PAD Day 24: Impostor Fruit

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "nature" poem, and (2) write a poem about a particular fruit, decribing it as closely as possible. Well, one of my most "popular" poems (if I can say that), is "How to Peel an Orange", the first important publication of this phase of my poetic life, back in 2000, and the basis for the name of this blog. So I decided to take a slightly different tack here, focusing on a plant that has a fruit which is not normally eaten. Its wildness provides the response to the "nature" prompt. For a really great poem about fruit and nature, though, may I refer you to Seamus Heaney's poem "Blackberry-picking". Anyway, here is mine, in the form of a tanka series:

Mock Strawberry

trefoil toothy leaves

on vines invading my lawn,

tiny buds of red -

you look like miniatures

of my most favorite fruit

your berries don't hang

but poke up, giving away

your identity

and you, creeping impostor,

have yellow, not white, flowers

I just Googled you -

your fruit isn't poisonous

but it has no taste

thus rendering you useless -

demoted to common weed

still there is something

cheerful about you this spring

the pops of color

I hesitate to pull you

and in the end, leave you be.

PAD Day 23: Ode to the Letter E

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "Social______", and (2) "write a poem about a particular letter of the alphabet, or perhaps, the letters that form a short word.... Think about the shape of the letter(s), and use that as the take-off point for your poem. " So today's light verse was an ode to a particular letter (the "shape" part of the prompt comes in at verse 3). It's a little silly, but maybe it could be used for a grade-school reading or spelling lesson. 

Social E

"Extroverted", "ebullient",

describes our good friend E.

"Effervescent", "omnipresent",

all fit him to a tee.

He shows up in most every word,

as common as cream cheese.

He's everywhere in "everywhere",

"beekeeper", "beveled", "breeze".

And you can tell E's friendly -

that honest, open face.

His little brother's charming, too,

in smiling lower case.

And even when they're silent,

they liven other vowels -

 they crash the party at the end,

jazz up their letter pals:

from "mat" to "mate" and "fat" to "fate",

they've got the magic touch.

From "hop" to "hope" and "cop" to "cope",

they brighten words so much.

In summary, let's all shout "Whee!

Three cheers for letter E!"

The big and little brothers who've

succeeded social-E!

(If I counted correctly, there are 98 E's in that poem.)


P.S.: Here is a related poem I wrote that was published in the Community Room blog of the Newark (NY) Public Library. (They also published a poem of mine last fall in their literary journal, Mason Street, and will publish three more in a special summer issue this year.) It's an abecaderian called "How a Toddler Learns the Alphabet."

PAD Day 22: Happy Earth Day?

It's hard to feel celebratory these days, and some holidays are rolling by with nary a ripple, it seems, like today, Earth Day - the 50th anniversary! I participated in the very first one way back in 1970, planting trees in my dorm court area with a young woman who would that day become my first college girlfriend. I've written about my first Earth Day in poetry a few times already, so I didn't revisit it today.

One has to wonder if this virus isn't Earth's revenge on us for being such jerks to it for so long. One fascinating side effect of this virus: pollution worldwide is way down. In Philadelphia, the nearest large city to me, three major air pollutants are down by as much as 25%. So in a way, maybe it is a "Happy Earth Day" after all.

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "quirk" poem, and (2) write a poem that uses an idiomatic phrase or expression from another language (the more unusual the better). I just incorporated the word "quirky" into the poem, but I had fun with the foreign saying, which really is still one of my favorites. (It also helped me years later with a crossword clue, which was "Yiddish for bed bug".)

Go Bite the Bed Bugs

Our grandmother used to tuck us in and say,

Good night, sleep tight,

don't let the bed begs bite.

It was a quirky little rhyme, one that didn't

make a lot of sense to us - What's a bed bug?

Then they made a comeback, popping up

in unexpected places like luxury hotels,

so we had to address them again,

just like we're addressing an invisible bug

today, a hundred years after the last

such bug killed so many in the world.

I can thank my Jewish college friend

for the gift of another quirky idiom,

one that turns my grandmother's around:

In Yiddish, it's Gai strasheh di vantzen -

literally, "Go threaten the bed bugs,"

meaning, "I'm not afraid of you!"

Her bubbe actually translated it,

"Go bite the bed bugs,"

such a colorful reversal.

It comes in handy today, as I

strap on a mask to enter this world that has

so radically changed in these few months.

I must take precautions, but I can't let

the times dictate my fears.

I want to use it like a mantra,

shout it through the cloth on my face

over and over till I actually believe it,

Gai strasheh di vantzen,

Gai strasheh di vantzen.

PAD Day 21: Some Weird Haiku and a Sonnet

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "love" and/or "anti-love" poem, and (2) write a "homophonic translation" - that is, take a poem in a foreign language you don't know, then try to write it in English using the sounds and/or appearance of the words in the foreign language. I must admit I had a hard time getting started on this today, partly because the second prompt is one of my least favorite, and I never seem to get a decent poem out of it. Also, I wasn't able to combine the two prompts today, so I had to come up with two poems, but I decided to come up with and "curtal sonnet" (invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins), so I'll present that first. Oh yeah, and I also incorporated this week's word bank from the Sunday Whirl blog, using all of the following words from the bank in my sonnet: fire, tiny, dream, mourn, torn, lift, shy, shock, lock, stories, truth, light. The fact that two pairs of those words rhyme was partly responsible for my choosing a rhyming form.

Parenting in the Plague

I try to keep an optimistic fire

with little ones around, and save the light

from burning out, but yet I keep the locks

turned tight, and try hard not to sound too dire -

with bedtime stories, "sweet dreams" wished each night,

then steel myself from all the news that shocks.

Truth is, I need a tiny lift - I mourn

those taken much too soon by this damned blight.

I keep my shy young charges in this box

I call a home, and make sure it's not torn

                                                  by stopping clocks.

And here's the "translation" poem. I deliberately chose a short poem (actually three haiku) to lessen my suffering (LOL). It's by a contemporary Basque poet named Kirmen Uribe. I didn't read the English translation till I did my "homophonic" poems, but I was impressed by his short pieces and the backstory (He was imprisoned for refusing mandatory service in the Spanish Army.)

[original]

ESPETXEKO HAIKUAK

1.

Kartzelan nago.
Lehenengo zirrara:
izerdi-sunda.

Sarraila hotsa,
orbanak paretetan.
Bakartasuna.

Leihotik beha,
jantzi marraduna du
iretargiak.

[my "translation"]

carts go along:

let them go, sorrow -

it's early Sunday.

surreally hot,

urban partitions,

baking art of sun.

Exotic, behave -

jaunty, merry, do not do -

you're a target.

[English translation by Elizabeth Macklin]

JAILHOUSE HAIKU

I’m here in the jail.
The very first of the shocks:
the stink of the sweat.

The sound of the lock,
the blotchy stains on the walls.
And then solitude.

Out of this window,
the moon itself is wearing
a stripy costume.

PAD Day 20: A Handmades Tale

Today's poems from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1)Write an "isolation" poem, and (2) write a poem about a handmade gift you received. I actually wrote a poem yesterday titled "Isolation", but I'll give it another go today.

When it comes to poems about handmade gifts, I don't think anyone can top "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins. Here's a video of him reading it. (I was at this reading, by the way, at the Dodge Poetry Festival - I think this was in 2008. Billy has always been one of my favorites, and I got to work with him in  Key West in 2015.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khQ9e0QpEM8

Here's my attempt at a "handmade" poem, with an element of "isolation". (I have a birthday coming up soon, so this is just an imagining of what it could be like.)

Drive-by Birthday

This year there is no party

in the traditional sense,

but friends and relatives send him

best wishes via internet,

and a few drive by his house,

honking with balloons and signs,

singing "Happy Birthday",

and some even drop off gifts.

He and his wife are "high-risk",

so they almost never venture out,

but she manages to cook him a special dinner.

They watch a movie they've wanted

to see for months, and she gives him

a handmade card on construction paper

with a rough sketch of flowers on the front

and a sweet sentiment inside.

I couldn't get to the card shop, she says,

teary-eyed. I'm sorry it's not something better.

No, he says, taking her hand.

It's perfect.

PAD Day 19: A "Two-fer"!

today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem using the following six words: bump, embrace, lonely, fixture, howl, and resolve; and (2) write a poem based on a "walking archive" - i.e., take a walk around your neighborhood, or even your house, and collect a few objects that interest you, then write about them in a poem. I actually wrote two today - the first one uses just the Poetic Asides prompt, and the second uses both of them. Robert Lee Brewer of Poetic Asides suggested that the six words could be inspiration for a sestina, and I tried to start one, but just didn't have the mojo for it today. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Isolation

I miss bumping up against people

on the street, in the subway,

the grocery store.

I miss saying, "Excuse me".

I miss embracing an old friend.

I'm so lonely I want to swing

from a light fixture and howl,

"I miss you all!"

But my resolve kicks in,

and I go back to finishing

my jigsaw puzzle.

Give and Take

Let spring flourish.

Cherish the bloom.

                - messages inside two chocolate Easter candy wrappers

It's hard not to let spring seduce you

on an almost perfect April day.

I decide to clean up the back yard

to make way for the mower.

My first find is a tennis ball -

fuzzy fluorescent green,

a stray from the neighbor kids,

fixtures of spring who whoop and holler

and howl all day playing games in the street.

A few yards further back, a blue jay feather -

white and blue with black stripes,

a lonely quill from one of its wings.

As I pick it up, my head bumps a branch

hanging over my fence - my neighbor's

drooping lilac, purple clusters of flowers

already bowing down.  With his permission,

I cut a few, and resolve to return the favor sometime.

I toss the ball over my other

neighbor's fence, keep the feather

which I can't return, and put the flowers

in a glass of water.  It's been a day

of give and take, and I embrace it

as another gift, to help me forget for a moment

this stay-at-home spring, where outside

so many are giving of themselves,

and so many are being taken from us.

PAD Day 18: Another Hay(na)ku

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "message" poem, and (2) write an "ode to life’s small pleasures". I think that getting a kind or loving text or Facebook message from someone you're fond of can make your day, so that is my "small pleasure". I enjoyed writing a hay(na)ku sonnet the other day (see Day 10), the form created by my friend Vince Gotera, and I went an extra step by giving it a rhyme scheme (xxA xxA xxB xxB CC, but the first four stanzas could work just as easily as ABAB or ABBA). Today I tried another one:

PM

my

day unravels

like a sweater

until

your message

makes it better

you

send me

a virtual hug

it

sweeps despair

beneath my rug

while we're apart,

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