Eye I! "

She takes a peek at the peak of his pique

and thinks, "He's a heel, but he'll heal."

She pats his hand:

"There, their, they're."

Maine

There's one main thing you should know about Maine:

not one native animal wears a mane.

PAD Day 13: Zombies!

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "view" poem, and (2) write a poem about something spooky or scary. As a fan of both zombies and a certain Bill Murray film (no, not Zombieland, though that's good too), I went in a macabre-humor direction with this silly little piece:

[poem removed]

PAD Day 12: Just an Old T-shirt

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem titled "The Art of ______", and (2) write a poem about a dull thing you own, and why you love it. I wrote two poems today on the subject of this particular object, but this is the longer and more successful of the two, I believe - it's in blank verse.

The Art of Losing

The art of losing isn't hard to master...

                                Elizabeth Bishop

My endless catalog: an errant sock,

a birth certificate, a wedding ring -

some trivial and some significant.

I must be careless or disorganized

to lose track of the precious and banal.

But some things simply fade from memory,

and the opposite is true - I hang on

to those that seem of little worth to me

for fear the fog of age will wipe them out

completely. That's why I wear this T-shirt -

Spring Training at the Phillies, Florida,

just seven years ago - my closest friend

and I, a road trip for St. Patrick's Day.

He left by fall; the cancer took him home.

The letters on the shirt are fading out,

and some flaked off, and one arm has a hole,

but wearing it connects me to that spring,

despite the fact that words come harder now,

just like this shirt - with every wash it gets

more difficult to wear, and yes, to read.