NaPo is over!

NaPoWriMo 2013 is in the books!  It was a bit exhausting at times, but I had a lot of fun writing everyday.  I found that I was really looking forward to the repetition of sitting down and flushing feelings and ideas out the mind and transforming them into poems.  I think it’s healthy for writers to do this every so often, to exercise the writing muscles at an appointed time for a whole month.  It just feels good.

Anyway, I barely read anything from anyone else all month.  Those of you who participated, how did you all do?  I know I’m just touching the tip of the iceberg, but here are some of my favorites from the month that deserve some attention:

:thumb368968639: Shakes Our Faith and Breaks Their PromiseThis blueberry tea tastes like you
And I don't know who you are
Not really.
Not yet.
I should do
I suppose you'll just yell at me and claim I haven't been paying attention
Well this is stupid, since all we do is go around in circles
If we dropped it all perhaps then I could put a name to the taste
Or an identity at the least
But here you go on with your "Hare Krishnas" and "Mea Culpas"
Thinking you're so smart and spiritual
You're just a dumb drunk
But I adore you for your insides and soul
As shattered and shrunken as it may be at this time Like godsNew Pompeii clasps the old
in a fingerless glove of
tourist gold. A grubby
British penny is grinning from
the rabblement of dust. In the
West it's all the same. A
compendium of histories fill the
Seine, the Thames back home's
a rotted filed-away old thing.
And I am bound upon the cascade
of the Atlantic waves - no matter.
What's here is here - and here I am. April 2013 Napowrimo Haiku Set30
cold hands
dig into the fur of
sun-warmed cats
29
first warm weekend
deli patios packed
iced tea season
29.2
voices far away-
a butterfly
tasting my father's bald head
28
desert road
more lonely
than I know how to be
27
above the hospital-
parachutes
spiralling down
26
a kind word
frost-wilted
tulips making new buds
25
finally spring
cats outside
chickadeedeedeedee
24
soothing whisper
wind in the spruce
snowmelt
23
snowdrifts
along the fenceline
or horse hair?
22
snowy day
the yearlings stand heads togther
color wheel
21
cats know
you are not asleep
eep eep
20
sun-warmed cat
peaceful
cup of tea
19
melting snow
clunks musically
through the branches
18
spring lake-
geese float
geese stand on the ice
17
stomachache-
kitten puts one footprint
in the snow
16
purring
silhouttes
in the snowy window
15
empty teacup
cats have stolen
string and tag
14
woken by
the sound of rain
not a cloud in the sky
13
signs of spring
yellow tulip
baseball game traffic
12
fox track on snow
I'll follow
and es

NaPoWriMo 3: Cultthe Taj Mahal
is cut open, a riot
of psychedelic macaroon-
forms in
dying
light.
you,
lead-addled, drugged
second-hand on
elusive genius, effectively
long
to pry open those
plaster crevices,
or
otherwise abuse
the daggers and stripes
of color
in the next room, all
as eager as
hypnagogic predators,
each one (proudly)
vivisected below
some medical trough
of
electric shadow or
light
outsourced
to the
ceiling,
from where the jumble
of forks
and edible palettes
and other
rich pleasures
imperceptibly tear
your attention away
from
each
drip
sudden
dot
or
dash Sijo for the Snake I Am and the Mouse I Will BeBy noon, I’ve forgotten how to breathe; so to learn again I glide,
bend but do not break grass blade backs to watch him work, feel my girlhood
sloughed like a snakeskin in the reeds, see my womanhood like a mouse. :thumb363057257: Day 01: When People VisitMy stepmother's mixing salad
while sausages sizzle and pop-pop-pop,
burnt black on Dad's barbecue.
I'm hearing my two brothers hiding,
with my eyes closed, counting.
Nobody speaks of our secrets--
we know our parts in this portrait.

Sundropo  
 n
  some
  days I
   watch you
 rise and rage
with a new year
firework fervour–
untamed and glorious,
pulling the years together
with  a snap of  your fingers.
but some days you are languid,
stretching like the summer dusting
of freckles along your forearms, the
slumberous strands of hair shuttering
your sky-eyes from the morning light.
on these days, I think the earth spins
slower and the birds sing a little
quieter. on these days, I look
at you and I think:
sundrop. Collapsescared to be a mother
for fear my child will be taken away
when the nurses notice
the ill treatment
of myself :thumb367663310:

VisitVisit
You’ll have to find new
things to worry about.
What to do with all this
space, for instance; halves
of rooms strain with pert
emptiness, as if clamoring
to draw in your wasp-eyes.
Build a nest with the dead
husks of overused cardboard
boxes. Climb inside, sleep forever. NaPoWriMo - Day 20 'Of Owls and Cyclopes'The owl sat on a generator
in order to abscond
from flying upwind
and having to squander
a clove of garlic
on a miraculous dunderhead.
The cyclops it met
was willowy and mercurial,
seaweed hung from its arms
and dragged in the gutter.
He was a giant nonpareil
with little artillery to speak of
but a small bottle of salt
and a curl of metal,
but with an ego that left him
rodomontade and elusive.
Twice the owl wondered
if it had given up the ghost.
The cyclops merely fed cheese
to an elderly cowbird
while he chewed on a truffle,
watching the svelte creature.
The owl swallowed a quahog
wondering on the bilious hue
of its companion. Taj Mahal: A Triolet                                              Beintehah pyar is the vow
                                              Pehla pyar is the reason why
                                              He places gold above her brow
                                              Beintehah pyar is the vow
                                              In twos we learn of when and how
                                              Their bronze skin meets ivory sky
                                              Beintehah pyar is the vow
                                              Pehla pyar is the reason why chicken curryThe wafting smell of rose perfume
               clings the turmeric and cumin whirl
       -ing from paper plates and white
-sheeted carpets in the hands of our
        two hundred closest cousins drift
               -ing from relative to rela
        -tive, hugging old aunties doling
out streams of cheek pinches and
        giraffe meat jokes, husbands drunk on
               pure air and burning candles in
        kitchen tremble when they gaff or
was it when the cat yowls when he's
        struck by bare footed cousins synced
        

the citythese are the things I leave behind:
love like a headstrong art,
a barrage of skyscrapers lined up
like battleships,
a strange, surreal cityscape
with furtive alcoves and concave places
in which I hid my secrets.
perhaps one day I will
walk these streets without
stringing regret along at my heels—
I will greet the weeds
that struggle through the concrete
like lovers. Bait and SwitchBougainvillea blooms
and tall, shaded ferns disguise
this sorrowful life.

-----

Also,  I was interviewed by betwixtthepages as part of her “A Call to Conversation” series. Here’s the article:

cheers for Spring.

shane