Tag Archives: NAPOWRIMO

Day 21 – a list poem that is not in any way reflective of my real life

Slight change of pace today. Not a big List Poem writer. But wanted to try a TO DO LIST list poem. The rest is both sad & self -explanatory.

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the TO DO LIST poem

  • find the to do list you made yesterday
  • prioritise the tasks on that list
  • then do the things on that list
  • actually do the next thing first
  • add the things you forgot to put on yesterday’s list, including:
    • pay bills (it doesn’t matter which ones, they’re all due)
    • submit the article that was due last week
    • read the book you need to review
    • wash the dishes (no seriously, you’re out of cutlery)
    • buy fresh milk
    • stop making cups of tea then absentmindedly adding off-milk
    • throw out off-milk
    • clean out whole fridge while you’re at it
    • take cans to recycling
    • register the dog
      • buy the dog a collar
      • register the dog, put the rego disc on the dog’s collar, put the collar on the dog
  • then prioritise the NEW list
  • work out how much time is left in the day
  • allocate a specific time to get each task done
  • make sure you stick to the schedule
  • get first two things done which takes 3 times as long as you thought
  • make coffee so you can stay up late tonight getting things crossed off the NEW list
  • absentmindedly add off-milk
  • don’t just put the off-milk back in the fridge, throw it out
  • treat yourself to a short stretch on top of the bed
    ——(ostensibly to read some of that book you need to review)
  • fall asleep after three pages
  • wake up, groggy, too late to make proper meal
  • eat half a can of baked beans cold from the tin
  • make a cup of tea
  • absentmindedly add off-milk
  • seriously why didn’t you throw that milk out, it’s not hard
  • climb in to bed proper
  • think of all the things you need to add to tomorrow’s to do list
  • promptly fall asleep & forget everything you need to add

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to-do-list

Day 20 – image games

The story of this poem tells itself within the poem. Makes life easier.

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misplaced lake

one of my favourite travel stories
concerns a photograph of holy water

taken after my european sojourn
framed with precise pre-digital care

a vivid purple, a pool of venal blood
the top dam at twilight, my first night back

⋅

when showing it, i told my parents it was
a lake in france — for 3 days they believed

until i caught dad looking closely
it’s not really france is it?

no, i admitted, it’s your own country
the heart of everything 

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lake

Day 17 – when biography becomes poetry

This poem is inspired by a fellow NaPoWriMo-er whose site I was checking out. Her biog read almost like a poem (whether intentionally or not I couldn’t quite tell). But I loved the idea & wanted to try it for myself. It was a truly wonderful experience trying to describe yourself, not in the dry blurby words of biographical accomplishment, but in the much more playful & liberating medium of poetry. I have a feeling this really is only a first draft. It came very quickly & I know there’s probably 100 more lines that could be written. I need to write them, then cull back to the best dozen or so. None-the-less, today I don’t have time for that so this is whatcha get …

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gareth: a draft poetical biography

there’s almost always music playing in my head

my brain tries putting every experience it has into a poem
— sometimes successfully

i cry at stupid dog videos on facebook

i prefer barefoot to shoes

i love stones, shells & driftwood

i have a sweet tooth i’m trying to starve

i was born an hour late & have been trying to catch up ever since

night driving in the country is a zen meditation

i know i could stop being a hermit if i make a concerted effort
— i think

sunglasses & i don’t get along, i’ve lost every pair i’ve ever owned
— (the last pair took less than a day)

i want to spend one night in a lighthouse during a storm

i want to live in New York at least once, Iceland twice & Lothlorien forever after that

you tell me my eyes change colour from deepest black
— to a goldenhoneyhazelbrown
— (though i’ve never seen it)

i knew i was hurt, though i didn’t realise how much till we met

more than anything i want to be happy
— except i don’t know exactly what will make that happen

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Roker_lighthouse_5_by_jonboy247

Day 16 – some music for you, as we start on the downhill run home

Not the poem I was planning to work on today (though it was on the NaPoWriMoToDoList), but a line which has been substantially altered, barrelled into my book-reading this morning insisting to be heard. So I got up, & 2 hours later …

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ingrained

we assemble in a darkened
room, which we proceed to fill
with the singing of hollow wood.
we prefer the hallowed. & we prefer
the new. for centuries they’ve carried
their bias beneath the veneer,
mixed with years of sweat, love
& complicated accumulated hubris.
we can’t quantify a subjective quality
like sound cry the one-eyed critics
clamouring to be heard over the still
reverberating air — nevertheless
ranking was what we are
in the dark room to do.

we understand, you don’t
always get what you pay for
but know this also love is blind
so, the Italians momentarily
lost their glamour, the hum
of their hubris, briefly dulled
but the mystique, the mythos,
the belief in the brand name,
remain, without, in any way,
diminishing the price tag.

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violin_by_soozn

Day 15 – BONUS POEM … BOOK READERS BE ALARMED, VERY ALARMED

So as a kind of NaPoWriMo2015 midway point bonus poem, here is a Semi-Sort-of-Narrative Poem about one of my favourite passions, pleasures, pastimes, pursuits & predilections. (Today’s actual poem, still to follow.)

If you love reading, be warned, the following 244 words could terrify you.

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big angst over a relatively small number

in the 365 days of last year
i physically completed reading
56 new books ; give or take ;
another 8-10 audiobooks ;
for a lower than expected
1-&-a-quarter-a-week average ;
not included are books begun
but abandoned ; nor a half-dozen
reread books , first timers only
— but none of these
are the small number in question

i’m 44 & semi-fit-ish ,
if you look at me while
squinting into the sun ;
blood pressure 120 over 80
at the last doctor’s visit ;
my grandparental average age
is 90.9 , & still rising
— but none of these
are the small number in question either

assuming i can maintain
this minimal completion rate
until my , now meticulously
mapped-out , demise ;
& assuming i survive
to at least 80 ; 10 years shy
of my long-living familial median ,
the second assumption
far less likely than the first ;
then i only have 2,376
books left to read in my life!
— welcome to the small number
& the big angst

less than 2 & half thousand!
10,000 new books are published
in english … E.V.E.R.Y. year ;
360,000 during my imagined
remaindered lifetime ;
& i’ll be able to read a measly ;
0.69% of them ; if i’m lucky ;
not counting all the classics
never read but always intending to ;
the books already bought
but not yet dipped into ;
& of course the faves i’d like
to revisit at least once more
before the big shuffle off

hence my goal this year ;
& the next 15 at least ;
to religiously devour
2 a week ; that’s 1664
before i’m 60 ; leaving a lazy
712 to knock off between
then … & 2050
— should be a doddle

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cave_of_the_forgotten_books_by_racoonart-d7t7qwg

Day 14 – from a single line, a whole poem grows

One of the lines in this poem has been floating round the journal looking all waif like & forlorn for months. Today another poetic job got struck from the NaPoWriMo to do list. Boom. (For those playing at home, there is a very nice prize to the first person who correctly identifies that original spark line.)

NB the second line of each of the three couplets are meant to be indented, but wordpress ain’t designed for poets…  NB2 wahoo! they now are (I have worked out a trick – using an em dash & turning it white 🙂 )

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drift

it’s easy to ignore gravity’s rubber
—band on days like these

the cold has shaken it loose

electron energy seeped into my DNA

gazing up as dozens of leaves
—sigh down around me

a pointing sun, signs the way

the breeze follows its own music

i begin to lift
—into the endless bluebright sky

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Float_Away_by_billyunderscorebwa

Day 14 – poem about weight

 

helix nebula

NaPoWriMo should cycle through the months of the year, because repeated participation throws up the same zeitgesty events annually. Today, a topic that continues to intrigue me.

14 sorrows

i.
all that remains
the kiss complete
sentence cast

ii.
weight is not great
merely wood, would
the rest weighed less

iii.
stumble, fall
twice more for
dramatic effect

iv.
love i’ve denied
before me where
others share, i’ve hid

v.
brother shoulders
compelled to bear
what he’d gladly choose

vi.
a cool cloth
give her my face
& my thanks

vii.
halfway to skulls
stagger again, stumble
tumble into desert dust

viii.
women weep
barren wombs, dry breasts
call mountains to crumble

ix.
fall
a third time
at last, almost done

x.
stolen clothes
brigands barter
naked before the gods

xi.
metal bites
wood absorbs blood
more than flesh hangs

xii.
enough
call for poison
the sleep of death

xiii.
amid weeping, relief
the weight off
down, done

xiv.
lie, in darkness
hopefully, finally
some peace