NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Six

Poets vs. Musicians
stupidly simplified in Hay(na)Ku
Austics
vs. austics
with bigger dicks.

This Poem Could Sum Up My Whole Year

Calm

Fake it
till you make it.

Keep acting stupid
till they’re shot by cupid.

Be semi-lucid
till they’re ust’d.

Never remit
till other sides quit.

Purport
till they support.

Deny you’re drift
till you somehow uplift.

Pretend to geddit
till final edit.

Same Cool Prompt, New Poem

Going back to Patrick's cool writing prompt. I also mixed in this story with the literary reference quoted in the link itself.

Agassiz to Erza Pound

If fish had hands,
rode all sorts of cycles,
would the struggle
for love be validated
and therefore
all poets robbed
of their futile pens?
Is that what happened to you,
one myth leading to another?

If fishes had wishes,
it would not be to float
at the top of a bowl
holding a pen.

Fish schools only teach
strength in numbers,
the only thing that matters,
but the holocaust
teaches us that there are
terrible, terrible exceptions
to rules and wisdom.

Perhaps the fish are even
more desensitized
to the trial and error
of staying in groups.
or perhaps they're in it
for the long run of life.
I speak of fish, not man.

The bones were not there
for you to learn repetition,
the fileting of capitals.

I challenge you
to write a haiku
for six million in soil
beginning with why
answering with why.

Sunfish fins flap
marking each wrongly dead.
Not enough oceans.

From a Very Cool Writing Prompt

A while back, poetry colleague Patrick S. described the following dream:

"I dreamed I was at NPS and someone had set up a bunch of whiteboards in an effort to show that poetry wasn't as important as poets pretend it is. The whiteboards were covered with names of things that were worth caring about to one degree or another, with different colored markers for different kinds of thing. I remember poetry was one color; I don't think the other colors were specifically identified in the dream.

At one point on one of the whiteboards, two non-poetry items, one of which was the Holocaust, had curly lines connecting them to one poetry item. That item was 'myths of fish as hands'."

I was one of several tagged by Patrick in the hopes that people would take it up as a writing prompt. Unknowingly cheating a bit by taking the "s" off of "myths," I wrote the following.

Update: The final version of "The Myth of Fish as Hands" can be seen in the inaugural issue of the Cape Cod Poetry Review.  You can order it here.

The Origin of The "Jesus Poems"

One day on the 365/365 blog, Zeke Russel began a poem with the following:

"Upon hearing the third sex negative Jesus poem at the Lowell open mic"

Something lit in my head, and I later wrote what would become the first of "The Jesus Poems," some of which you might have read during the 30/30 in April. Individuals such as Michael F. Gill have since written Jesus Poems of their own or offered suggestions for others, but this is the one that started the whole mini-meme off.



Negative Sex Jesus

Negative Sex Jesus
says he just hasn't
met the right girl,
but when he says it,
it first gets taken
as gospel, then
misinterpreted.
One reason why
Negative Sex Jesus
has never dated.

Negative Sex Jesus
thought he had prospects
in Mary Madelene,
but then he said
she reminded him
of his Mother Mary,
freaking out both
Marys in the process.

Negative Sex Jesus
has a lot of virgins
who want to be his friend
His reaction to them
is much like any person
walking in abstinence rallies
out of circumstance,
instead of choice.

Negative Sex Jesus
likes frustrated virgins
much better. He knows
he could get a good dozen
or so together for a party,
but he has bigger goals
in mind, with smaller parties
and maybe a little wine
to calm himself down.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem 30.1

Thirty-thirty done.
Sorry that the last two sucked.
I'm going to bed.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Thirty

Sonnet 14

To write a poem while Bill Barnum performs
has to be the greatest sin of all.
Zen ostrich stance, he dances while the norm
walk by, often not noticing at all.
His holed up dancing shoes will always slide
on down the floor without an unplanned step,
as he gets lost in his zen motorcycle ride,
his eyes gazed in surprise amidst own trip,
a cockatoo and manticore in back
arguing over which way he should turn.
Bill Barnum takes the wheel in circles wide,
spinning so much he marvels at the burn.
Where there's smoke, there's fire, a party for friends,
no time to worry about where it all ends.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Nine

A bus could be the ideal place to write
if not alone, if searching for a nook
to hide yourself, invisible in sight.
This rolling pot, you scribble while it cooks.
Standing stamped of leather jackets crowd.
Kids wave outside to bikers in the lead.
Wheelchaired revels, in full recline, laughs loud
as hurried huddled stare outside to read,
search streets for signs, a saving beacon glow
of final destination in their sights,
college tourists pretend they already know
the location of every sensory delight.
There is a poem in every stop you hit.
Sometimes it's caught (this sonnet isn't it).

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Eight

The comic carnival has turned parade
as costumed men and women head outside,
continuing their brightly donned charade,
a hoard of Batmen waiting for their ride.
The Joker and Bizarro share a smoke,
costumes competing with the blossomed trees.
Black Canary/Green Arrow couples joke,
enacting proposals on bent costumed knees.
A young Nightwing in wheelchair strikes a pose
with every caped crusader he can find.
Zatannas sit half-naked under coats,
the staring eyes now few enough to mind.
A dozen Green Lanterns pocket their might,
as brightest day turns to blackest night.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Seven

Sonnet 11

The broken people love their patchwork man
and dig him up on anniversary,
resew him just enough so he can stand
and let him lead them through patchwork symphony.
The patchwork man is much more patch than work,
and time has set alight unworkmanship,
limbs dragging lower wher good thread was shirked,
one loose shoe left behind after a trip.
The patchwork has nothing left to say,
so we sew on our words we think are his,
praise be to all his broken toys at play,
every letter used to justify their lives.
The patchwork man is still but still he'll lead,
the broken into getting love they'll need.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Six

Sonnet 10

I steal more soda from McDonald's fount
and start a poem before I had to go.
I've stolen words from each and every haunt
under every camera, none of which can know
my conspiratory scratch. It can be read
but only barely, one for the courts
to translate the translation from my mind
acquired to and fro my weekend ports.
And would they charge? I bet they'd charge,
claim I shoplifted their marquee,
scam its letters, and hid them in my barge
of a notebook, scrambled up by me
into these words, that couldn't possibly be mind,
surcharge added the next time I dine.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Five

The phone sits like a letter I can't write,
my silence towards you no doubt in the air
from me to you, a call to make tonight
if I can write this poem and meet you there
in the mutual spaces we share between
our jobs, our families, our private places,
struggling not to be heard or seen.
No one around, still we're keen for traces,
the lives kept in our corners, desks, closets.
We'll interrupt ourselves before they do
with quick goodbyes, content our deposits
keep secure as before the next day's due.
Still I rush this poem to call before
your wondering mind is left to wonder more.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Four

Sonnet 8

I cut my hair to keep me moving fast.
Ten weeks of growth can keep you on a trudge.
The fingers that ran through it three months past
feel like they tug, as if to hold a grudge.
Though plain enough to use a barber's knife,
you still prefer the baptism by sink.
Salon hands take ten weeks of your life,
assistants taking care of work-napped links.
The cut begins, the locks all taking flight
followed by the rare delight of loss.
Something happens to your hair at night.
Your griefs show upon your head his dross,
hundres of stranded Marie Antoinettes,
cut for your sins, just waiting to be swept.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Three

Sonnet Seven

Haiku cause wars, the words of which outlast
the single stanza that caused such debate
between self-professing master of the past
and younger writers making them irate.
The younger crowd are picked up by the ears,
drag their bodies out to open land
and cherry blossoms, sentenced to years
to write haiku for them time and time again.
A haiku is a single patch of land
that can't sustain a life for very long.
Some poets irked with elderly command
turn sonnets, sestinas, never branded wrong.
Where are the old master's angry calls
about longer forms? Perhaps they lack the balls.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty Two

Sonnet 6

The nasty bastards work the poet mines
looking for method they can fleece,
the perfect meter tool, the perfect rhyme,
a sharpened metaphor as murder piece.
The nasty bastards dare to scour in in depths
and carry out the angriest memories,
a task that can be just as sulphurous
as coal mining on their hands knees,
but nasty bastards take joy in the find,
a bit still pulsing with another's heart
which strikes unhearing inspiration blind
when molded into verse and tagged as art.
The nasty bastards til their vengeful words,
the air around them keeping back the birds.

NaPoWriMo, Day Thirty, Poem Twenty One

Sonnet 5

They sit at tables rehearsing their hellos,
timing the beat to my apology.
And when it doesn't come on standing toes,
they'll have to chalk it up to mutiny
while drinking coffee tradedmarked Maverick,
their pictures hanging next to employees
of the month. Everyone moves quick
to use their group numbers like refugees
in desert lands. This isn't just a group,
it's trench war wordsmiths. The unseen enemy
had breakfast, went to work, packed his soup,
oblivious to all the revelry,
to all the clatter in this corner shop.
It's still a win if victims don't show up.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty Nine, Poem Twenty

Sonnet 4

Our pockets hold a spot for secret hands
we told each other we wouldn’t hold.
We’re ignoring each other’s commands,
Marking each transgression where we’re bold.

Elevators are not public if alone.
Ears lightly brushed is fine if it’s not kissed.
The rules should not be broken once they’re shown,
We still trade each other things so they’ll be missed.

Our secret is that there aren’t quite secrets yet,
keeping our talk away from muffling gloves,
meeting in lighted corners they can vet
reading our lips, watching each other shove

each other away, turning away, discreet.
Our pockets hold our next time to meet.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty Nine, Poem Nineteen

Sonnet 3

She has a scrapbook of my first mistakes,
each pratfall kept in photographic pause.
A dilettante, she stops at the end take
discarding everything that was the cause.
My portrait mouth a constant desperate “o,”
my anthem a drum beat for each thud.
Nine hundred ninety miles they’ll never know,
edited out for my first step in the mud.
The portrait of my greatest victory
is not a photo op for enemy or friend.
My stammer ruins all prosperity
they pull the errors and just make up the end.
I meet you now, appearing quite adept.
I’m terrified to take a single step.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty Nine, Poem Eighteen

Sonnet 2

The first dater just lies like a bastard
to leave the room, retreating to the bar,
where she can’t yet follow. He plays pastor
to drinking buddies, sermon from a car
radio playing back in his head to decry
himself, asking someone to hold the lash,
punish him for helping to create a lie.
He’ll forget all this following his crash
into his bed, thrown by forlorn friends
who will forget his behavior this night,
and he will too, remembering the ends
but not his means, beer killing the blue light
that illuminated memories best dead,
unsold yearbook, poetry book unread.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty Nine, Poem Seventeen

Sonnet

She’s sending out the first texts of Spring.
The poets are ripe for picking, lonely with spite
for themselves. Many haven't written a thing
except debates on the correct usage of light
to shine on her. She doesn't have to show
to win. The admirers get things underway
without her there. She won’t even know
who is left standing at the end of the day.
It’s up to her inbox to tally the score
in the morning. The rumors already sent
her seal of approval. She wishes for more,
the power to call forth a rally, a witch hunt
in Salem, crushes persecuting crushes,
false surprise applied like her shadows and blushes.