Write with Me

Here's another shot at Haiku. Which ending do you like? Got one of your own?

Haiku with Three Endings

Clear, warm evening,

stars overhead poke the night –

the owl lifts her wings

my feet shuffle home

a train’s long whistle

Prepositions

Here's day twenty-one's submission for NaPoWriMo (a poem a day for the month of April in honor of National Poetry Month). Earth Day is tomorrow.

Prepositions

I'm sleepy, and it's late.
I don't think I'm going to get a poem
on the page tonight.
At least, not one I'm happy with.

Ending the first stanza with 'with'
tastes like a cigarette butt
plucked out of a dirty ashtray.
Stale smoke and desperation,
too late to buy something better
or less dirty, so you do the unthinkable:
violate all the English teachers you ever had,
tilt your head to get your nose out of the way,
and light that fucker up, risking
setting your moustache on fire.

I can hear them now, thumbs clicking
their red pens, tensing their muscles,
ready to pounce. "Try that again, Dixon,"
they're threatening with clenched teeth,
"and you won't pass."

"But this is poetry," is my weak reply,
"and reading it again, I think it works..."

No use. That innocent four-letter word
will be circled in a red hangman's noose.

My doctor steps in and says, "Really?
A cigarette butt? You can do better than that."
And I suppose I can,
but like I said, it's late, I'm sleepy,
and that ashtray's a long way from empty.

When I get tired, I can be grumpy and defiant:
I look my teachers in the eye,
and light another one up. There it is... just for you.

A wisp of smoke curls from my upper lip.

Accompaniment

Here's day one's submission of NaPoWriMo (a poem a day for the month of April in honor of National Poetry Month). I had help today:

Accompaniment

April 1, 2013

You sit at my elbow,

your back to me, absorbed -

gazing out the window

as I pluck at these keys like harp strings

laboring hard to create a melody of page-symbols

that sounds as natural and as rhythmic as your purr.

You’ll soon look at me over your shoulder

as if to ask, “How’s it going?” or more likely, “You done yet?”

Then a dramatic stretch and a large, bored yawn,

and step in front of the screen where I write these words.

With indifference you’ll strut to the edge of the desk;

a sniff of feigned interest in the keyboard

will lead to a slow lounging recline upon it, a knowing look at me

and a gentle paw on the back of my hand:

“Here. Type here, on this black-and-white fur.

Play your tune upon the living and breathing,

and flow within the oh-so-soft textures

while I accompany you in silky staccato with

a slight twitch of the tail.”

NaPoWriMo

Just found out about Napowrimo - the poets answer to Nanowrimo, November, which is National Novel Writing Month. Well NaPoWriMo is April, just a week away, and while the novelists among us crank out a 50,000-word novel each November, this spring a bunch of poets will set a goal of a poem a day for the month. I signed up, but am still nervous about being able to live up to it. I had a 20,000 word start on NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago, and STILL haven't finished that sucker. Oh, well, it's motivation, right? I'll do my best to post a poem a day for thirty days - starting in a week. Feel free to nudge me all you want!

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NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

NaPoWriMo was founded in 2003, when poet Maureen Thorson decided to take up the challenge (modeled after NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), and challenged other poets to join her. Since then, the number of participants has gotten larger every year, and many writers’ organizations, local, national and even international, organize NaPoWriMo activities.

Need more information? See the Wikipedia entry for NaPoWriMo!