NaPoWriMo, Day 30

Well, I somehow made it to day 30 with a small semblance of sanity. Very small. I have some more poem ideas, but now that I'm not on a self imposed deadline, I can stress less about them. My final total after 30 days? 66 poems. 2 more than last year. I used the Poetic Asides prompt to write either a finished poem or a never finished poem. This is sort of both.



The end is the beginning is the end

Everything around me begins to dim.
A snuffed candle, no smoke to drift
into the stale evening's air. There
will be napkins left on the desk, piles
of unedited poems yellowing under the
weight of this end. I am an unfinished
script. I am unmarrowed bone. Helpless
to the pressure building in my ribcage,
I scribble notes in code, watch faces
become a blur, leave unfinished.

NaPoWriMo, Day 29

My own idea today...to take a line from a song and write a poem around it. I also happened to take little splices of the song here and there and rearrange them into the poem. Take from it what you will...


You need the darkness if you want to see stars

An echo through the humid air. An ache deep
in shins keeps you grounded, keeps you hidden
from the passing cars and the sound of the
mailman delivering bills and death notices.
At night, between the raindrops and floating
pieces of tree sheddings, you crane your head
up into the night's thickness, look for intervention,
seek a solace only solitude can provide. Over and
over, you cut at scars, hide out in your trenches.
Erase the pieces you despise, one by one.

NaPoWriMo, Day 28

Today, I went with the Poetic Asides prompt to write a shadorma. I made mine a double shadorma. Again, not thrilled with this one, either.


Cousins from afar
(for B)

I kept a
picture of us in
my wallet.
Hayley and
you, the sisters I never
had. You both sprouted

through the deep
mid-western snow, bloomed
through mail, through
phone calls. I
missed all of it. Hug Lilah.
Tell her I said hi.

NaPoWriMo Day 27

I liked this prompt, but I'm not crazy about my poem. “Poem Starting with a Line by ” is your title.  Look for a line that captures your imagination (and holds its own as a unit of syntax)  That is your first line*. It sets the tone for your poem.  (*be sure to cite the source at some point). I used the first line of a poem from Keetje Kuipers.



Poem Starting with a Line by Keetje Kuipers

My little empire goes to sleep around me.
Machines whir to a stop, cell phones are
silenced, yet still vibrate little messages
while I sleep in the basement, surrounded
by the breath of flowing air ducts,
the babble of tiny finches that are senior
citizens in their giant cage. My eyes stay
shut but I still listen, feign sleep with
deep breaths, hear the dog shuffle the shirt
in her cage, listen to her feet click on
the plastic bottom. The radiant pain in my
leg subsides for one night, the mattress
hammocked in the middle. My brain still on
poetic time, still in defense mode. Coffee
will brew itself in the morning but I will
seethe through the night, unable to shut down.

(First line from "Waltz of the Midnight Miscarriage" by Keetje Kuipers)

NaPoWriMo, Day 26

A couple of tanka to end the day that fall in line with how frustrating this month can be...


Writer's block

She grows impatient
and fights for my attention
with words that evade,
as I stare at a screen. She
sighs. The cruelest month, it seems.



A running theme in April

She threatens to break
my laptop. Retreats to the
sofa, passes out.
This was not how the day was
to unfold. Silence speaks loud.

NaPoWriMo, Day 25

Out on my own, I followed a "drowning" idea from a poet friend's blog...


The perfect way to drown

My father is the reason I never learned
to swim. I would sit by the edge of our
neighbor's pool and dangle my feet over
the side just enough to cover them, just
enough to be able to stare all the way
down to the blue liner at the bottom as
the chlorinated water rippled. I'd watch
the plastic vent door open and shut,
open and shut, duck away when someone
threw a beach ball near me, my thick red
hair in my eyes. Getting my feet wet wasn't
enough for my father. He'd always think it
was hilarious to push me into the water,
my body would sink like an pale anchor,
the water stinging my sinuses, my stunned
mouth agape and swallowing. My head crested
the water in what seemed like slow motion
and my clogged ears could still hear my
father laughing, as if this was the shove
that would make me want to take swimming
lessons. Instead, it gave me an out, a way
to rid myself of the voices in my head.
Knives are painful and it takes too long
for them to finish the job. I could just
wait until my neighbors had gone off to open
their bakery and rattle their wood gate ajar.
Dressed in a long sleeve shirt and cords,
my feet weighted with combat boots, I'll pull
the cover off of the pool and slip slowly over
the side, feel myself become weightless, watch
my arms flail up, like they're waving goodbye
and feel the water dragging me to the bottom.

 

NaPoWriMo, Day 24

I had been following the story of this little girl for some time. She had a condition called omphalocele, where your intestines and in some cases (including Adalynn's), all of the abdominal organs are outside of the stomach. It's a rare condition that has a surprisingly high recovery rate. This girl spend most of her life in a hospital, but went home for the holidays. There hadn't been any follow up stories. I had long thought about writing something about her and her condition, so I googled her name today...only to find an obituary. There were no follow up stories, so I don't know how she died, but it probably was an infection, if I had to guess. She'd had several. Her heart stopped twice. Anyway, here's what I wrote for Adalynn.


Adalynn decides its time to go

You were supposed to make a full recovery.
No one ever expected this.
Now you get to be two and a half forever.

You never had the chance to try peanut butter
on bread, in chocolate, on your fingers as you
unscrew the top of the jar while your parents
are asleep in their beds, the tasty spread
stuck under your little fingernails.

Never had the opportunity to experience the
exhilaration of riding a tricycle, your feet
pedaling quickly, the wind whipping around
your pink helmet and blowing the tassels on
your handlebars, making them look like streamers
in the hot Texas summer air.

All that remains are numbers.
288 days in a hospital.
28 surgeries, several infections.
3 times, your heart stopped.
On the last one, you'd had enough.