PAD Day 6: Work Wisdom and Whistling

 As I usually do in April, I follow the poetry of, and trade comments and compliments with, my friend Vince Gotera, who earlier this year was named the Poet Laureate of the state of Iowa. I'm very happy that he won this well-deserved title, and you can read some of his excellent poetry on his blog, The Man with the Blue Guitar.

Today's prompts:

WBP: Write a "minimum" poem.

NPWM: "...write a poem rooted in 'weird wisdom,' by which we mean something objectively odd that someone told you once, and that has stuck with you ever since."

PSH: "If you were a tombstone tourist and could visit any burial place or shrine in the world, where would it be? Who would it belong to? Someone famous or obscure? Write a poem about one grave in particular." (Lara Dolphin)

I wasn't able to combine all three prompts, so I wrote two poems. The first is in response to the Poetry Super Highway prompt. The inspiration came from the phrase "whistling past the graveyard," which of course means to act like you are facing your fears when in fact you are barely containing them. I wondered what it might be like to whistle past the grave of someone famous for their whistling, especially a singer or musician. I thought of several songs that famously feature whistling. One that crossed my mind, which I haven't heard in decades, was the UK novelty song "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman" by Whistling Jack Smith. The entire tune is whistled rather than sung. Fortunately for Mr. Smith, he is still very much alive at 78. Then I thought of the middle of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" where he bursts into whistling, and some more recent tunes like "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin (who is still around) and "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn and John (ditto.) But finally I settled on the late great Otis Redding's "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay." I don't know if Otis's gravesite is that high on my bucket list, but I've always admired his music, and created this little fantasy around it:

Whistling Past the Graveyard
 
I was always fascinated by Otis,
who died so young in a plane crash,
just at the height of his fame.
He gave Aretha Respect,
and urged us to try a little tenderness,
but called himself Mr. Pitiful,
and told his girl he’d been loving her too long.
 
I dreamt I walked past his grave in Georgia,
where his father and son were buried too.
It was spookier than I expected,
with barren trees and overgrown weeds,
and I whistled to keep the chill off my spine.
I whistled the closing notes from
the last song we ever heard from him,
“Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,”
a meditative, quiet tune that sounded
like he’d written his own epitaph.
 
Then I thought I heard that whistle echo
back to me, like a call and response,
and the chill came back.
Maybe I should have just sung a sad song,
like Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa….
 

I combined the other two prompts by writing a "minimal" form poem (a double senryu) about a piece of advice a former coworker gave me which I didn't really understand till years later. When you work for the government (or at least the agency that I worked for), it seems more often than not that the only reward you get for competency is more work.

Wisdom
 
My old mentor said,
“Never become competent,”
before she resigned.
 
Now I understand
as I sit on a mountain
of new assignments.

PAD Day 5: Rock n' Roll!

 No, not that rock n' roll, but the kind you feel during an earthquake. Today was a rare occurrence: an earthquake in the Eastern U.S. It was centered in Northern New Jersey so people in that area and nearby New Yotk City probably felt it the most. But it got our attention down here in South Jersey and Philadephia too. It seems that in my vicinity (northern Camden County) whether you felt it depended on where you were. I personally didn't sense anything - I was in my eye doctor's appointment at the time - but several people I know in the area definitely felt it. I only remember actually sensing two earthquakes in my lifetime: one in the middle of the night in 1973 (I was living near a railroad line so I thought it was a passing train); and one in 2011, which was one of the biggest ones ever in the East and affected practically everywhere from Maine to Florida - it even put cracks in the Washington Monument. I was working in my office at the time and remember seeing nearby file cabinets swaying back and forth. It was pretty scary.

Here are the prompts for today:

WBP: Write a poem with the title "Tell ________."

PSH: Write a poem in the voice of your dog or cat. 

NPWM: "Today we’d like you to start by taking a look at Alicia Ostriker’s poem, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog.” Now try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio very different things would perceive of a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc)."

I'm getting a late start today (actually it's almost 10 p.m.) because it was one of those days when I literally didn't have a free moment until mid-evening. I have a feeling several days this month may end up like this one - I have a lot on my plate. Anyway, here's my poem - I used several more than two or three persons or things as suggested by NPWM, and I had to imagine I had a dog or cat as suggested by PSH.

Tell Us What You Thought of the Earthquake
 
A six-year old: It felt like I was dancing but my feet weren’t moving.
A science teacher: Cool!
A Californian: You call that an earthquake?
A cat: Who knocked those dishes off the shelves? That’s my job!

A dish: Owwww….
A bird: I think I saw some shivering below.
A worm: Wheeeeee!

A dog: WHAT'S HAPPENING? WHAT'S HAPPENING?
A high-rise building: I waved to the rest of the city.
A train: Ha-ha, they thought it was me.
A bridge: Uh-oh.
The earth: It was only a 4.8. You people better get off my plates
before I really get pissed off!
 

PAD Day 4: Bonus Haiku

 So here is my response to NaPoWriMo's prompt to base a poem on something from Thomas R.Henry's collection of weird nature facts, The Strangest Things in the World World. It makes for fascinating reading (although Henry had a penchant for hyperbole), and I spent a fair amount of time perusing it, but the only poem to result was a single haiku based on his entry about a species of glow worm that lives in a grotto in New Zealand. The imagery really stuck with me.

on the grotto’s dome
glow worms mimic the night sky
they will never see

PAD Day 4: The Blender of Marriage

 Today's prompts:

WBP:  Write a “mistake” poem

NPWM: Use Thomas R. Henry’s The Strangest Things in the World as a resource

PSH: “The Assembly Line of Surprise” (From John Wesick)

Step 1 – Choose a subject to write about. This should probably be something about being human such as a mental state, emotion, or social issue. Often this is abstract.

Step 2 – Choose an object to compare it to. It’s best if this is something very different than in step 1. Concrete things like machinery give good imagery. The more outrageous the better. Congratulations! You’ve just created a metaphor.

Step 3 – Make two columns on a piece of paper. List the parts of the subject step 1 in the first column and the parts of the item in step 2 in the second.

Step 4 – Map items in each column to those in the other. Choose the most interesting mappings. These will be phrases in your poem.

Step 5 – Put these phrases together into a poem.

I had a little trouble incorporating the NaPoWriMo prompt with the others, but perhaps I'll try to write another poem later. I did combine the other two, although for the PSH prompt I tried to avoid overusing the "X of Y" metaphor construction, but didn't abandon it entirely.

  

That Time I Bought My Wife a Kitchen Appliance for Our Anniversary
 
It was quite the machine, versatile, in harvest gold,
the trendy kitchen color of the time,
and it cost a week’s salary.
She said she’d like to get one, and when
she unwrapped it on our fifth anniversary,
my excitement melted when I saw
disappointment cloud her face.
She stared at me, and her eyes
could have chopped me to a slaw.
 
“It’s a mixer, blender, and food processor all in one!”
I chimed, but she wasn’t moved, and she minced no words.
“It’s our anniversary, not the house’s,” she said.
She expected flowers, earrings, a romantic getaway,
not a kitchen device. Clearly, this grated on her.
I failed to sense the pulse of the occasion,
But I learned something valuable that day.
 
Marriage is not an easy recipe.
Sometimes you get whipped up in the passion
and blend so well together;
sometimes it’s just a daily grind.
But after so many years and burnt-out blenders,
watching life whirl and churn before our eyes,
we finally know how to make a delicious puree,
the perfect smoothie.

PAD Day 3: The Fab Four as Pineapples

 From here on out, at least for purposes of the prompts, I will refer to Write Better Poetry as WBP, Poetry Super Highway as PSH, anbd NaPoWriMo as NPWM. Today's prompts:

WBP:
For today's prompt, pick a musical act or artist and either make that the title of your poem or incorporate into the title of your poem; then, write your poem.

NPWM:
write a surreal prose poem.
 
PSH:
“Here is an outline for a sonnet. Don’t worry about rhyme or meter, or following the rules….
On line one, write about the inner life of a pineapple.
Line two: a fact about your hometown.
Line three: something that comes in threes.
Line four: where were you last night?
Lines five through eight: two animals meet somewhere unusual.
Lines nine through ten: a wish someone has for the pineapple.
Lines eleven and twelve: what did you wish for when you were eight?
Lines thirteen and fourteen: must incorporate one of the following words – hullaballoo, ragamuffin, hooferaw, scoundrelous, or cacophony – and discuss a secret, something hidden, or something no one else knows.”
 

As you can see, the PSH prompt, courtesy of poet John Reinhart, is a pretty wild one. But I did have fun with it, creating a 14-line prose poem that fits the definition of "sonnet" in only the very loosest of ways. (Aso, I adapted the prompts to the third person.) Its subject is my favorite band of all time, and one of my favorite fruits of all time. Aand it certainly has an element of surrealism.

Beatles Day Trippin’, or Liverpudlians in the Sky with Dole
(A Psychedelic Prose Sonnet)
 
John imagines himself a pineapple, sweet and juicy inside but spiny of skin,
strolling the streets of his major seaport hometown wearing spiky pineapple hair.
“A pineapple suits me,” he says, “better than a jacket, waistcoat and trousers.”
Paul turns on the telly. “Look, a cooking show. They’re putting your cousin in a trifle!”
But George changes the channel to a nature show about a fox who marries a chicken.
They go shopping together, avoiding the poultry aisle,
and browse the produce, perusing the rocket and aubergines.
“I would die for an ear of corn!” cries the chicken.
“I would kill for a juicy sliced ring of pineapple,” says the fox, knife in hand.
“It’s a horror movie!" John shouts. "Turn it off!”
“If I couldn’t be a pineapple,” says Ringo, “I’d be an astronaut.
If I could be a pineapple, I’d be the first one on the Moon!”
But then George Martin barks, “Stop all this hullabaloo and let's get to work!”
Sadly, none of this makes it onto Sergeant Pepper.

 

 

 

PAD Day 2: Ode to Motels

 Today's prompts:

Write Better Poetry: Write a "happy" and/or "sad" poem.

NaPoWriMo: Write a "platonic love poem" to a person or thing, Address them/it as in a letter and include three memories of interacting with it. 

Poetry Super Highway: Use the Mirriam Webster website's "Time Travel" feature and pick any year. Use some of the words that were coined in that year in a poem.

I didn't do much with the rather generic prompt from Write Better Poetry (though I guess it would qualify as a "happy poem), but I wrote a "platonic love" ode to one of the things from the Mirriam-Webster list of new words from 1951 (the year I was born). It's the title of the poem, but I also included other "new words" from the list: cable TV, church key, dayglow, flab, home fries, launching pad, meat-and-potatoes, Murphy's Law, nit-picking, shoe-leather, truck stop, and the word that seemed created that year just for me, nerd.

Motor Inn
 
O, oasis on the highway,
or just off of it,
you beckoned my family
with promises of vacancies,
air-conditioning and cable TV.
 
Once the red-and-blue shields
of the interstate signs went up,
you became more vital,
even if you showed years of wear.
 
With a clean bed, if a little lumpy,
a TV— sometimes even color—
and light-blocking curtains,
you were all we needed to crash in the evening
and use you as next morning’s launching pad.
 
Sometimes breakfast was included—
powdered eggs, home fries, shoe-leather bacon.
The place may have doubled as a truck stop,
the long-haul drivers, gritty and scowling,
meat-and-potatoes men eating at the counter.
 
One summer we stayed near the Jersey shore,
at a dayglow-decorated motel.
Despite the beach a mile away,
my parents donned swimsuits (flab be damned)
and frequented the pool, while I maintained
my nerd status, reading Asimov from a lounge chair,
drinking Coke from a bottle that still had
to be opened with a church key.
 
You served me well too, when I grew up
and took my own family on the road.
Sometimes Murphy’s Law was in effect,
and we couldn’t seem to find the perfect place,
not that we were nit-picking or anything.
 
One night we stayed at a place in Miinnesota
that my wife said reminded her of
that creepy lodge on Twin Peaks.
We didn’t sleep well that night.
I dreamed of a dwarf talking backwards.
 
But all in all, you made the journey easier,
and tried your best to make us feel at home,
even when we couldn’t find the ice maker,
and the king bed was really a queen.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PAD Day 1: Rusty, Dusty, Moldy...

 It's April again, and that means time to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. I admit I have not written a lot since last April, nor have I been submitting as much as usual. I've been dealing with a mixture of writer's block, laziness, and "imposter syndrome," and I think April is just the ticket to give me a swift kick in my allegedly creative ass. Normally I follow Robert Lee Brewer (Write Better Poetry on the Writers Digest website) and Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo site for daily prompts, and I will continue that this year, but I will also be following Rick Lupert's daily prompts on his Poetry Super Highway website. (He was kind enough to publish me as one of the two weekly featured poets last August, and I have participated in some the poetry book exchanges with other poets that he has organized, plus he will be featuring one of my suggested prompts on April 25.) I plan to try to use at least two prompts from these three sources each day, and some days maybe all three. I hope to shake off the dust, or rust, or mold, or moss, or barnacles, or whatever metaphorical growth may apply to my months of relative inactivity.

So here are today's prompts:

Write Better Poetry: Write an "optimistic" poem.

NaPoWriMo: "...write – without consulting the book – a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you remember having liked but that you haven’t read in a long time."

Poetry Super Highway: "Evolve a poem that involves an exotic fruit, one fruit, and a town you’ve never visited, or else have distant memories of."

I got a little sidetracked, thinking about movies rather than novels, and didn't address the NaPoWriMo prompt, although I may return to it if time permits. This poem ends on an optimistic note and makes reference to three movies that are set in New Orleans. 

Bananas Foster

That brilliant blue and yellow flambé
that first burst forth from a pan
at Brennan’s Vieux Carre on Bourbon Street,
New Orleans, a city I’ve never visited
that’s high on my bucket list —
 
that sweet, caramelized scent,
a conflagration of rum, banana,
cinnamon and ice cream,
is now duplicated all over,
and not just in the Big Easy.
 
My wife’s cousin the restauranteur
served it tableside in his New Jersey steak house
before age burned up all the recipes in his mind.
These days you don’t have to go South
for beignets either, or gumbo or po’ boys.
 
But there’s so much more to absorb there
in Crescent City, like the warmth and fire of music:
Dixieland, zydeco, swamp rock, a second line
dancing and drumming through the French Quarter.
 
Unlike Benjamin Button in that movie,
I’m not getting any younger,
and before my own blue flame goes out,
I know I will make it to Nola,
as sure as Stanley shouted “STELLA!”
and that frog turned back into Prince Naveen.