Socrates’ Daughter — NaPoWriMo #20

I started out with so many questions
that my defensive answer to every comment,
every query, every concern and every puzzle
was, “I know.”

I went along inventing truths,
axioms and freedoms
and innocences
to pull out of my locker,
my book bag,
my computer,
my shoe,

Until I figured out
the one thing
I know…

~LD

The Prompt: “write a poem that states the things you know. For example, “The sky is blue” or “Pizza is my favorite food” or “The world’s smallest squid is Parateuthis tunicata. Each line can be a separate statement, or you can run them together. The things you “know” of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs. Hopefully, this prompt will let your poem be grounded in specific facts, while also providing room for more abstract themes and ideas.”

Surely someone has already written this? Or maybe I was the only brown-haired, blue-eyed know-it-all who got a clue really late in life? Fun idea. ~LD

half centuries — NaPoWriMo2015 #19

[a small series of landays]

Do you think I have forgotten how
sunglasses can be given, and taken, just for fun?

menudo’s chile steam won’t disguise
the traveller I am, and nomad you’d like to be

we are no Frida and Diego
throwing knives and punches under Aztec moonlit stars

nevertheless our poetry shines
intimately stitching verse quilts, against winter cold.

Do you think I have forgotten how
mangoes feel when ripe? Flesh and bone, bitter and sweetness.

~LD

The Prompt: “write a landay. Landays are 22-syllable couplets, generally rhyming. The form comes from Afghanistan, where women often use it in verses that range from the sly and humorous to the deeply sardonic and melancholy. Check out this long investigative article on landays for a fascinating look into a form of poetry often composed in secret, and rarely written down. You could try to write a single landay – a hard-hitting couplet that shares some secret (or unspoken) truth, or you could try to write a poem that strings multiple landays together like stanzas (maybe something akin to a syllabic ghazal?)”

I urge you to take the time to read the long investigative article mentioned above. Accompanied by many photos and verbal vignettes, it is an unmissable piece of literary journalism.

I write today in honor of a fellow writer and friend with whom I share a fascination for Mexican culture and cuisine, as well as language in general and poetics in particular. ~LD

Colegio — NaPoWriMo2015 #18

borrowed from urgentrehab.co.uk

Each day you have looked down
at the toes of your shiny black shoes –
each year a bit longer –
against the barro tiles
of the hallway floor.

Moving from one end of the building
to the other, year after year,
step after step,
black against red terra cotta;
Eight million steps and fourteen years.

Side by side and face to face
with old acquaintances and new.
Upstairs and down, in doors and out
with “Hurry! Hurry!
I can’t wait” in your voice,
all over your skin.

Rung after rung climbing over
holding hands, clumsy
first kisses, lasting loves, and sudden ruptures.
The glisten on those shoes has protected
and walked with you on the path
of this opening gambit

Leading to a portal inscribed
in elegant bold font:
Go Forth, now, without trepidation
and create excellence.

~LD

The Prompt: “write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message.”

A kind of cheesy one for “my” kids (h.s. seniors) who are all suffering with the impending changes in their lives. NOT the official letter of farewell. ~LD

Communities You Might Like — NaPoWriMo2015 #17

How equal do we want
boys [who] don’t wanna get makeup on their lips?
Kids who are more than hoop-jumpers,
serious contenders.
Life could be significantly better:
Smooth with one hiccup –
we are breaking the law.
Land on a comet;
you don’t have to feel guilty when it’s homemade.
Not everyone sees it:
Archeologists of the Internet.

~LD

The Prompt: a “social media”-style poem.

To compose this bit, I snagged a bunch of headlines and posts from twitter, google+, Facebook, my blog roll, and even Pinterest that I thought were interesting. I kept the best bytes and separated them by line, though no line is a complete headline (except the title) or even line from a post; each line is from only one source. This came together something like found poetry. The only alterations I made were deletions, and the bracketed addition. Only the last line is my own, though the organization and apparent “topic” kind of found its way organically.

I’ve been woefully absent in the return to class from a delicious break for Holy week and and Easter week. I may or may not be able to backtrack through the four missing prompts / days of poems. We’ll see how the essay grading progresses. ‘-) Hope you had fun  with this one; I did!

~LD

 

Climate Change — NaPoWriMo2015 #12

Camel suede elbow patches
Freckled with rain(drops)
Long black umbrella marking
A back beat in the
Cadence of your stride.

At my table
The canopy
Of the awning is dimly veiled
By beads, slow and languorous
With impending summer

Steam rises from
This mug, tangoing with smoke
From the cigarette I’m not smoking
But I lit when you took shape
Out of the clouds
At the end of the block.

~LD

Reporter’s Abecedario — NaPoWriMo2015 #10

ABsolutely, ConsiDEring

Facts stale enouGH

In Just inK

LaMeNt OPportunity

Quiescent in its ReSisTance

Under Vigil, Waiting for eXamination

facts unchecked can Yield Zeal.

~LD

I didn’t do any of things suggested, just something vaguely alphabetical. = ) I hope you had fun reading.

The prompt: “…write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter. Or finally, if you’d prefer to narrow your focus, perhaps you could write a poem which focuses on a few letters, using words that repeat them.”

Assume Nothing — NaPoWriMo2015 #9

Today’s prompt: “write a visual poem. If that’s not specific enough, perhaps you can try your hand at a calligram? That’s a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image. You might find inspiration in the famous calligrams written by Guillaume Apollinaire. And a word to the wise — the best way to cope with today’s exercise may well be to abandon your keyboard, and sit down with paper and pen (and maybe crayons or colored pencils or markers!)”

I thought on this for a while this morning and early afternoon, then resorted to using a giant mandala I’ve been working on for a while (ahem…years) and magnetic poetry. I don’t really feel like these words are mine, but I didn’t find them anywhere else (thank you, Google). Perhaps it’s something I heard someone say once? In any event, I’m benevolently stealing them.

One reason I did this analog instead of digital style is my technology skills sometimes just frustrate the inspiration right out of me, which also explains why the photo I’m including is so small. I’m a little bummed because it actually looks pretty cool on my dining room table.

stained

glass doesn’t

make it

church

~LD

An Afternoon: a broken haiku from an ersatz Gran — NaPoWriMo2015 #8

Ne’er too late, they say

I’ll borrow students’ kids to spoil

though it be one day.

~LD

The prompt: “write a palinode. And what’s that? It’s a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem.”

The poem I deny (sort of) here is “Not a Breeder”

Whisper of a Preacher Man — NaPoWriMo2015 #7

I pulled up short
while the saloon doors still
swung behind me,
rattle and crash.
Not a soul looked up.

I thought I had intruded,
Mistakenly, on a sacred
Moment.
Perhaps amidst the smoke
there had been a death
or a conversion
that would explain
the clientele’s postures.

Hunched over the hands
poised on their knees
I was reminded of a preacher
who reached out to the straying
By whispering in an evening voice:
“With every head bowed and every eye closed
come, come now and make the call…”

But there was no preacher here —
this was no prayer —
for the faces, lit by ghastly glow,
peered intently between thumbs
or under forefingers
into the eyes of another
god.

Less demanding in some ways
More demanding in others,
that only seems to light a path
they seek.

I turned on my boot heel
and walked back out into the sun
in search of more companionable
Custom.

~LD

I played hookie on day six, guys.

Today’s prompt was to write about “money”, but it didn’t move me much. Instead this little beauty that’s been perking around since a recent trip to Chili’s came about. Hope it “speaks” to you somehow.

On the Street, a Tattered Old Blind Man — NaPoWriMo2015 #5

Before I got so “wise”
I had to have
my eyes put out
so that I could see
as other creatures
beyond this life
and know another way.

Long ago I was told
that I might have the Sky for mine
and I lived to make it so
fleeing the home of
wicked prophesy
Battling fleshed forces to take
Meadows for mine
Mountains for mine
All around in forests
And among Stintless stars
I shone like the sun at noon
Truth I could take in
Between my finite eyes as it wavered like
The motions of dipping birds
Until I recognized
The morning’s Amber Road for mine
To look at when I liked
To walk again at will

The news could have struck
Me dead, as it did my mother-wife
So safer, I guess, with just my soul
Resting against the window pane
No longer incautious of the son

~LD

The prompt: “Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!”

It’s always disconcerting to mess with famous people’s poems, but I chose well in that I didn’t really “get” the Dickinson poem I chose in its original form. So, I was free to stir in entirely new ingredients. I recently re-read Oedipus, and he’s been wandering around up in my brain, pacing mostly. Here is Dickenson’s original:

Before I got my eye put out – (336)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
Before I got my eye put out –
I liked as well to see
As other creatures, that have eyes –
And know no other way –

But were it told to me, Today,
That I might have the Sky
For mine, I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me –

The Meadows – mine –
The Mountains – mine –
All Forests – Stintless stars –
As much of noon, as I could take –
Between my finite eyes –

The Motions of the Dipping Birds –
The Morning’s Amber Road –
For mine – to look at when I liked,
The news would strike me dead –

So safer – guess – with just my soul
Opon the window pane
Where other creatures put their eyes –
Incautious – of the Sun –