Day 9: Visual Effect

Hmm. Today's prompt is to write a visual poem. With a specific shape relating to its subject matter. Not an easy task at all.

I love looking at these type of poems - but doing them? Well that's another matter. It's a question of what comes first the chicken or the egg i.e. - the poem's content or the structure? And VERY difficult I might add to do on the computer! But, in the spirit of sportsmanship, I'll give it a whirl. It sounds like challenging fun.

Letting Go

is often 

said to be some big    

brave gesture, certainty of

 closure in one heart-ripping effort 

of forced release. An once-off event. 
A leap into the abyss of emptiness. But 

there's more to it than that, more of a 
cumulative causality: every day a little 

letting go until the hand that's been 

holding the rope of regret so tight

softens its grasp, lightens its grip. 

You slowly, successfully forget. 

What you thought a balloon 

of hope is a harness 

holding you back. 
It drags you, 
you don't

 float.

          Until

                         one 

                                          day 

                              you

                 feel

      its 

                   pull

                               and

                                             say

                                                         no,
                             more.

                                              A 

                                     day 

                      you 

                                            know 

                                                            it's 

                                         time

                          to

              let 

                             it 

                                             go
                          just
       let

                                                             it

             go 
                           !
   
                                          

                                                          

  

Day 8: Fireworks

Fireworks tonight - now they just have to be put into verse!

I have always tried to describe fireworks in word and failed. Theirs is the language of colour. But poets have to try...! And it's weird - I had the first line of this poem in my head all day awaiting the show tonight and just now I've made the discovery that a lot of the main fireworks are actually described as flower names. Never knew it! Well - just wow. SYNCHRONICITY :)

Fireworks, April 8th

Can spring bloom in sky?

Yes. Fireworks

on an April night,

a fanfare of blossoms: 

gold, green, magenta, 

amber, scarlet, violet, 

fuchsia, emerald, sapphire. 

Night bejeweled

with bouquets

of neon explosions.

Roots and shoots 

cascades 

of chrysanthemums 

pouring petals 

on rooftops.

Big-bang

bursting peonies like hearts 
inflated to a crescendo 

of expression, sputtering
spontaneity; (or how love

makes us bigger, fuller, splendid.) 

 A barrage of bees,

spinning Catherine wheels,

willows weeping

back to earth. 

Seeds of stars,
airborne wishes.

Garden of ephemeral spectacle,

season birthed in sparks.    

Crackle, pop, whizz and whimper,

tremendous thunder 

of superlative wonder. 

All heads tilted skywards.

Exclamatory delight.

Day 7: Money

Today's prompt on the NaPo site is to write a poem about money. This poem came quick and fast - a bit like my ahem, spending of money. 

(This was fun to write)


Miser(able)

Imagine spending
your whole life
deficient 
in the only currency 
that matters.

Instead of a heart
having a hoard
of hundred dollar bills,
never accounting for
real losses - or worse -
gains.

Financially viable
but emotionally bankrupt. 
Poor in spirit
with debts of dreams
unpaid. 
See how 
it taxes your soul,
a mortgaged life.

A penny for your thoughts?
Didn't think so. 
Keep the damn change. 

Day 6: New(s) Story

 

This poem came to mind from watching a news story a few nights ago on TV - another story about Palestine in which the screen showed smoke from an explosion when all of a sudden a flock of birds appeared on the left hand side, soared up and then flew away. It was incredible. The strangest thing. Metaphor in action. 

Later while googling the collective terms for birds (aren't they just fabulous some of them?) this poem came together.

A Pitying of Doves

Today in news from Palestine
charcoal smoke 
of no unusual explosion
plumes on screen  

but is for a few seconds
interrupted -
imperceptibly -
surreptitiously

by 
a 
flock 
of 
birds (!)

soaring 
into shot 
left of centre,

then up, up, 
a veer off 
to the side, 
and -
away
like a magic trick.

A vision?
Or sudden flash 
of symbolic 
perambulation?

Disturbance of innocence.
Mirage moment 
that is hardly there, 
hard to believe, and bear. 

Are they doves?
They looked white-winged.
Maybe the most miraculous thing
I've ever seen. 
Incredulous
heady 
juxtaposition. 

The newscaster continues
to drone solemn facts
to silent bombs.
Did it happen?

Over the charred city 
the smoke
chuggs on, 
relentless. 

A pitying of doves; peace 
long gone.

Day 5: Easter

Once again today, no prompts used. It's Easter! And that's inspiration enough for me. 


Joy

Joy is yellow,
the colour of beaming.  
Unannounced as daffodils,
just as trumpeteering.

A sunburst of gratitude.
Love, gilded by wonder.
Nectar of light honeyed 
into a gift of sweetness.

Yolk of full days
bright and buoyant,
life sunny side up,
enjambment delight.

A yellow room 
in a yellow house,
hearth of a heart
warm and lit.

Horizon ahead
happy haze
of a mustard seed field 
in summer.

Day 4: Seeing Stars

I'm using the prompt from yesterday to write a poem about stars, specifically constellations. 

While looking up all the cool names of the constellations and scribbling notes I suddenly realised that I have never been able to actually make out a constellation in the sky. I find it impossible to denote the pattern. No matter how hard I try! 

Right so, poem content sorted.

On Not Seeing Constellations 

There are necklaces beaded in the stars -

pearls of myth, diamonds of stories told.

Talismans, truths, makeshift maps

for seafarers, sky-gazers, bemused lovers.

But I can never see the constellations, can never 
join the dots in coordinate elation, find patterns

plotted by eager sky cartographers. Cassiopeia 
is a squiggled line. Little Dipper a kite I cannot find. 

Instead I see handfuls of thrown cosmic glitter:

suspended night after night in clusters of mystery.  

A pointillist's parade of over-zealous wonder.
Giddy freckles running riot with the black.  

Who tries to regulate a sparkling of sequins?

Or find linear direction in a feckless Fate, generous 
epiphany in geometric order?  Leave it be. Random 
is the dazzler. The asteriks keep multiplying ad infinitum -  

and I prefer to meander my own way.

Day 3: A Birthday Poem

My birthday, always at the outset of NaPo, is, like all birthdays, a prompt all in its own that can't be ignored. (And I'm always surprised when googling poems on birthdays - how so very few of them there are...)


A Birthday Poem

A neon day 
on the calendar
of white boxes, 
waited for 
with something like
hesitant glee:
another year older, 
a celebration of me.

A day in which
the white space/blank page
prism prison
of ordinary days
and who you are 
(or who you know yourself as)
is refracted
by others

into a rainbow spectrum 
of coloured delights. 
Suddenly
you're a kaleidoscopic wonder.

Glad to be here
and to be
counted.

Day 2: Greening

 

More Spring themes today :)


Greening

Green is a song 
birds sing in spring
braiding the day 
in vines of hope.

Green is a verb
that flexes new hands,
puts wheels to wishes,
a genie of effort. 


Green is a heart
when it breathes, 
elixir of energy
when it heals.

Green is a plan
that seeks a horizon, 
undaunted growth
that never wearies.

Day 1: Beginning

'April is the loveliest month, breeding poems out of the dead land, mixing inspiration with desire, stirring bright roots with spring rain.' ~ Me, via T.S. Eliot

Yes, from here on in April is The Wonderland not The Wasteland. Apologies again T.S.Eliot - but I will never agree with your your depiction of April!

Today, I'm not going to do any of the NaPoWriMo site prompts. I just feel like I want to go with the flow of what's been tingling on my fingertips and nerve endings all day: the rush and verve and simultaneously, hesitant nervousness, of the beginning of a month full of poetry. The spontaneous overflow of what I've been feeling today - the joys of spring meeting the joys of poetry resisting the old lingering winter/writer's block hesitation.

So here goes:

Beginning

First day fanfare: fervor and flighty
inspiration unfurls, petals galore. 
Fine-tuned posies thrown at April's feet.
Odes and declarations of staggering
spring-infused sprite, lyrical bouquets 
of unharnessed delight. April means alive,
means poetry, means spring.

Many more cop-outs, stage-fright
stunned gaping minds, pens wary
in hands, winter-wounded hearts timid.  
Fallow fields needing to be reborn,
push and shove and bud bursting.
April means raw rebirth; means 
harsh daylight, hibernation over. 

Several times I wonder 
which I am. 

Poetry answers: fizzes in fingers,
dissolves doubt in effervescent pools.
Sunlight spins. Ideas glide. Gold wins.
April preens; the whole month ahead 
a meadow of blooming flowers 
fragrant with rhyme. 

NaPoWriMo 2015 Intro

Well it's that time of year again - NaPoWriMo is here! 30 poems in 30 days! Yippee!

I'll be posting my daily poems here - albeit in all their rough-around-the-edges formats - in order to keep up with the daily deadlines. Criticism is much appreciated and most dearly welcomed for further polishing.

Please  if you're a fellow NaPoWriMo participant who has stumbled by here  - feel free to share YOUR blog/link to your poems in the comments. I'd love to hear from you and read your compositions! The best thing about NaPo is being able to read the variety of poetry and poets out there, which is always so astounding and original and inspiring.

Hurray for NaPo!

~Siobhán

http://www.napowrimo.net/