PAD Challenge Day 21: From a Dark Place

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NapoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "________ Me," and (2) write a poem using lines with a "repetitive setup." (I believe the term for it is "anaphora.") One example Maureen of NaPoWriMo gave was an anonymous rhyme called "There Was a Man of Double Deed" which takes an unusual, unexpected dark turn toward the end, a sort of inevitable progression. She also gave an example of an ekphrastic poem she wrote about a "bucket of owls" which gets surreal and darkly humorous. 

All this is turn put me in a rather dark frame of mind, but on a more serious and timely note. Ever write a poem that haunts you? The one I wrote today did. I was so disturbed by it myself that I almost didn't post it, but I felt compelled to put it out in the world. It's far from the best poem I've written this month, but it's easily the darkest. And it's a story that seems to be told over and over these days, unfortunately. So for your consideration, this persona poem.

Don't Take Me
 
They beat me, my parents,
They bullied me, my classmates,
They failed me, my teachers,
They fired me, my employers,
They deprived me, those others,
They mocked me, those enemies,
They embraced me, those new friends,
They empowered me, my brothers,
They told me the problem,
They gave me a mission,
They gave me the targets,
They gave me a gun.
I went on a vendetta,
I went for revenge,
I went on a rampage,
I went for them all.
Now time has run out,
Now I'm trapped in a corner,
Now I'm shooting at cops,
Now I'm desperately saying,
Don't hold back,
Don't spare me,

Don't talk me out,
Don't take me alive.

PAD Challenge Bonus: A Golden Shovel for Big Bird

 Here's a "bonus" poem I wrote earlier this month. It wasn't in response to either of the prompts that I usually follow daily, but to one I saw in the New York Times, who invited readers to write a "golden shovel" poem and submit it to them for possible publication. A "golden shovel" is an invention of poet Terrance Hayes, based on Gwendolyn Brooks' famous short poem "We Real Cool":

We Real Cool

by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Pool Players.
        Seven at the Golden Shovel.

            We real cool. We   

            Left school. We

            Lurk late. We

            Strike straight. We

            Sing sin. We   

            Thin gin. We

            Jazz June. We   

            Die soon.

    Hayes took each word from Brooks' poem and used them as the end words of each line of a new poem (actually a two-part poem - he repeated the process for the second part.) He called the poem (and the creation) "Golden Shovel," after the subtitle of the poem. It caught on as a new form, and here we are. (You can read it here.) A "golden shovel" doesn't have to use every word of a poem, especially if it's not a short one - a line or two will do. And acknowledgement of the original source is expected, of course. Instead of a poem, the Times invited readers to write a golden shovel based on one of their recent headlines. I didn't submit this to their contest, but I had some fun with it, so I'm sharing it here.

Up on the Met Roof, an Artist Is Taking Big Bird to New Heights
-New York Times Online, April 2, 2021
 
Look up,
look way, way up on
top of the building, to find the
yellow hero, feathered, whom you've met
a hundred times on TV. His huge roof-
top nest could fit your couch. He's an
icon, an eight-foot friend, artist
of kindness, with a BFF who is
a kind of mastodon. We're taking
pictures of him as he looks down with his big
beaky smile, this overgrown canary, this bird
on a wire, keeping us warm and fuzzy enough to
think it will all be okay, that tomorrow is a new
day, that anyone can fly to their ultimate heights. 

PAD Challenge Day 20: Dinner by the TV

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "love/anti-love" poem, and (2) write a "sijo." A sijo is a Korean short poetic form of three lines, but longer than a haiku, with a slightly more complex structure:

·    Sijo are written in three lines, each averaging 14-16 syllables for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line is written in four groups of syllables that should be clearly differentiated from the other groups, yet still flow together as a single line... 

The first line is usually written in a 3-4-4-4 grouping pattern and states the theme of the poem, where a situation is generally introduced.

The second line is usually written in a 3-4-4-4 pattern (similar to the first) and is an elaboration of the first line's theme or situation (development).

The third line is divided into two sections. The first section, the counter-theme, is grouped as 3-5, while the second part, considered the conclusion of the poem, is written as 4-3. The counter-theme is called the 'twist,' which is usually a surprise in meaning, sound, or other device.

Here is my sijo for today. I guess you can say it subtly fits the first prompt because it's about the love of an older couple in a nightly routine formed after the kids are gone.

Evening News
 
Every night we set up trays and eat dinner by the TV.
I bring in the silverware, you carry plates with our entrees.

Once our news came from the children; now our table is empty.

I wrote a sijo several years ago that was a runner-up in one of Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides Form Challenges for Writers Digest, and it appeared in an issue of the magazine. Here it is:

Solution Unknown

Pencil sharp, I tackle them--crossword puzzles, devilish grids,
squares to fill with many words, intersecting. Yet you remain
an enigma. I write, then erase. No words I know can solve you.

PAD Challenge Day 19: Bonus - The "Wright Brothers Moment"

 

Ingenuity

a little copter

lifts ten feet into the air

the thin Martian air

PAD Challenge Day 19: A Menagerie of Three Poems

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem about an animal (with the animal in the title), and (2) Write a humorous "rant" poem. I decided to have some fun with this, and actually produced three poems today. The last one was inspired by Robert's example of an animal title, "Beside the White Chickens":

Tiny Dog
 
in my neighbor's yard,
not much bigger than a rat,
you test my love of canines.
That high-pitched squeak
you call a bark
half-an-octave above high C
makes nails against a chalkboard
sound like a lullaby.
You use it constantly -
whenever a human or dog
or any other living thing goes by,
when you see your own shadow,
when you're happy, excited, upset,
sad, hungry, bored, jealous -
it pierces the neighborhood air
like a siren every time,
day or night,
and God forgive me,
I want to punt you into next week,
but that would only give me relief
till Tuesday or so.

It's a Zoo Out There

 It's a dog-eat-dog world... and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear.
- Norm Peterson on Cheers
 
Just take a gander
at all the fat cats
who get the lion's share,
and the politicians
like foxes in the henhouse.
It really gets my goat
when they monkey around.
I'd like to see them eat crow
when the chickens come home to roost.
 
Sometimes I feel
like a deer in the headlights
and the wolf's at the door.
I'm poor as a church mouse,
but I won't go to a loan shark,
and this won't be my swan song.

I need to address the elephant in the room
and get my ducks in a row.
No more playing whack-a-mole,
and no backing the wrong horse.
The world could be my oyster
if I take the bull by the horns,
get busy as a bee
and loaded for bear,
then I'll be happy as a pig in mud
till the cows come home.

White Chickens (Red Wheelbarrow Part 2)
 
beside the white
chickens
 
a gray coop
leaking
 
holding nests
of eggs
 
on which we all
depend
 
 
 
 

PAD Challenge Day 18: Head Like a Squash

 Today's prompt from Write Better Poetry is to write an ekphrastic poem (one inspired by a work of art). The NaPoWriMo prompt is a little unusual: Take the title of one of the uniquely-named chapters of a poetry writing craft book by Susan Goldsmith Woodbridge called Poemcrazy. They can be viewed on Amazon.com under the "Look Inside" feature, and there are some quirky chapter titles like "grocery weeping," "the blue socks," "naming wild hippo," and "I dress myself with rain." I chose the most intriguing of all to me, "the answer squash," and Googled "squash art." I came up with a fascinating art installation at the Tate Gallery in London by Anthea Hamilton, where models wander around in a huge tiled room, wearing outlandish fashions, and masks that look like huge pear-shaped squashes. The exhibit is called "The Squash."  (It reminds me of a saying from my wife's Italian side of the family: "You have a head like a gagootz!", or just plain, "Gagootz!" It means you're dumb - a head like a squash.  Cucuzza is an Italian variety of squash, and in dialectic slang it became "gagootz.")

You can find more information on Hamilton's installation here, It's a kid's site but it has good information and lots of photos. Here's  a sample:

And here is my brief poem:

The Answer Squash

I climbed the many stairs to the temple
and there found the oracle in repose,
 
resplendent in white and gold,
reclining in a huge tiled atrium.
 
But her head was an enormous squash
so I forgot my question.

PAD Challenge Day 17: Happy Haiku Day!

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NapoWriMo: (1) Write a "waiting" poem, and (2) write a poem about the moon. Two pretty basic prompts today - NaPoWriMo offers theirs almost apologetically, because so many poems have been written about the moon. I've written several in my poetic career that are directly about the moon, and probably dozens in which the moon at least makes an appearance. 

I'm surprised though, that neither blog mentioned that today is International Haiku Poetry Day, being the 17th day of National Poetry Month and all. (As in 17 syllables in a haiku, get it?) So I decided to write a haiku about waiting and the moon. Actually, it turned into a tanka:

owl waits patiently
perched in the tall cedar tree -
hoo hooo... hoohoo hooo....
 
mouse darts under a full moon
bright enough to cast shadows

And just as a bonus, here's a moon poem of mine that was published in Writer's Journal and Mad Poets Review way back in 2002. (Writer's Journal awarded it second prize in a poetry contest.)

Li Po
 
That night in the drunken boat,
or so the story goes,
you leaned up and out
 
to embrace your lover the moon,
and with that reach
that exceeded your grasp
 
fell into dark waters,
breaking your lover’s sister
to a hundred flashing pieces.
 
And as she re-assembled
on the black-glass surface
to smile at her twin above
 
you were already gone,
your legacy bubbling
back to the world.