Tag Archives: NAPOWRIMO

That Time of the Year

National Poetry Writing Month is upon us poor beleaguered poets once again.

Given my hectic start to the month (ie, a week of intense grant writing) I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do this again this year, but given I am a sucker for punishment, I thought, oh what the hey.

April is going to be a pretty pleasant poetical month for me — what with opening at the very first Lee Marvin gig of the year on Tuesday night (April 5), and starting my month long residency at Adelaide City Library as Poet in Residence on Wednesday (April 6).

As part of my residency I will be running workshops using Books as inspiration, so I decided I will write all my 2016 NaPoWrMo poems using games and exercises I will be sharing at that gig.

Day 30 – first late poem of the month

Well the end of NaPoWriMo 2015 has arrived & I’m pleased to announce I have my first late poem for the month. I had intended to bookend the month with a less cheeky poem about Jazz (Day 1), & maybe even revisit “big angst over a relatively small number” (Day 15) & give you all a second BONUS POEM about the beauty of books/terror of how few reading days remain in all our lives. But my sickness, a drive to the country & back for a new job, & getting 4 poems into two competitions which closed today (30 April) meant it was all a best laid plans kind of day …

Instead you get a poem I’ve only really worked on since midnight (i.e. half an hour) but I’m simply too knackered to keep on with it — so you get it in its raw state.

Thanks for coming along the ride with me again this year. I had about 26 new people follow me this month which is delightful — & numerous likes from lots of my longer-time followers. Thanks NaPoWriMo for encouraging lots of lazyarse poets to get out & make some poems. Apart from the 31 I shared on here, I wrote another 20 or so, of which 3-4 are real crackers I hope could find themselves published sometime in the next 12 months. I’ve also enjoyed reading blogs of my fellow poeters around the world. Love ‘n’ light.

*****

missed

hammer horror films tell me
mist obscured landscapes
& skeletal silhouette trees
should feel funereal & spooky

but if i furrow deeper
into the fog of memory
which is my too-long-gone
childhood then i remember

deep cloud-descended days
brought comfort physically
& emotionally — warm inside
book reading by a wood fire —

when the valley filled
with smokewater
& my whole wide seemed
shrouded in the whispers

of imagination, the wisps
of dreams & the bleak border
between worlds blurred
as if i could step into it

arrive somewhere else
& never be missed

*****

pines

Day 29 – from the depths of his sick bed, he clambers forth

Headaches, hot & cold flushes, sore throat. Not particularly inspired, so this is all I could muster. Sorry to be finishing with a whimper rather than a bang, but my body has spoken.

*****

yesterday

yesterday the leaves were still golden
yesterday was your smile

yesterday we sat on the steps, talking
— trying to talk

yesterday there were poppies all around us
— poppies everywhere

yesterday night came & your hair became a halo
yesterday you

_

yesterday i knew where i was going
yesterday i did not fear tomorrow

yesterday was only yesterday
— but today it feels a forever ago

*****

Season's End by Neighya

Day 28 – Stars on Speed

Been feeling very sick all day. 55 minutes ago, I dragged myself from the warmth of my bed to meet today’s obligations. Tried to keep it simple. Choose a favourite topic/common theme. 15 minutes to write (took less, just to capture these sketches). 15 minutes to edit. 15 minutes to find image (it took a fraction longer, though one image I saw, provoked poem pt vii). 15 minutes to update blog. As of writing I have 8 minutes to complete part IV (then back to warmth). So given those constraints, please understand this is a rough draft …

*****

the stars, though hidden by clouds, are still shooting

i.
once we were
the night sky
& every egg
of light was ours

now i wander
through vast
black vacuums
lost, alone

ii.
even stars would crack
if they looked too long
into your dark matter eyes

iii.
love floats
time breaks
— & all the stars
fall so quietly
no one notices

iv.
alone in a lighthouse
under the sea of stars
waiting for your return

v.
wild mind  cobweb memories
misty flowers  narrow window

a love that was  never as good
as i want to  remember it

the stars  shatter

vi.
you reminded
me of my heart
as it once was
no wonder i fell
shooting star fast
in love with you

vii.
when we reunite
the whole of heaven will glow
stars will fall like rain
till the sky is pure white

*****

starry_shooting_stars_by_kuross-d7t7o9t

Day 27 – a love poem (we haven’t had one for a while)

Just whipped this bad boy off. Today is gonna be crazy busy, so thought I should get a poem out the way, in case I run out of time later. I like love poems. Now if only I could find topics from today, instead of dredging them out of the past.

*****

night breathing

after telling each other our stories
till it was too late for me
to stop myself tumbling
you said: let’s lie beneath the stars
of course, how could i say no

you lay a blanket on the lawn

your face so fierce, so beautiful
with skin burnt by the sun
i was out in the middle of somewhere
not knowing where
not wanting to come back

i forgot to exhale

even curled up against you
i was cold but could not move
when the rain became too heavy
to endure we went inside
& lay on your bed, still talking

i am inundated

i wish to stay lost
in this place forever
want you to kiss me
but you don’t know that
or if you do, you don’t care

to love is to breathe

instead
i put your breath in my pocket
to keep for another day
because i could tell
— you were already elsewhere

*****

life_breath__by_m0thyyku

Day 26 – the green green grass of home

Another poem crossed off the ToDoList. It’s been a pretty successful NaPoWriMo in that regard; but it is weird how things rarely turn out the way you thought they might. I dunno if other poets manage to craft poems as they first envisage them, but for me they often go off in a different direction. Not sure if that’s cos I’m too lazy to keep them on track or what …

*****

fuming suburbia

at my previous residence my neighbours
considered me lazy because i wasn’t a fan
of leafraking, grassclipping or any activities
that fought old ma nature’s inbuilt supremacy

here: the local gardeners get their revenge
by deliberately staggering their duties
over ev-ree-thing — weed whackers at 20
paces, a duelling banjos for the bourgeoisie

forget the 24-hour news cycle, ours is a 7-day
mowing cycle cos weekends are no respite
— sure, the professionals may have gone
… but that’s when amateur hour begins

how hard would it be for us all to sit down
& schedule a day, say from 11am-1pm
— suddenly Whippersnipper Wednesday
is born & we all. just. get. it. done…

granted it’d be a crazynoisy couple of hours
but at least it leaves the rest of the week
in blessed peace — seriously, there can’t be
that much kikuyu in my damn street

*****

SMALLgrass_by_shitsurenshitatokara-d51pjmw

Day 25 – “Birth of a Nation” Day (Alleged)

This is either the 3rd or 4th poem I’ve completed today (all about Anzac / WWI). & while I like the others, I’ve chosen to go with this last hour composition because it kinda has an edge the others don’t — even if my sounding board is unsure about its poesy.

*****

recipe for the world’s best Anzac biscuit

Ingredients
1 cup rolled duty
1 cup raw recruits
1 cup plain patriotism, sifted
¾ cup desiccated Colonialism
125 g adventure, melted
2 tablespoons Golden Age of Innocence
½ tsp bicarb of courage
3 tablespoons boiling anger

Method
Preheat the society to 40+ degrees. (Denying climate change will help here.  Note: If your society is fan forced, it’ll escalate quicker.)

Line your history books with a bunch of lies & mythos.

Place the duty, colonialism, patriotism & recruits in a bowl, stir with wooden rhetoric to combine. Melt the adventure & golden age of innocence in a melting pot over low heat.

In a separate bowl, combine the courage & boiling anger, then add this to the adventure/golden innocence mixture.  It will probably foam up & increase in size.  That’s good. Pour this foaming mess into your dry mix & stir.

Once it’s all combined, use a tablespoon to drop mixture onto trays, spacing them about 20 years apart.

Bake for 100 years or until golden brown — just kidding, it’s gotta be mostly white.  Sometimes if your society looks like it’s running out of recipe, you need to rotate the trays in the 70’s, then add some carefully sprinkled jingoism in the 90’s so you get an even bake.

Leave biscuits to cool on beach about 8 months before transferring to other racks to cook & cool in different places — France is good, as is the desert, the jungle.

Store in an old biscuit tin that your grandma gave you. They’ll last months.  Try not to scoff them all within the day.

Finally, please do not share them with anyone offshore. We don’t do that anymore.

Codicil: They really are delicious. And there’s nothing wrong with eating them, enjoying eating them, telling others you’re eating them — just try & understand the reasons why you are.

 *****
anzac biscuits

Day 24 – moving from a playwright to a poet

Been working on a poem about zero, but I like it too much to put on here (publishers/journals are so finicketty about what’s classed as ‘previously published’, & lots are saying even a little ol blog like this disqualifies it).

So instead, you get this other poem I’ve been toying with today. Less successful, but an okay first draft perhaps. Poems about writers on consecutive days, was unintentional … On the plus side, this was based on an idea/several articles from my To Do List, so little boom for that!

*****

much water, more salt
the last days of a great love poet

september 11’s,
have been occurring for centuries
americans do not have copyright
on the date though they might
like to think they do

one such,
sanctioned with behind-closed-doors CIA-backing
featured a right wing military coup
in a small South American country
where a democracy was taken down
& a dictator installed — within 12 days
three key opponents: the President, the Singer
& the Poet were all dead

naturally,
a cornucopia of conspiracy
theories abound, suspicions, coincidences
the official death certificate claims
advanced incurable cancer of the prostate
led to his malnutritious wasting away
yet his chauffeur (who conveniently doubled
as bodyguard) had a different, simpler take —
he was injected with something at the clinic
& died the day before he was preparing
to escape into Mexican exile
after allegedly having been full of life
railing against the chaotic first days
of Pinochet — & enjoying sex

so,
the Poet’s bones will be exhumed
from a grave near the sea
forensics experts will sift through
much water & more salt
to see if traces of poison
remain

whatever they find,
……………………………..or don’t,
it’s unlikely to satisfy
those who don’t want to be

*****

Neruda_by_anloyra

Day 23 – couple of presents for the birthday boy

Today is the anniversary of some guy’s birth who I’m kinda interested in. So I’m giving him two presents.

I started the first poem last year during NaPoWriMo14, but the loss of power in my house prevented me from finishing it. So it has been ‘rolled over’ to NaPoWriMo15. It’s still not quite what I want — but that’s what May is for, right? The second one is just a bit of fun — which no doubt only folks who know a bit about The Bard might find droll (but I’m not holding my breath on that). Really it was written to keep myself amused.

*****

I.
451 candles

though there’s doubt over the date
the compromise is St George’s Day
three days before your baptism
though under the Julian calendar
it’d be May 3, so what’s in a date?

admittedly you seem like a ghost
across all the lost centuries
we glimpse you only tangentially
through the dust & distance
your poor posthumous portraits
your six scrawled signatures
your small latin & less greek
your second best bed, your poaching
& all the accompanying apocrypha

you are perhaps the best known man
who we know next-to-nothing about
but the feeling of paucity stems from
the desperate intensity of our gaze
gaps exist for almost everyone of the time
your peers are no exception
yet of the 3000-odd plays believed staged
during this “golden age” of theatre
38 of the 230 extant manuscripts are yours
— 1 in 15 is a very respectable ratio

however, a succession of looneys enjoy
casting doubt on your every aspect —
appearance, identity, even your life itself
they cannot accept an ordinary man
can make extraordinary work
but rather needs to be from the ruling class
(bacon, de vere, queen bess herself, etc)

one thing that is certainly certain
were you still alive today
you’d have a heck of a time
blowing out all the candles

—

II.
the signing of the wills

far from being the genius
everyone claims
i counter you’re just
a willy-nilly-numpty
who didn’t know how
to spell his own name

that’s right i said it mr so-called

Wm Shakspe
Willm Shaksp
Willm Shakspere
William Shakespe
William Shakspere
William Shakspeare

you can’t even get it right — Shakespeare

*****

10 - BKA-Computermontage - Chandos-Portraet - Droeshout-Stich , 1995