DEAR POEM, THE POINT OF NO RETURN, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 12

NaPoWriMo write a poem that addresses itself. Dear Poem…interrogate it.

DEAR POEM

Dear Poem, why did you leave me in the lurch like that, 

surrounded by mundane words, second class ideas 

and turns of phrase so trite, they made me wince?

We had a good thing going, you left me standing,

you walked out the door like an irate lover.

What on earth were you thinking? It’s been said before.

Didn’t you learn anything at all after all this time, 

that metaphor and simile must always be served fresh 

and piping hot out of the smithy’s forge?

There is no way to resurrect or to save a stale poem, 

no matter how precious the subject matter,

without undergoing a linguistic blood transfusion.

They say poems need to be retranslated every generation 

as language takes a powder, words change nuance 

and meaning dissolves into cliché 

whenever you least expect it.

4/12/23

2023 April PAD Challenge write a sound poem

THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Lonely cars on the tarmac late at night, 

remind me of wind soughing in the pines, 

or the restless surcease of the ocean’s roar 

and I want to follow the vagaries of that road 

leading back to the point of no return.

4/12/23

NUMBERS, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 9

NaPoWriMo write a contemporary love sonnet.

I didn’t feel it.

2023 April PAD Challenge write a numbers poem

NUMBERS

Yeah, I didn’t have much of a dad. 

Not much of a mother either. 

It all came down to numbers. 

No child support was the biggest number.

My mother, who was part alley cat,

dropped me off at my grandmother’s doorstep 

when I was four. Followed by my brother 

who arrived one Sunday morning in a bassinet 

on our doorstep some four years later.

My father came to see me a few times 

during those growing up years. 

And then he ditched me when I was 18. 

He loved a bottle of Seagrams 7 on ice 

more than he loved me. That was his number.

At least my mother tried to love me

as she descended into the depths of depression 

but her good days were a finite number. 

But I adored my grandmother, whose number 

was marred by a widow’s half pension,

so I grew up in the country, dirt poor,

but somehow made whole by the algorithms

of landscape, despite everything.

5/31/23

AS YOU SETTLE INTO THE LIGHT, Burning a path towards the sun, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 6

NaPoWriMo make a transliteration from Poetry International tricky for me, because I can sort of read Dutch, so I extrapolated and stretched it.

AS YOU SETTLE INTO THE LIGHT

Note the steps of the ladder, not the stories of the lost children.
Note the house, not the starry night. Go ahead, drink the wine.

Remember the house is dark. The windows with their eyes shut
doubt the light, they are learning to sing the ways of the wind.

The house speaks of memory and there is no stopping it, 
with its hard wounds and proud flesh and angst it wants…

It wants you to climb into the attic of the psyche and dream
behind closed doors and dwell in the sunlight plaited in gold.

It will make everything seem like new again.
Stand there with the door open wide, your hands trembling,

greet the wind as you settle into the light.

4/11/23

2023 April PAD Challenge write a poem about odor. I misread an earlier prompt, wrote this, wrong piece.

Burning a path towards the sun

The odor of acacia reminds us that spring arrived. But the cold air severs us from beauty. Chilblains become a real thing as cruel April rolls up its trousers. The coastal mountains are still holding onto last week’s unseasonable snow, Cobb Mountain, dressed in a lace gown, is draped in a shawl of clouds and darkness like a grande dame waiting for the opera to begin. Mustard and chamomile brave the elements as if last week’s snow laid down in the deep ravines, was waiting to sleep it off until the morning comes. I admire the bravery of daffodils and tulips, they harbor no grudge against the vagaries of spring, yet rise up from the darkness like phoenixes, burning a path towards the sun. 

4/3/23

As you can see, I wrote this earlier, but it fits.

LAMENT FOR LAKE TULARE, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 5

NaPoWriMo write a poem based on Simic’s Melon.

LAMENT FOR LAKE TULARE

In the Central Valley there once was a lake so vast,
So chock full of fish that it fed entire cities.
As it dreamed of clouds mirroring the Sierra Range,
The rivermelt sang its praises of spring song,
And painted its shores with wildflowers and tule reeds
While steamships huffed and chugged into port.

No one even remembers when the lake died.
The last farmers to whisper its name, all gone now.
The story persisted, and the mad language of water
Returns to haunt the memory buried in that lakebed.
Soon it will reclaim its long-lost shores
As the spring melt rises to reclaim what was lost.

3/11

I merely replaced Simic’s words with my own. See Day 3, CURSE THE FLOODWATERS. Check out this NASA image of the lake now. I never start each line with a capital letter anymore. So it was odd and I kept trying to erase those capital letters but that’s how Chuck wrote his poem. And so it stays.

2023 April PAD Challenge take the phrase "(noun) in (location)," replace the (noun) with a noun, replace the (location) with a location, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "Dinosaurs in Jamaica," "Popsicle in Cairo,"

The above poem could count for double, I suppose. The PAD prompt didn’t move me. On the other hand,
SUNRISE OVER MT. HOOD, which I wrote before I saw the prompt, fills the niche. Oddly, I uncharacteristically came up with the title first, as I was driving to work. So I think I will let it go. Besides, it’s all a springboard, as long as I wind up with 30 poems.

AT THE VERNAL POOLS, and INNER DIALOGUE NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 4

NaPoWriMo write a triolet, an eight-line poem in iambic tetramenter, lines  1, 4,7 are identical, as are the 2nd and last lines—the poem begins and ends with the same couplet, within a tight rhyme scheme  — ABaAabAB. I don’t think I like writing in forms.

AT THE VERNAL POOLS

Across the pond the herons glide,
And the egrets seek higher ground
From prying eyes and compromise.
Across the pond the herons glide,
Hunting for froglings and newts’ eyes.
We used to watch them soar around.
Across the pond the herons glide,
And now egrets seek higher ground.

4/9/23

2023 April PAD Challenge

Write a dream poem, and/or Write a reality poem.

INNER DIALOGUE

Some say that in a dream, 

the idea that we carry a dialogue with us, 

wherever we go, day and night, 

it accompanies us, is like a familiar, 

watching over us, waiting for the news, 

hidden behind a veil of symbolism 

and random metaphor.

4/9

CURSE THE FLOODWATERS, Obscure Facts, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 3

CURSE THE FLOODWATERS 

After Lucille Clifton’s blessing the boats.

curse the rising floodwaters
leaving us bereft
on the rocky shores of grief without a raft
dragging us down
below the murky depths of memory
curse its laughter and gurgle
that stifling heat of scorn     then embrace it
know that the uncertainty
won’t ever have your back   so curse it too
and remember to keep your mouth shut
the sun burning incandescent    too is cruel
and so curse it for the dark knowledge it harbors
as you founder in the quicksand 

seeking solace on an ephemeral shore

4/3/23
NaPoWriMo pick a poem, any poem, change the words to their opposite meaning. Revise.


2023 April PAD Challenge write a connection poem (I accidentally used the wrong prompt for this one, so this is a placeholder.

Obscure facts

Someone said to write about an obscure fact, something that no one else would know about. I couldn’t think of anything. And I thought of how stop lights are not green, but turquoise, reminding us of tropical seas and of our own origins.

After the rain, the drowned wildflowers can’t poke their head above the sludge. After the floodwaters have dropped a foot at a time, the meadows carry a permanent high tide line.

I can’t get over that image of the Tibetan woman with her trio of marmots begging for food like small children. Since winter lives year round in Tibet, I think of those marmots begging at the hem of her skirts hoping for the arrival of spring. Does she sing to them? Her marmot children?

4/3/23

SURREAL QUESTIONS after Celan, VERNAL PATROL, FINAL CURTAIN CALL, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 2

SURREAL QUESTIONS after Celan

1. What is fog?

     The hills hiding from the sun because they forgot their origins.

What is salt?

     That old mill grinding its eye teeth at the bottom of the ocean.

What is a river?

     A sob story that begins deep in the mountains where the ouzel lives.

What is longing? 

     A immeasurable distance of abandoned grief dressed in twilight.

What is a song? 

     The sun, by any other name, dressing the horizon in silk.

(Now throw away the questions.)

2. The hills hid from the sun because they forgot their deep origins.

Neptune’s old mill is gnashing its eye teeth at the bottom of the ocean.

The river begins as a painting deep in the mountains 

   where Wu Wei’s water ouzels seek the mysteries of the gorge.    

An immeasurable distance of grief is dressed in twilight.

Meanwhile the sun is dressing the horizon in flaming raiments of silk 

   to remind it of its intangible beauty.

4/2-3 (playing catch-up. I read the prompts, and let them perk.)

NaPoWriMo make 5-10 impossible questions after Celan or Neruda, you choose. Toss the questions and revise the answers.

VERNAL PATROL

The wild geese were arguing in the meadow again 

as they swarmed the vernal pool searching for frogs. 

Meanwhile, the egrets patrolled the pools 

with the relentless concentration of prison guards.

The fairy shrimp and tadpoles didn’t stand a chance.

4/3

FINAL CURTAIN CALL

Our love affair was a torrid B-movie with a bad plot twist.
It lasted far too long, and had too little reward in the end,
and all that was left were the broken seats in an empty theater.
The curtains were drawn, the limelight snuffed out.  

Popcorn and spilled coke on the floor took mint hostages.
The director had long since fled after the bad reviews came in.
And then you say you want to be friends
like some Frankenstein monster seeking redemption
or perhaps Saturn waiting to devour its young.
But my name still means bitter herbs.

Nothing will ameliorate that fact.

4/3
2023 April PAD Challenge Write a B movie poem.

GREAT WHITE HUNTER, FOOLISH HEART, NaPoWriMo Day 1 haiku

GREAT WHITE HUNTER

Oliver the cat
tiptoes over the wet grass 

then sits on the bug.

He slinks down the path 

flat-eared and round-eyed, he chatters, 

but the birds are no fools.

Foolish cat lays low 

thinking he’s invisible. 

The birds know better.

………….

Last night’s storm damage 

is measured in increments 

by the sheer number 

of utility trucks 

parked by the side of the road

hoisting up cables.

………

Driving any old way to work

So much depends on

the SUV in front of me, 

which way it turns, 

thus mapping my path 

leaving the day’s route to chance.

The road least taken.

………..

Unlucky rabbit 

by the side of the road, split 

like a BBQ chicken.

………..

The marmot was right

Winter didn’t let go 

its hold until April arrived 

rolling up its trousers, 

ready for business.

4/1-3 (I counted syllables all day, but didn’t commit to print)

NaPoWriMo. Haiku & American looons.

FOOLISH HEART

Foolishly, I thought you’d love me forever.
Foolishly, I put all my eggs in one basket.
Foolishly I waited 21 years to seal the bargain
before I had enough of all this foolishness with you.
Foolishly you thought it would all blow over.
Foolishly you hedged your bets. And assumed much.
But when the promissory note came due,
there was nothing left, but your foolish pride.
Foolishly, I believed everything you said.
Foolishly, I believed that forever would last
at least for a half-life of forever and a day.
Foolishly, I believed in the fairytales.
I believed that love was forever today.
But my moth-eaten pride was in tatters,
my heart was dressed in Cinderella rags.
My heart harbored pestilence, rotted from the inside,
because foolishly, I took it all in and blamed myself
gaslighted by your foolish pride.

2023 April PAD Challenge Write a foolish poem.

Here are all 30 of 2022 poem a day prompts. Knock yourself out.

SURE SIGNS OF SPRING

I stood beneath the madrone tree,
alive with the buzzing of bees,

and I wondered what species? 

A voracious party of bees leaves

a lake of small white bells at my feet.

European honeybees? Carpenter bees?

Whatever the species, they begin early, 

gathering nectar at the crack of dawn. 

Small bells like drifts of snow cover the car.

The tree buzzes and drones on, 

sounding like it’s about to take off 

to join the twin propeller planes 

crossing a flawless West Marin sky.

Two drunken bumblebees fall from the tree 

and wobble onto me, piggyback.

The little furry fkrs fking on my finger!

I had no worries about being stung. 

That was the last thing on their minds.

4/23 PAD

THE GOOD DOCTOR POET

      —with thanks to William Carlos Williams

So, we were at this boring party deep in a dull suburb,
much to our surprise, we met an aviator in the atrium—so much

depends upon casual connections, conversations drift and float
upon a sea of ambient noise, the generic hubbub fueled by

a mix of alcohol and angst, the party fizzled, it was a case of nature

red in tooth and claw, soon drunks would be carted off in red

wheelbarrows, our New Jersey pilot was out of his depth, his face

glazed with boredom, he told us a story of scars when he was five,

without preamble, he rolled up his pants, to show us his knee, his eyes
watered, a yawn, he fell out of an apple tree, the poet-doctor stood

beside him, and stitched him up. We leaned forward in unison, was
the name Williams? He said, yes how did you know? We were

white-knuckled with anticipation. We cackled like triumphant
chickens, high-fiving each other, and said, because we’re poets.

4/11 NaPoWriMo 

CLEAR CUT

When I was a child, our neighbor, 

Lucien Vincilione—his name, a clue—

in an attempt to establish a preordained
sense of order in a fecund wilderness,
vigorously cleared manzanita and coyotebush,
to let the land breathe. He sawed and whacked
and sprayed the brambles with a vengeance,
leveling with impunity the berries and wild roses,
eradicating the snowberry and the pipevine—
what we called the greeny Dutchman’s pipe,
never learning the names of those wild plants
that survived for eons in that unkept garden.
Still not content, he torched the honeybee nest
in the bay tree down by the creek, he
felled the venerable crabapple in the gulley
all for the idea of order, and a good riddance,
he said, having abolished the slovenly wilderness
for a sterile landscape of non-native grasses.
First to go were the shooting stars, then the creamcups,

then the larkspur, and the tiny wild strawberries,

the death-knell of the blue-eyed-grass and hounds-tongue 

and the dainty iris. Only the death camas survived.

Of course we were unaware of the role of symbiosis,
an interdependent dance of host plant and insect.
And for all his efforts, for decades there was no longer 

a verdant wildflower carpet to greet us,

nor a crown of black pipevine swallowtails
with luminous indigo and russet eye patches
swooping around our heads in spring.
No accounting for taste, my grandmother said.
Not even the small birds could survive 

that onslaught of progress.

4/10 PAD

Persian door, Aleke and Kobe

Southern Iran or North Kurdistan. From Hawraman, Facebook

The hen contemplates the day, standing on the lintel hovering between inside and outside, the enticing odor of green grass, an oasis, as she can’t fathom the distant lake or the the dark mountains, or gender; her world is contained within the twin cerulean doors opening inward spilling the memory of sky inward onto the dung walls of a room with a flagstone floor, a curved mosaic bowl worn down by time, and the secret whisperings of the past. The hen stands on the women’s side of the doors. They each have their own gendered story of segregated entrances. The verdigris brass aleke, a delicate wing, or more often, a finger-shaped knocker for the women to gently tap, was on the right side, and the thick kobe fist, in the shape of a lionhead or a hand for the men to bang upon the door was on the left. The pitch of the knock, a code, so that the inhabitants each knew how to answer the door. Women answered to the tap and men answered the more robust knock. But in order to close the door, both halves are needed—you can’t have one without the other.

4/9 PAD. Aleke and kobe

Day jobs

No one ever told me that I’d be come a jack of all trades and master of none, if I became an artist. That my life would be filled with myriad meaningless day jobs. They said get a real job. I didn’t listen. I danced from job to job. I began young following my passion, supporting hopeless causes. To support my horse rescued from the glue factory, I was a babysitter, gardener, errand runner, stall shoveler, horse exerciser, salad girl. When she died, there were more horses and ponies to support, I was a stray equine magnet perennially in debt to my vet. In my Junior year, I sold off the last of the ponies and became a waitress in Switzerland, to see the Alps. I got stranded there when the airlines went belly up. To put myself through college, I was a small tarot press manager (where I became pen pals with Ken Kesey), a housemaid, a house cleaner, au pair for the rockstars and the rich (wi’ a cuppa tae in me hond with Fleetwood Mac)—and that was all before I hung my artist hat up and took up the mantle of poetry. Somewhere along the way there was love. And travel.  I’ve been a caterer, server, bartender (don’t talk to me about slippery nipples), an independent newspaper paste-up and layout troglodyte (we worked all night), a darkroom film developer, photographer and writer (I met lots of famous people while wearing my ace cub reporter hat, not to mention my usher duds), a graphic artist and calligrapher, an Elderhostel lecturer on local history and geography, arts facilitator and presenter, seller of Dish satellite TV antennae (apparently I was good, I won a Mickey Mouse watch, but watches don’t like me). I’ve even been an extra in movies (with Brian Cox, and a glaring Faye Dunaway), and TV series—a face-to-face with Cheech, where I played a reporter—and I’ve never seen any of those clips. I’ve been a madcap storyteller for school literacy programs. Before the pandemic I was an intreprid traveler, a petsitter, a housesitter, a Living History silk artist teacher/storyteller, and a whisky wench for Highland Gameses, educator-trainer, artist in the schools, both poetry and art, I am still hard at it, still waltzing, though I approach my 70th year filled with curiosity and trepidation that I made it this far without ever having held down a real job. Well, unless you count that stint at Trader Joe’s where I learned the rules of commerce, and became their top cheesemonger, but it was a place where the customer is always right, and haughtier than hell, and more than willing to take you to the cleaners for the most minor of infractions. What can I say, my face was an open book. I didn't have to practice my fuckyouverymuch smile. It came naturally. But that’s where I met Rita Moreno and we danced in the aisles after her hip surgery. Oh, how we danced. And laughed. Poetry was my beacon, my true north. I’ll dance to it. I only just now learned the full phrase is “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” Hear, hear.

What were some of your day jobs to support your habit?

4/9 PAD

MAKING A BREAK FOR IT

It feels weird doesn’t it, to make a break for it,
go out into the world for nonessential things.
By that, I mean things you don’t need to do
or need to have in order to survive.
By that, I mean all the things that we let go of
during the pandemic, By that I mean how
we sequestered ourselves from everything,
until toilet paper became essential,
then paper towels, then alcohol.
Now poetry.

4/9 PAD

ALL THAT BLUE IN THE FIELDS

 ALL THAT BLUE IN THE FIELDS

When I was a child, our lower field was blanketed 

with myriad cornflowers in late summer. 

I marveled at their variety and depth of color. 

Indigo and woad. I coveted the ones with the purple hearts, 

of course, as purple was color of forgiveness, 

something I was always in short supply of.

When I went to the Ukraine in late summer, 

I was surprised by cornflowers, blue eyes in the wheat. 

And there you have the the colors of the Ukrainian flag. 

The wheat and the sunflowers, and the cornflowers and sky.

And sometimes there were wind poppies 

remembrance for all the blood that was shed.

4/7 PAD

AEOLIAN DREAMS

In Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah, an alien throne
awaits the song of the rogue wind
in the heart of the iron-stained hoodoos —
nestled deep in the Valley of Dreams
where rests the fossilized remains
of the five-horned pentaceretops.
Let misfortune and sleeping fossils lie.

4/5 PAD

Lost Time

Catch up, catch up, always out of breath,  it seems that I am always running  from one appointment to another, like Alice’s white rabbit who was, and who always will be late, late, for a very important date, as he said, anxiously checking his pocket watch for the umteenth time, having misplaced both gloves and fan. Clearly, he has never heard of Ram Dass, who famously said Be here now. Lord knows, we’ve been trying ever since. Do we ever really catch up with ourselves, once we’re out of synch? Doesn’t he know that no one knows when to arrive for the Queen of Hearts? It is always noon at the gates of the garden. But we all know how Alice fell down the rabbit hole. The real question is, why is the Cheshire Cat always smiling? 

4/4 PAD

April Poem a Day and NaPoWriMo prompts

Robert Brewer’s Poem a Day Challenge and NaPoWriMo poem a day challenge writing prompts (Blogger helpfully removes the links and renders them useless, so you will need to visit their websites.)

It’s time for the 2021 Poem a Day and NaPoWriMo challenge

From Robert Lee Brewer: Here we are with the first day of the 2021 April Poem-A-Day Challenge! Each day, I'll provide a poetry prompt and a poem to get things started. You can secretly poem along at home, or you can share your poem in the comments below. Catalogue here.

The 2021 PAD line up Last year, someone on Facebook suggested I start the daily prompting and poeming earlier than usual, since so many people were self-quarantining and social distancing at the moment in the United States and elsewhere around the world. And it was a great call. (That was me! —MH)

The minus PaD countdown began March 22. -10. Begin a poem with Let’s. -9. Write a cause and effect poem. -8. Write a fantasy poem. -7. Take a song title, change a word, make the new title the title of your poem, and write your poem. -6. Write an invention poem.-5. write a MacGuffin poem. A MacGuffin is an object (living or nonliving) necessary for the plot but has no greater value to the story. A good example is The Maltese Falcon. -4. Write a universal poem, a universal truth, experience, or a film from Universal Pictures. -3. Write a "spirit of the stairs" poem. that moment when you come up with all the things you should've said AFTER the moment has passed. Hence, you're on the stairs. -2. Take the phrase "Almost (blank)," replace it with a new word or phrase, make it the title of your poem. -1. Write a warm up poem. It could be related to sports, before a baseball game or track race. Or it could be about a computer warming up, the weather, or even a relationship.

Day 1. For today's prompt, write an introduction poem. Introduce yourself, introduce a friend, or introduce a stranger. If you don't wish to introduce yourself, consider writing a persona poem (a poem in which you write from someone else's point of view like Emily Dickinson or a bumblebee). Of course, you could also introduce a problem, solution, or just a situation. Have fun with it! Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.

Allow me to introduce myself, 

said the sun to the sky.

And the sky said let me kiss this guy.
A guitar solo was the only answer.

4/1/21 —MH

SPRING GOLD

SPRING GOLD

OK, so I'll finally admit it is a cold
that finally declared itself in all its snotty splendor
after a day of chasing wildflower photos
in high winds where the air was so laden with pollen
the distant coastal hills were lost in a dream haze
like an alkali curtain had descended upon them.

The first time in over a decade a ritual is broken,
no more travels to the desert in springtime.
My partner dumped me at an unmarked trailhead.
So I learned to find my way and make do
with the local landscape, sneezing all the while,
remembering the trips to the Mojave Desert
where vast floral carpets of goldfields,
poppies, and purplemat stretched farther
than the eye could see.

I release my anger, I release him back
to the darkness that is his alone to bear.
He keeps calling me but I will not take him forth
into a future where the wildflowers
steal small pieces of the sun to dress the hills
in such gilded array that I am sick with joy.

4/16/19