NAPOWRIMO!

It's April, and it's time for Napowrimo! (That's short for NAtional POetry WRIting MOnth, I think, but I'm not sure. Whatever, it's the right concept.) I've never actually attempted this challenge before, but, because Tom's not here to distract me, I feel like I should. I thought the people who did NaNOwrimo a while ago were totally nuts, but that's because it involved novel-writing, something that I look at in the same way I look at extreme rock climbing. I like to read about it. I like to see other people do it. But I'll laugh in your face if you ask me to do it.

Anyway, poems are more my type of challenge. I look at those more like skydiving, which I would totally do. More than once, if it wasn't so expensive.

The idea is to write a poem a day for one month. What I find most attractive about this idea is that it doesn't have to be a good poem, or even a whole poem. Just a poem. Something that may or may not be something worth coming back to in your notebook.

So I'm trying. I'm not going to post the poems every day, because, like I said, they won't necessarily be in good shape or even complete. But I'll post one every couple days (hopefully), just for the illusion of accountability. Here's what I wrote out tonight. (Post Script? I have no idea why or how I came up with this idea. I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular. Well, kind of. But I wasn't really thinking very clearly at all.)

Happy Napowrimo! To anyone else participating, send me the link to where I can read your stuff. (I'm not using the poets.org site. Too chaotic and crammed.)

MORTAL WOMEN

Eventually we all make love in public,

someplace legendary like a dorm room

or a hotel lobby or behind the Christmas tree

and, most likely, our lovers do not

read us poetry afterward, instead

they ask us sleepily to read to them

because we do it so well, and we do,

and we assume it is because our lovers

enjoy poetry, that they produce romance

in the soft middles of their bones,

and what they need most after orgasm

is for us to compare ourselves

to birds or a couple of pumpkins growing

on the same vine, never a nap,

and no one sees us doing these things

other than our companions and God,

who also happens to think we are beautiful

even in the silliest positions and locations

no matter what we are saying or reading,

and Venus, patron saint of beauty,

fantasy’s image, can see us too and leans

forward in her cherry blossom throne

to look over God’s shoulder and say

That girl ought to be put down, but God says

No, let her be, see how she lets him rub her feet,

those enormous boats of hers, like she’s

letting him in on some secret, it’s divine,

God says, I can’t get enough of them,

look how she reads poetry like she’s

running out of air, like she’s sitting underwater!

And the heavens carry on and the night

does not come naturally after our public work,

but only after a strange pulse of a comet

behind Venus, behind God, behind the rows

of thrones says they’ve seen enough, stand back,

someone loosen the stars from their sockets

so they might rest their almighty eyes.

And no one even reaches for the lights before

they’re out, and everyone listens to the sound

of someone else shifting excitedly in the dark.

...