Welcome to National Poetry Month, a time when all the closet-poets around you suddenly make their presence known by writing one poem per day for thirty days, complete with fanatic revisits to old author-favorites, nervous breakdowns at 11:53pm when a poem still hasn't emerged, the joyous discoveries of new poets and their publications, and a frenzied sort of appreciation for poetry as a craft. Our eyes may be bloodshot and we're speaking in tongues (Ah! Dactylic hexameter!) but we're totally safe, I promise.
I started this period of designated writing time after a month that left me feeling as if I'd endured enough stress to keep my list of creative prompts flowing. Tom came home from Iraq. We've begun this dance (for a second time) that involves complicated steps around living with a partner after living alone for a year, the twirling of occasional mood swings and the quick rushes of celebration.
Then there's been the little things, mostly around the house, that have kept me ridiculously busy. Spring Break was filled with papers to be graded. Flynn ate one arm of the couch (literally. She ATE. IT.) which kept Tom up for one night, sewing for my sanity. A panel of our backyard fence blew over in a windstorm. Stuff like that.
I've more or less been caught in a dry spell when it comes to writing, surprisingly. As I've scrubbed or repaired or graded or driven up and down I-25, I've had imaginary glimpses of a familiar book cover on my reading shelf: Woolf's A Room of One's Own. I can't help wondering if I'd really be able to come up with anything to write if I had guaranteed peace and quiet-- or whether I'd be bored out of my mind without the distractions to write about.
But right now, I'm sitting at my dining room table, and if I lean to the left to see around the vase of half-wilted roses and daisies (they still smell good) I can see my neighbor, Tim, lying on his back in his front yard, tossing a tennis ball up in the air for Louie, his Boston Terrier (Flynn's nemesis). Tim's an older guy, and he's been out raking for the past couple hours as I've worked on class stuff and cleaned up the house. One minute he's filling a garbage can with yard debris from the last windstorm; the next minute he's on his back, side to side with Louie, both of them exhausted from play.
And there might be nothing poetic about it. And I'm learning to get okay with that. I've noticed I've opted out of living in the moment several times before in order to observe the facts, the imagery, the details of a situation. I haven't developed the talent (yet) for multi-tasking in that way-- observing and living, simultaneously. So for now I'm observing.
Tonight, just before I go to bed, I'll check my memory for anything that stuck, and I'll write a poem that stands just as much a chance of being trash as it does for being submitted to a journal. I'll read some William Carlos Williams to console myself in my lack of words. I'll read some Ron Padgett to laugh at myself. And I'll go to bed tired.
SILVER
Napowrimo day #1
I like the color silver
but tonight
it is a boat too small
to carry my thoughts
and myself together,
a shallow dish
placed on the lip
of a river.
It trembles in the current
as it balances
a load of moonlight,
some cigarette ash,
a letter written in pencil.
...
THIS GUY’S WIFE
Napowrimo day #2
I could never tire of looking
at this guy’s wife,
this guy big as a house
and his wife
like a Porsche parked in front
of him,
he says honey I can’t open
this damn beer
so she says give it here
and the beer is passed
between the two,
catching the bronze afternoon light
which flashes like a candle
blown out
in an upstairs window
across the street.
...
THE IRONY IS NOT LOST ON ME
Napowrimo day #3
The flower shop three blocks from home
sells orchids and cacti and ladyslippers
but won’t be open long on account of its inventory,
solitary blooms looming over sculpted pots,
ogling clientele with orange and yellow eyes.
They pull away from their painted green stakes.
But we can walk there from here
so we do, and we each pick out a cactus.
I say I need something hardy. You say
you want something easy on the eyes.
Cacti are difficult to kill, easy to ignore,
and some of them have dusty pink petals
that burst from the tips of pale tendrils
to touch their neighbors lightly, blind.
You pick the kind that flowers,
I choose a squat, silvery one with spines arranged
on half-moon leaves like teeth. Walking home,
I say our family is growing. You say
my cactus looks impatient.
...
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