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Tuesday, April 25, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 18: A Ghazal of Sorts

Uncut Thread

Like salt in chocolate so you seem to me
an evening with a perfect cup of tea

These things we seek since childhood to taste
pursuing happiness on feet that flee

from all the darkness deep upon the world
that lays upon the mind so staggeringly

I once believed that love was like a furnace
could burn me up too fast for me to see

Or maybe love was deeper than the ocean
but choked and fraught with flotsam and debris

But there you were with moonlight in your hair
a promise of the person I could be

I'll try to be the person that you see
this evening with a single cup of tea



Notes: I tried to write a ghazal but I messed up on some of the rules so here we are.

Monday, April 24, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 17: Now Only One Week Behind!

Insomniac's Lullabye

listen
rain is falling outside
your window
whispering
a song you half remember
the radio plays in the next room
soft-focus NPR voices but
pretend you cannot understand them
a language you half forget
listen
you are falling asleep
the way you fall in love
reluctantly
frogs are calling in the grass
rising and falling
with every breath
listen
the rain has stopped
or maybe
you've fallen
asleep

NaPoWriMo Day 16: Five by Five

On the Dock
sea
and sky
seagulls flock
waiting for day's
end


#2
he
never
locks the car
small towns are safe
right?

They Fear Nothing
deer
wander
eat roses
nothing is safe
damn

Small Town

I
knew you
when you were
this tall. How's your
mom?

In the Parking Lot Behind the Bank
birds
wheeling
evening sky
the color of
tea



Notes: These are all "lanternes", a fun syllabic poem that goes 1-2-3-4-1. They're all about my hometown.

NaPoWriMo Day 15: Small Things

Minor Arcana 

A curse on you
and your family
may apathy follow
on your heels may
busses pass your stop
may single shingles fall
from your roof
like tears from a single man
in a movie theatre
pretending he is strong



Notes: it feels unfinished but bruh I am almost 10 days behind so HERE WE ARE

Thursday, April 20, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 14: Vaguely Insulting and Not Very Good

Clerihews for the Unlucky Few

Lin-Manuel Miranda
got dark circles like a panda
only owns a single sweater
best achievement was rhyming Burr, sir

Tara Madrone
Got a new case for her phone
Purple is the color she likes
Spends all day working with tykes


James Teebes Kelso
Likes to fly solo
Never will he pass up a pun
Does that really make him fun?
 


Larry Dennison
Well, he's pretty fun
Very good at cooking
But rather less good-looking
 


Rick Dennison
Taught me how to make a pun
His record collection is off the hook
But has he ever read a book?
 


Robert Downey Jr
You'll find that he's no amateur
If asked a question at Sundance or Cannes
He just says "I am Iron Man" 

Chris Evans
Is a gift from the heavens
If you're funny he'll grab a left boob
In some ways, he's just a loveable noob








Notes: So I learned a new type of poem called a clerihew and I'm addicted. The first line is a name, the second line rhymes with that name, and then the last two lines are a couplet. They're usually about famous people and should make fun of the person a bit. Try it! It's very fun.


 

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 13: English Voodoo

This Is How To Fall In Love
 
Beetle-black, a misnomer, did you
ever really look at that exoskeleton?
sometimes we wear our bones on the outside
iridescent as an oil slick
nothing sticks to a rolling stone
I'm told

Where are the points that connect us
when blood is a nursery rhyme
all the things we remember
have gone up in greenstick fractures of flame
In Bottletown, even our tears flicker like jewels.
Broken windows are an eye to the soul
or was it the glass-lined streets that reflected
scintillating, like a universe of stars in my gut?
ignorance was never a luxury I could afford

This is the secret of how to die:
live, until someone shoots first
retell your story until it works
like summer grass growing higher than my head
follow the bug compass and there I am
waiting
sometimes we get the words wrong
keys stuck in a lock, jammed
I'm sorry
There are a thousand things in this room
and I'm and merely
one of them



Notes: the truth is I will never stop writing about Vurt. It's a problem I don't know how to solve. Count the references!

NaPoWriMo Day 12: A Dramatic Utterance At A Moment In Time

Kennings 
 
Last night I was walking home, it was late
streetlights yellow islands
one headphone out, listening for a siren's song
raiders on that wine-dark sea, the growl of a motorcycle
woke me up, thinking
on my left the hard reality of a car
on my right the growl of a motorcycle
slowing
flickering islands far from view, but I am fast
my feet can follow the whale roads
faster than they know, but
no
it is only the local grocer
wanting to know why I haven't visited
I was sick, I say, he nods, sympathetic
leaves me to my thoughts
tripping between lights  and wondering if next time
I'll stay so luck



Notes: my 11th grade English teacher always said a poem was "a dramatic utterance at a moment in time" so this one's for you Chris.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 11: Locus Amoenus

Locus Amoenus

Somewhere, there is a garden,
of what I suppose is the regular sort.
It hides between stumbling walls,
a conflation of control
and chaos, each fall of blossom a barely contained exclamation

Somewhere, there is a path,
winding from a door that opens with a kick,
timbers warped from the seasonal shift of warm to cool, dry to damp,
there and back again.

Leave your shoes, your fears,
regrets, memories, leave them by the door
once again stuck fast.
The grass is cool and soft.
The sun is slanted and golden,
filtered through a ceiling of reaching leaves

Somewhere there is a lover, waiting
arms outstretched like branches toward the sky
fingertips of petal and willow
honeysuckle lips
like a late summer moon.




Notes: Locus Amoenus refers to a beautiful place, usually cultivated, a fenced in bit of the wild. As Chaucer writes:

And when, in the summer, he wanted to pay
his wife he debt, he and May would
go there, no one except those two;
and things that were not done in bed,
he successfully performed in the garden.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 10: Mythological

Pursuit Of

In dreams I am Daphne, roots reaching toward solid ground
skin bark-hardened under the glare of that Apollo sun
trading blood for sap as my soft reality
shifts to heavy heartwood


Cover with green earth, this heart
its home in mountain passes
Let blossoms sprout from my eyes
until all I see
is yellow pollen sky


Stretch my starving arms like antennas
tuned to your affection
These bones are the foundation
of a promise

Fly
I would, if I were someone else
but a tree must be what it is
that frustrating reality
of nature


Notes: I've always adored the bit in Metamorphoses where Daphne becomes a tree, that moment when he can still feel her beating heart under the hardening bark, and so I just spun off from there.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 9: Rhyme Scheming

With Bare Feet We Walk to the River

I once heard a whisper in the willows,
when the moon was bright and clean
Delicate sussurus, words like dominoes
snip-tapping down to the river so dry
When the moon glowed like the silver screen
A leaf-rustle murmur, a gentle sigh
The sky so dark but the stars aglow
Willows told me the secrets they'd seen,
when the moon herself taught the river to flow.



Notes: I should have written this back on the 9th so here is a poem with nine lines called a Nocturna. The form comes with a rhyming scheme and it also must be about the night or night-related things. I want to write more of these, this was really fun.

NaPoWriMo Day 8: And It's All Just History Repeating

In Circles and Circles

I wonder about history
Did they
dream with the same pounding hearts as I
Did they
imagine the world made better, made clean
and bright

and circles and circles

Comes back to the same routine
What are we but
messy collections of water and worry
A cucumber with anxiety

and circles and circles

Mind tracing the same pettersns
the same routines, like
believing in impossible stories of what we could be
and making them true.



Notes: The prompt was to use some sort of repetition. I feel like this needs...more...but I'm not sure what that is yet. I'll come back to it. Perfection is not the point of napowrimo.

NaPoWriMo Day 7: I Have No Excuses

The Sky of Tomorrow

A late-night star may watch us as we wait
among the winter flowers frozen still
that constellation mapped out, desolate
upon your face, as written by a quill
If ever I'm to find another place
among the whistling grasses shifting so
all memories of our time you might deface
The time we shared was precious that is true
but time is only dear in backward view



Notes: I got nothin'. I'm like a week behind and writing nonsense in iambic pentameter.

Friday, April 7, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 6: Very Nearly Caught Up

From Three Angles
1.
april drizzles down
white blossoms on a gray sky
like snow in the spring

2.
two by two by two
by one, a lonely poet sitting
under cherry trees

3.
on cans of soda
shoes, on socks on bread and cakes
cherry blossom branding


Notes: The prompt was to write about something from different angles so here are some seasonal haiku.

NaPoWriMo Day 5: Scenes From a Breakup

a life built on memories is not much of a life

Words are cheap
cotton candy platitudes
sweet on the tongue, gone in moments
sick to the stomach

What I could not yet call love
was like the sun
a shivering hangover
a sunburn
rush of pain
then peeling, then raw
then
gone

my roots are not made
for sand
and when your mouth said
you could have loved me
I
slipped

my heart is a clock that doesn't move
but even I
am wrong twice a day




Notes: This is kind of cheating because I started this poem like, a year and a half ago but I was too close to the problem to really write about it.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Sonnets and Dragons

Critical Iambs

We bravely ventured in, though danger loomed
a painting under moonlight showed the way
past monsters, clues, and doorways, we were doomed
to wander far beyond the light of day
Chameleon forms beyond what wisdom knew
stalked down the halls and, ignorant, we crept
across a bridge, and ever further through
this land of traps. When one among us stood
upon the stones of black and white he fell
into such fear that all seemed lost for good
the darkness of that godforsaken spell
Then one by one our heroes lost the way
I guess next time we'll just have to replay.



Notes: I'm tired and a bit sick so I decided to write a sonnet because I can usually force myself to write shitty form poetry so matter how little energy I have. Also yes it's about a DnD campaign. RIP Kev

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 3: Self-Indulgent and a Bit Journaly- A Memoir

Floating

I think about what it means to be adopted
dictionaries tell me nothing
a choice, an embrace
name overwritten
a leaf sewn to the family tree

How it must have felt for my grandmother
first grandchild once removed
she collected shot glasses, stir sticks
tiny jewel-like hummingbirds floating
on fishing line

There are things we take for granted
an echo in the curve of a nose, a talent for darts
telling us we belong

When I first saw the pictures
my own chin, my eyes, the crook of a smile
looking back at me
I broke into pieces I didn't know I'd been
holding together


Notes: The original prompt for this was was to write an elegy that included tiny details about a person. I was thinking about my grandmother and her shot glass collection that always fascinated me and somehow it turned into whatever this is. 

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

NaPoWriMo Day 2: The Outline of the Thing

Just Out of View
It is sitting outside my door
waiting, an unwelcome house guest
visiting unexpectedly
tapping a tattoo on the wood
Let me in, let me in
This time
it will be better

It is sitting behind a screen
unseen, barely
a constellation of relation
fingers tip tapping down words
stop--next time
it will be better

It is living inside my gut
grasping hard onto lungs heart hands
a corseting of trepidation
Saying no, next time is never
Heart taptaptap against ribs
Rigid bones trying to crack
under pressure
Next time
it will be better

It must



Notes: The prompt for this was "describe one of your fears without naming it". Any guess? I went a little off script but I'm still describing something that plagues me on a daily basis.

NaPoWriMo Day 1: Short Lines and Bad Rhymes

Wheel

I was thinking about
time, skipped forward like
a step you knew was there
until it wasn't

throw your face toward the shape
of a smile
hopeful gestures at genuine emotion

sometimes this is what
we get
a moment, a step
a tree in bloom, flowers falling
before my face
held in place
a snapshot smile
maybe this is grace


Notes: The prompt today was the emulate the writing of the poet Kay Ryan, those short lines and inner rhymes and all that good stuff. I love a short line but I'm bad at rhyming so here we are. I did my best! I'm already four days behind so honestly I'm just trying to bang some stuff out to get caught up.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Christmas Tree Tetris

Another year, another Christmas away from home. With so much bad going on in the world, it's hard to get that spirit up, but that is also exactly why Christmas spirit is so important. Or holiday spirit. Solstice. Whatever you call it, we just passed the longest night, and I truly hope this means a new beginning, a path toward things getting better.

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

I finally put my Christmas decorations up last night! I love seasonal decor. When I was growing up, my mom always had amazing collections for each holiday season. We'd pull out the boxes and bins, unwrap each item and find a perfect place for it. Christmas was always the best, though, because my mom has the biggest collection of ornaments I have ever seen, and we would buy a new one each year. Each one was wrapped carefully in tissue paper, and each box was like a precious archaeological dig, documenting our years as a family. There was the first ornament my mom bought after she moved up to the NW from California. There were ornaments I made in preschool and kindergarten. I always looked for my favorites, like the white sparkly angel who gleamed rainbow in the colored lights, the little hand-made reindeer, the clear ball that looked like a floating soap bubble.

It's a bit small, but it will do.


Every ornament had to be placed just right. It was a puzzle to solve. Larger ornaments were tricky, and spacing was every important. In the end one of us would teeter at the top of a step-ladder to perch the angel at the top as the house filled with the smell of pine. These will always be some of my most treasured childhood memories.

Honestly, it's pretty tough to spend Christmas abroad, divorced from all the traditions I grew up in. For me, this time of year is all about family, and that's one thing I really don't have over here. I always do my best to stay upbeat but decorating cookies alone with my tiny tree just isn't the same.


At least I have my own small bit of Christmas to enjoy. Tonight is all about sugar cookies and very late Christmas cards, and if that can't get me in the mood for Christmas, I don't know what will.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

This Dustpan Gives Me +1 Artillery

I was attacked.

Improvised weaponry.

Okay let me explain. As you may be able to tell from the above photo, it snowed! We've had a couple brief flurries but this was the first, real, proper, Norman Rockwell white Christmas snow.

Gotta keep warm.


I let my 3rd period class out a bit early to enjoy the snow, because it's almost the end of the year and kids deserve a bit of time to run around like the maniacs they are. Mostly that seemed to involve a lot of snow-throwing, from the standard ball form to the full dust-pan AoE attack. Mostly I kept to the side, under cover as I was in my school shoes and was in possession of neither a hat nor a pair of gloves. Severely underprepared.

As I turned to go back into my blissfully warm classroom, I saw him-- a favorite student, a frenemy, but most of all-- a 16 year old boy in possession of a gigantic armful of snow. I was frozen in place. Our eyes locked. There was nothing I could do.

He sprinted toward me and before I had a chance to run away, dumped the LARGEST pile of snow I have ever seen a single person carry DIRECTLY on my head. For a moment I was too shocked to react, and as the snow started to drip off my nose, I saw him with the clearest "oh shit I just threw a snowdrift on a teacher I am so screwed" look. I thought about messing with him, but couldn't help but burst into joyful laughter and attempt to retaliate.

My biggest mistake was in forgetting that Han Gil is ON THE BASEBALL TEAM and I can't throw worth a damn. Well, I can throw HARD I just lack in accuracy. I did manage to get a decent bit of snow down the back of his coat by using stealth mode, but all in all he was the victor.

However, I can't honestly complain. Sure, my coat is still a bit damp and my hair looks a mess, but there's something so uncontrollably joyful about running around in the snow like a kid. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much. If I've learned nothing else in my 27 years on this planet, I've learned to take pleasure in the smallest things, or in this case, the biggest pile of snow that has ever been thrown in my face.

Happy Holidays everyone~