Napowrimo Wrap-Up

Phew! What a month! I had to take a few days off to catch up on other things and not think about writing or poetry, but now I'm back. I've got to say that Napowrimo was a unique and rewarding experience. It was a great creative challenge that alternated between fun and tiresome moments, and had that highly motivating group event structure. You know, with the "we're in this together" feel, and the positive peer pressure to hang in there, etc. Sort of like Hood to Coast for poets. But without the lasting knee injuries.

Anyway, now I'm looking to jump into another writing project so that I can build on the momentum I gained from Napowrimo. I've been reminded over the past few days of my great love for the serial storytelling format, so I've decided to do something in that vein. There are lots of directions I could go with that, in terms of specific format within the serial format, but I've whittled away the options to a few finalists. When I decide which one I'm going to run with, I'll post it here and then promptly dive in and get started.

30 Days and 30 Nights

are enough to finish reading a long book,
heal a cut on your thumb,
plan an anniversary trip,
eat 90 meals (and still have room for snacks),
grow grass on a chia pet,
use up a prescription of antibiotics,
order (and receive) a Bluetooth headset from Amazon,
log 160 hours on the clock at work,
watch the special extended edition
of the Lord of the Rings (but just barely),
clean up hundreds of messes,
settle a ridiculous number of arguments,
follow the first round of the playoffs,
live through a seven day week four times,
hug three children and one woman (repeatedly),
fill a notebook end to end with scribbling,
and drain the fullest pen.

Now for some sleep.

Revolution Never Dies

Today would be Décadi, the day of rest, tenth day of the month of Floréal in the two hundred and seventeenth year since the dawn of the republic, if the Calendrier républicain had stood.

I was there at the Bastille when we broke through. Léon, Gaspard, and I fought under Desmoulins, and even amid the gunfire and flames we felt the joy of new birth. Everything old would be wiped away! We would make all things new!

But the dream is never like the waking, n'est pas? And when the blood of the royalists was all spilled, we turned to drain the blood of friends. How could we think to write a constitution with such ink?

      Liberated from the monarchy, but not from fear.
      Equally able to kill and be killed.
      Brothers, but only once beneath the earth.

For me there is no day of rest. I must outlive it all. Forever forward, yet never fully alive. Is this the punishment for my crimes?

La terreur n'est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible.

The Calling

Follow me, you said one night,
and though I knew I heard it right
I found a reason not to go
(which wasn't really saying no).

Follow me, you called again
and so I almost did, but then
I saw some things I had to do
and thought that I'd get back to you.

Follow me, you spoke once more
and then, unlike the times before,
I knew I had to make a choice
and not ignore your still, small, voice.

Follow me.
            What if I fall?
Follow me.
            And lose it all?
Follow me.
            But I can't see...
Just take my hand
and follow me.

Broken Soldier

I’ve bought three tubes of superglue
but all their claims have proved untrue,
and still your pieces lie here, strewn,
because you’re clearly glue immune.
Now what to say? And what to do?
I fear you’re lost to the platoon...

The Features of a Familiar Planet

The glacial pace of these global changes
mostly hides them from our eyes,
but still, the features slowly shift.
Tectonic plates drift, collide
and uplift the surface like bones.
Wind, rain, and rivers erode,
carving channels down through the skin.
Gravity sags at the furrowed brows, cheeks, and chin.
And our terraforming efforts, too,
like the repeated formation of expressions
across the geologic epochs,
bring on changes –
now pinching up these frowning ridges,
now spreading out these lines of laughter.

What stories will be mapped out in the end
over the face of this, my earth?

Automation Expectation

I turn away from the urinal
but it does not flush.

I hold out my hands for soap, water, towels,
but nothing happens.

What is this strange, archaic place
where I must touch things
in order to receive them?

24 (C)

you are speaking
soap bubbles through a wand
and the air fills
with rainbow-pearled pollen
I gather them in
to receive
your words

24 (B)

mounds
of shredded paper
loom around us like peppered snowdrifts
the detritus of documents
what is this place?
they are messages missed
words unreceived

24 (A)

words
like prayer beads
fingered gently and shuttling between us
or little boxcars
laden with freight
and steaming out trusted
to reach their destinations

On an April Afternoon

Laying on my back
in the shade-marbled grass beneath a maple tree,
I watch a lazy cloud between the leaves.
This messenger of rain, far from companions,
is tasked with taking water somewhere,
but clearly has an open schedule.

I take off my glasses
and the view goes soft, indistinct.
Edges and lines are replaced with diffused colors,
nebulous forms, and swimming lights.
I see the casual stirring of green amoebae above.
I listen to the whispering of phantom flagella.

Untitled Poem About the Signification of Absence

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Fast Food Improv

Taco Bell hot sauce
on Arby's Beef and Cheddar:
two star-crossed lovers?

Disreunion

You say a girl with your name
once knew a boy with my name:
They sat by each other in class,
had mutual friends,
went to football games and dances?
Yes, of course I remember
a girl with your name.

Then the flicker of familiarity
is swallowed in foreignness.
The reaching for nostalgia
reveals dislocation.
And we stand awkwardly,
stranger than strangers.

A girl with your name
once knew a boy with my name.
But those people,
like faded photographs,
have passed.

Why have we kept the names
of the dead?

Let's Trade Jobs for a Day

You'll pass through security using my key fob,
log in to my computer,
sip coffee, answer emails,
and sift through lines of PHP and Javascript.

I'll catch the bus to kindergarten,
perch on a tiny plastic chair,
color between the lines with crayons,
and run around the playground, squealing.

Yes, I think it might be nice
to trade jobs for a day.

Schwimmender Kopf!

Schwimmender kopf means "swimming head"
(in German, that is how it's said).
In France they call it poisson lune,
which ties the thing right to the moon.
The Latin name is mola (twice),
but these are 'millstones' kept on ice.
Still others say sunfish instead.

My favorite name is swimming head.

Lost in Translation

Compare apples with pears!
Bring you to the palm?
Not like the towel throw!

As the nature of the language is enriched,
among the types of natural speech,
among the species of animal speech.


(This was Google's translation of the text in a featured content box on a German website.)

Little Wrestlers

Together, we have a fighting chance!
Like small pebbles in an avalanche...
ants biting on a caterpillar...
or Lilliputians with enough string...
the strength of our numbers can prevail!

Multiple Choice

A) Stay in bed now boys, and go to sleep.
B) Stop talking to each other, and go to sleep.
C) Calm down, lie still, and go to sleep.
D) All of the above.

Frame Rate

The grove of cherry trees is still,
and suffused with a warm, pink light.
A sighing of the air stirs the flowered boughs,
causing a light snowfall of blossoms
to drift lazily down between the dark trunks.

STOP. REVERSE IN 500-FRAME SKIPS. AND... HOLD.
NOW FORWARD, FRAME BY FRAME... AND STOP.
SET KEY FRAME 'A' AT... 03196.
QUEUE AT 50X SPEED. PLAY.

Cycles of day and night wash over the trees:
first the bright, scudding foam,
and then the plankton-flecked cobalt depths.
The branches cautiously unfold their pink tendrils,
like anemones, coaxed open by the rising tide.

STOP. SET KEY FRAME 'B' AT... 08441.
REVERSE TO KEY FRAME 'A'.
SHOW LEVELS HISTOGRAM. HMMM...
QUEUE AT 300X SPEED. SET PANNING LOOP. PLAY.

The sky strobes uncontrollably,
cowering under the fire of tracer bullet suns
as the trees burst and retract their blooms
in a pulsing rhythm, like hearts
now wounded, now healed.