heatherflor

napowrimo #24: listen up!

The world seems to be getting noisier all the time and often writers find themselves needing to block it out so they can concentrate. Well this week, don’t do that. Instead,  listen to all the noise and let it inspire your poetry!

For example, you could write a mood piece based on the sounds around you at the moment or write a narrative driven by sound. Or you might prefer to write about silence. Or something else entirely.


The cicada call for mates makes me stir
in bed late at night, shuffle, shuffle the sheets
where legs meet without lubricant-no glide only pop-stick.
Away from here--dogs howl trying to be wolves
and cats cry like babies I should have by now.
But the phone doesn't drip--it's empty
I took the last sip when I said, "Good-bye."
Good-bye, a hush of breath mumbled
under your words, folded, folded, pulled
plucked, gone, swished over and spit out.
 

read write image #14 and napowrimo #20

The Bride Wore Red

Even though it’s NaPoWriMo and you may be in a bit of a rush, try to write your friendship poems without sentimentality and try to use concrete images instead of generating your poem conceptually. You can do it. You are a hardened, career criminal. I mean, “poet.” An experienced, NaPoWriMo poet. A “lifer.” Accept the challenge!

Unfortunately I have missed a few days. I blame school. Does that work? Anyways here is my April 19th, just past midnight.

To not be sentimental about a friend
is to not carry a camera to a high school reunion
is to not miss people so deeply
that you feel a knotch in your heart
like a belt buckle tightening.

Certain days remind me of you.
Certain days I feel that you could be
around the street corner, waiting.
Certain days I call, and certain days we talk
trying to make distance evaporate by voice--
if we could travel by air, by absence of air
by merely thinking of the other, would we?
Is today our day but tomorrow separate?
how many friends do you keep in your pocket
only to lose them and lose them and lose them?
So sentimental, I am--I draw hearts on my letters to you
always loop-sided with the ink bleeding.
 

napowrimo #12: where do you come from?

Another Sunday, another day of (poetic) introspection … .

So, where do you come from? The mountains? The plains? The city? Do you come from spaghetti on Sundays? Brown bag lunches? Do you come from shag carpeting and plastic slip covers on the sofa? Cows out the kitchen window? Do you hail from noise and congestion or stars and silence?

Today, think about where you grew up. The country, the state, the town, the street, the house, the bedroom, the bed. Be specific. Be sensual (as in capture the smells, the sounds, the taste, the scratch of your towels without fabric softener). Write a poem that shows where you come from in all its unique glory.


Buttercups silk rub me
Ants parachute in the sky
cicadas seduce the neighbors
in their quest for wings at night.
Grass so soft I smash
myself into damp, dew clinging
to the underarms of stalks.
Bumble bees browse to find
Great Grandmother's hollyhocks
transported to the front yard by the decorative crab apples,
sweet peas vine and take over,
and creepy charlies, flowers so tiny
they fit in my Barbie Dolls' hands--
I collect purple clover, suck their honey,
and search for honeysuckle, I think I smell it
there are cat graves in the deep poison ivy and slugs
stone crosses sunken
and dad says that the body has moved
closer to the leaf pile where the worms thrive
One little oak tree that I planted--trunk so slight
grown under big oak's branches.
There are fairies everywhere. In the violets
by the water hose, in the branches--
this yard, years and years of composted magic
growth, awakening, and escape.
If I could catch fireflies, I would get a wish
if a butterfly landed on me, I would be lucky,
if I saved the rabbits my cat throated, I would be a hero
a square of green filled with artifacts and stories
not just a place to do laundry and sit before the mosquitos get too bad
or answer a phone conversation when you need privacy
change, I want back my wonderland.

 

napowrimo #11: seen any good movies lately?

napowrimo #9: paradise

Describe your version of paradise. Is it a physical location? a mental state? a religious concept? You can write today’s poem as an ode, if you like. An ode to paradise itself or an ode to whatever takes you there: a plane, a faith-based practice, a lover, a dessert. Imagine the joy of paradise! The elation!

It’s OK, too, if you’re not feeling joy or elation. You’re working hard on this poem-a-day business. Your energy may be flagging. If paradise itself doesn’t pack a jolt of inspiration for you, choose a different path. Write about the stereotype of paradise: why is it always assumed to be a warm, remote tropical place? Write about finding paradise in a place contrary to the traditional images. Do you delight in Manhattan? or Antarctica? or a classroom full of preschool children?

You may also turn and run in the opposite direction: where is hell for you? What tortuous small town or big box store or reality television program sends you spiraling into despair? Take us there with you. Show us around.

Paradise

The place where everyone knows your name
has roosters and donkeys and the hint of waves
it has lizards and scorpions and children who play
with sunsets large like grapefruits perch
and stories  that tease the air into whistles
I sit underneath the eucalyptus tree
no reason to speak perfection
just me, my friends, distant radios play
the smell of smoke of dinner
a neighbor's guitar slightly off
and men dance with near neighbors.
I hide my feet from the mosquitos
and wait for the night to burst into stars
Dreams, wishes, something to carry me back home.
 

napowrimo #8: wednesday is list day

List all of your old flames. Try to go back as far as your first kiss in the 2nd grade coat closet. Sit with your list. Depending on your mood today, choose the flame with the most sparks, or pin the list on the wall and throw a dart. Whatever your [...]

First the list:

Kent liked when I kissed him, and we did until we were told it was bad.
Justin taught me the alphabet song over the backyard fence.
Ben taught me to ride a bike and gave me a foil heart--wrinkles smoothed out.
Chad was the crush I endured for four years. Too shy to ask for my pencil back
Gabe, Hunter, Seth, Daniel, and too many more to name were what happened when you changed schools.
Matt repeated. I couldn't help it. And Pete kissed me on the porch.
Colin was a fighter with a crooked nose.
Steve smeared me with suggestion. And Andy was too high to care.
Dave wanted me, carried my purse. I wanted Justin, who wanted me only when I wasn't ready to be wanted.
Josh called me names I shouldn't have liked. Brian was a frat boy with amazing hair.
Jeremy liked to talk dirty.
Jon talked poetry on the library steps.
Bryce was a friend that was all we could do.
The photographer wrote me letters and had dumpster furniture.
Alex spoke Spanish and politics on the park bench at night
Omar had curly hair. As did a couple others.
A few treated me badly after they had me.
A couple others treated me okay but faded quickly
and a few were just fun on a saturday night
nothing but a groan and a moan and an oh my God, yes.
And now, I am watching the trees sway
sipping koolaide if I could remember to buy it
thinking more of myself in these stages
the cloud-walking, hiding between branches, side-stepping
tracks of others. All these maps, games, candles to be lit,
a ride? an achievement? or just something to do in small-town Americas?
Who knows? I wait for another storm to brew. More lips to kiss,
I'm addicted, you see, I want more sips.


 

napowrimo #7: nicknames

A full week of Napowrimo and you’re still with us! Congratulations! No matter if you’re on schedule or playing catch-up, I’m happy you’re here.
Let’s write today about nicknames. Do you have one? Is there something endearing or embarrassing that other people call you now or have in the past? Fess up! Do you refer [...]

Nicknames

Those that I liked and loved
and had tattooed on my arm
stenciled to my notebook
hidden in my diary
you and me forever
the feather, flower child, and the flor
heathbar, heathery, and beautiful one
my attempt to adopt homer or buster
to be a tomboy called frankie
all these names like stain glass segments
of my personality. Beautiful. Capturing.
But midget and squirrel butt and jello legs
were ones that I pretended not to answer to
hid behind the bushes, claimed I couldn't hear,
stayed listening to cicadas in the early night
just making their sounds, seeking destiny and flight
muttering from  the ground,
breaking from a bulb into a sprout.