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Tag: napowrimo

Like an Asteroid Toward the Earth

Dusk ripples
across the pond.

A great blue heron
stalks sunlight
along the reeds.

He snags a fish,
turtle-sized,
from the water.

He flips and swallows
the fish, which falls
down his gullet
like a rabbit
through a snake.

His neck straightens;
the fish is gone.
He shadows dark
along the shore.

Don’t you wonder
if that fish
ever believed
in herons?

This post in included in I and the Bird # 149 over at Twin Cities Naturalist. Sadly, this looks to be the last edition of I and the Bird. I’ve been participating off-and-on for 5 years and even hosted it once. Sad to see it go…

Coyote’s Bone

There’s a cracked old deer bone
in a small field by the stream.
It’s been there for years
and every few months or so,
it moves a few feet. Maybe
a season goes by and it’s buried
in the grass and wildflowers, but
when autumn comes again,
the bone resurfaces like driftwood
from an ocean turning brown.
I wonder what coyote picks it up
only to spit it out a few steps later.
After the bleached taste
of years and sun-dried blood
on brittle bone, does he go
to the stream to drink away
the taste or let it linger, a reminder
of all the songs he still can sing?

Legend Says

Legend says
this land was sculpted by golf pros who only knew how to make a buck.

Legend says
there is a secret zodiac of yet-to-be trademarked corporate logos.

Legend says
the northwest passage was built by Bigfoot but is now owned by crows.

Legend says
there was a cat who joined the circus to run the big humans act.

Legend says
trees are the heretical thoughts of stone, but no one understands.

Legend says
the woman on the lake bottom sold her sword business for a taco stand.

Legend says
there was a man who named three oceans and drowned in a river.

Legend says
all night, the cities beneath the plains hum that tune stuck in your head.

Legend says
the Loch Ness grebe got lost on migration and settled in Oklahoma.

Legend says
everyone has three teeth and a tongue that aren’t attached to them.

Legend says
a man rode out of town and returned with an elixir made from cheap tequila.

Legend says
words are keys, but the doors were all busted down by thugs years ago.

Legend says
I don’t want to go to bed; tell me another one.

This was based on one of the prompts at Big Tent Poetry: start a poem with the phrase “legend says…”

My sci-fi haibun “Dear Old Stockholm” is up over at qarrtsiluni as part of the translation issue. Be sure to check it out and while you’re there have a look around. There’s a lot of great work in the issue.

Gull Impostor

Stretch your arms, rock to and fro
on the abandoned tracks, imagine

you’re a great ocean bird. Swoop,
dive, fly up to dizzying heights, peer

down to a rippled carpet, the ocean,
far below. Lean into your dive, feel

gravity’s pull, the insistence of textbook laws,
the water miles away. Accelerating,

you race until at the last moment,
wings straining with the effort, you pull

up. Soar away from collision, use
momentum to regain the sky. Eager

you test yourself against another drop.
Open your eyes. Disoriented, you’re standing

on the broken tracks, arms outstretched.
A flock of gulls about their business stays

a safe distance away. They have no idea
you flew with them. They watch

you with aviator’s eyes, making sure
you never attempt to get too close.

Walking home, you wonder if the sky is
farther away than ever, if you’ll ever belong.

Here Comes a Twister

She grew up in the land of twisters,
seeking shelter in middle bathrooms.

She baptized herself in the rivers of glass
sparkling through the broken house.

Wall clouds turned and blackened,
the sky decayed, fell down from itself.

Monsters ate trees in the night
but by morning, birds always returned,

the feeders full of color and song,
while all around hailstones melted.

Only small questions remained, then;
the big ones were all torn up

with the trees and trails, apologies
she used to believe she owed.

A familiar man in coveralls claims
he can repair the roof faster, cheaper,

better than the other guys who don’t
understand these things (sign here please).

Her fists clench, knuckles ache like love;
she relaxes only when he leaves.

She whispers secrets to her daughter:
about the days of electricity and engines,

about the thrill of kneeling wild-eyed
before the weather radio’s robot voice,

about prayers for thunder and wind,
about how she learned to control storms

and how everything that happens
flashes in a dark and roaring instant.

Call this my first NaPoWriMo poem for this April. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing last year, but here I am again, back for more. I won’t be posting here on weekends, of course, but I’ll still be writing my daily stones at a gnarled oak (but I often don’t post weekend stones until Monday). One where or another, though, there will be daily poems.

Practice and Product: Reflecting on NaPoWriMo

Back in the days before digital photography, people sometimes asked why I write poetry (or anything else for that matter). My answer was usually something along the lines of “Because film is too expensive.” That was partially true, I suppose, and also a flippant way of not having to admit to being, you know, a poet. But nowadays pixels are cheap and still, I write.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks of doing the NaPoWriMo poem-a-day-for-thirty-days thing, and that’s got me thinking about practice and product. Thinking about practices that require craft and some degree of clarity reminds me of the way Robert Pirsig describes working on his bike in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance wherein he writes that the cycle you’re working on is you.

One of the many joys of writing is the way it facilitates discovery, leading somewhere unexpected, to some insight I didn’t even realize I was looking for. In this way, writing poetry is as much and maybe more of a practice than it is a chase for a completed product. It is a way to see the world under the light of a different sun and then perhaps to understand this thing called life in new and unexpected ways.

Practice isn’t everything, though, because I’m not writing just for me. I like the connection between myself and those who read what I write, and I enjoy the creation of the thing. My about page says “I’m driven to create,” which is true, though I prefer Dale’s way of expressing it as a need to make and share beautiful things because that’s a truer way of putting it, and it encompasses the way time spent in the kitchen can satisfy that need too.

What I like about making poems—about writing, really—is that process of discovery and feeling of channeling things from somewhere else that I then share with others. When I go back and read something I’ve written that’s actually good and brings me or someone else enjoyment, my initial response is always “Wow, who wrote that?” Maybe I should ask “Where did that come from?” but either way, the answer is I don’t know, and that mystery is a reminder to remain open, which is where I fell out with NaPoWriMo: it upends the balance and turns poetry into a mad quest for product.

I have cranked out 46 poems (25 micro-poems posted at a gnarled oak and 21 longer poems posted here at Coyote Mercury) this April and I haven’t had time to process more than a few of them. I like to write, think and revise, but NaPoWriMo dispenses with the last two in its demand for numbers. So I’m glad it’s over.

For me to write anything worthwhile, I need to remain open to the world and to experience. The time spent not writing is just as important as the writing, I suppose. Still, I completed the challenge (because I’m obsessive) and now, I’m looking forward to going back to my nice slow poem-or-two-a-week pace, getting back to my balance between practice and product, and also just walking around, seeing, and trying to pay attention to the world around me, which is where it all begins.

Darkening

It’s warm this afternoon,
and sunny—a spring day
of bluebonnets and tall grass
and songbirds in the trees.

It’s a beautiful day, but
heavy beyond my horizon.

The pictures are coming,
we all know they’re on the way,
we’ve seen them before:
birds dying in oil-choked seas,
blackened beaches, ruined
estuaries and suffocation.

They say it’s going to hail
tonight, here.

This is for Read Write Poem’s NaPoWriMo #29: Front Page News supplied by D.S. Apfelbaum. The poem is based on the dread I feel about the images we’re about to see when the oil slick hits the Louisiana coast. The pictures that will be on front pages in the coming days.

This is my last poem for National Poetry Writing Month. It’s also, sadly, my last response to a Read Write Poem prompt, since RWP is closing down tomorrow. It is Read Write Poem that inspired me to fulfill one of last year’s new years resolutions, which was to start sharing my poetry. It also led me to a vibrant community of online poets and writers of which I’m happy to be a part.

There are new sites gearing up, growing out of the community created by RWP, and that’s a great thing. Big Tent Poetry developed by Deb Scott, Carolee Sherwood, and Jill Crammond-Wickham will be doing weekly prompts starting next Monday, and I’ll be helping out as a “barker.” Starting on Thursday, We Write Poems, conceived and organized by Neil Reid will launch their weekly prompts. I’ll contributing a prompt or two there from time to time. Rounding out the online poetry prompt madness will be the Friday prompts at Rob Kirstner’s Writer’s Island.

Thanks to all of you mentioned above who are so dedicated to keeping these online poetry communities alive, and thanks especially to Dana Guthrie-Martin for Read Write Poem.

Standardized High Stakes Panic

Sorry, kid. You’re on
your own today. Just
you vs. the State of Texas.
Give ‘em Hell, remember
the Alamo & your #2 pencil.
Should you not pass
(we won’t say fail) you may
retake this test, repeat
this grade or possibly
redo your whole life.
Don’t work too fast either:
these tests may cause nausea,
dizziness, double-vision,
vomiting, hallucinations,
panic attacks, bitterness,
resentment, depression,
and a profound distaste
for school, education and
even learning in general.
And Remember, don’t panic.

Redirection

Words drip
from dictionary
lips—

challenges
& curses

stain the classroom
carpet.

OK, then.

Let’s mop these
words up off
the ground

turn them into
something

you can use.

Navajo Country, 1996

Cars were rare along the highway
On that day of dusty miles.
You came up a ridge behind us to
Observe our passing.
Through the rearview, we watched you
Emerge, then fade back into the desert.

This is a response to Read Write Poems’ NaPoWriMo #27: Let Someone Else Take the Lead wherein Carolee invites writers to do an acrostic poem. I’ve never done one before, but figured I would need a short word for today and so I went with coyote, a favorite animal that I’ve heard far more often than seen. This poem is about the first time I saw one.

Though I’ve missed a few days of posting due to internet issues, I’ve been writing and back-posting what I wrote those days here and at a gnarled oak.