Tag Archives: NAPOWRIMO

Day 3 – from Other Poets’ Poems

NOTE: so the lesson learnt from late last night is: remember to press the publish button, not the preview one. 

Today’s title poem comes from a different source than the first two. Friendly Street Poets had a session at the Payneham library & I went to listen to/support friends (I didn’t read given I’ll be yabbering on enough this month). While I was there

While I was there I recorded as many of the titles of the poems read out as I could (some poets don’t speak very audibly & some poets in the audience vague out from time to time). Then when I got home (after a quick diversion to a public house to discuss important issues like how many hands a clock has & our views on cats on the continent of Australia) I typed up the list of titles (those I could decipher given my scrawl) & from that subset drew my list of phrases.

Out of 71 possible titles I used 44, I probably could have got more in but I felt I was already ‘losing control’ of the draft as it was. It definitely would be better shorter, but that’s not the exercise this month.

Thanks & apologies in advance to any poets who are horrified that I have appropriated parts of their masterpieces for this Frankenpoem. If you are really upset, just remember — it’d be a better poem, if you gave me better titles hahaha…

 

scraping the (sleepless) nights

toward evening’s
moment of departure
you in your rocking chair

love your collection of axioms
poetry is dead
time is a hound
it’s best to be sure
love is a no through road
there’s no wonder in an open door
red in the morning
death by stoning’s too good, etc

your leftover questions
why are people so cruel
who can know the mind of the sea

your opinions
on the philosophy of cut flowers
on the 6.04pm platform 8 to osborne
on poetry as an alternative to oxygen masks

your admission
when aunty was dying
that night she said
she was living in a draft
of a new life

i ache to find
the ink trail lost
between words

the crux of trust
the genesis of hope

otherwise it’s just
the losing of wisdom

but you pack
your twilight years
up in neat little boxes
snuggle down
into your multi
coloured dream coat
your face turned
toward the garden
& the cold autumn wind

 

 

 

 

Day 2 – from the TO READ PILE (fiction room, leftover titles from yesterday)

This poem is a Title Poem taken from titles unused from yesterday.

Arrrggghhhh!  Just seeing the titles, makes me wanna read about a dozen of these books right now!

 

beautiful chaos

take the underground road
the narrow road to the deep north
to the magic mountain
where the pagan lord

gives instructions for breathing
demonstrates magic tricks
& time machines
are repaired while-U-wait

Day 1 – from the TO READ PILE (fiction room)

Today’s poem was generated by the game Title Poem. It’s pretty easy, you simply use the titles of books as the basis for your poem. Boom!

I’ve played this game before as part of NaPoWrMo 2014 I think … then I was ruthless, only allowing myself exact titles. It made for slightly stilted verse, but which was great inspiration for rewriting in the months afterwards. This time, I’m cutting a little slack & allowing myself to add words here & there, or maybe change or drop a ‘the’ from titles to allow the poem a chance to have slightly more sense/meaning.

That said, though, they are still strange dreamlike things (I’ve written two so far, one each day, I just didn’t get around to posting yesterday), which go places I wouldn’t normally —but given I only have a limited palette to draw upon, am sort of ‘forced’ to. Kinda like when rhymers choose a word just because it fits the pattern, rather than cos it’s the right word. Hopefully though, these won’t be quite so clunky as that.

In my fiction room, I have a chair to read in. Next to this, is a small bookcase topped with towering piles of books; books I’m kinda interested in reading next, if the mood takes me (it is one of about 4 such stacks around my house). For this exercise all titles are taken from that stack.

[NOTE: Roman font are words from the titles; italics are my additions.]

 

stolen

this house of sky
fades, a perfect

bluethroat morning
by silver blade cut

from the chains
of heaven

we great apes keep hush
about our scarlet necropolis

feign resilience
to the troubles

as the bone clocks
play the angel’s game

a quantum thief
steals my vintage summer

and although i am
a married man

i wish someone were waiting
for me somewhere

perhaps down by the ocean
at the end of the lane

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