NaPoWriMo Afterthoughts

This was the toughest year for April's 30/30 that I ever had. In many ways, I'm at the top of my game, averaging a poem a week, but I had a lot of interference and other challenges that, in the end, were self-imposed.

I wrote a bunch of Stone Soup Crouton poems, haiku and William Carlos Williams riffs in April, but I didn't include them towards the 30 count, though several people told me I should. It was a matter of pride, but it just added more stress to my month, especially since I took a week to travel and another week to recover from red eyes.

Ultimately I'm proud of:

Finishing before the 30th.

My third poem of the month.

No breaking of the Haiku Emergency Glass.

Six poems in one day.

Writing two tretinas.  

I didn't get to write a pantoum this month, but that just means I can write a pantoum in May. No reason to stop working because the month is done.

Thanks to everyone who read my poems. I hope you all found at least one thing worth reading.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Thirty

Stopwatch Tretina

Two types of battles over time.
Those you acknowledge, those you don't
for fear that others take a side.

No one will ever take your side.
Your either there for their time
or against them. Never say you don't

take a side. They think your clock hands don't
exist, ready for their twice-a-day aside,
more unwavering and final than even time.

Fight for yourself. Time don't take sides. He takes winners.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Twenty-Nine

Jump
Several posts short
working fence.

Can't even keep
self in.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Twenty-Eight

Fine

Grind teeth
razoredge.

Suck wind
till gape
whistles dixie.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Twenty-Seven

Trump Poem

This is what democracy now looks like,
a boor talking loud trash over at the bar
left to go on for fear of making him mad,

arranging chairs to ward off a mad
dog that already bit him, mouth frothing like
another beer left to go flat at the bar

for all the women not coming back to the bar.
Now those who don't know why he's mad
either leave or like what they see and like

what they like, at the bar, sitting mad.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Twenty-Six

Props


I can bring the roof down
in an amphitheater.

I fill the seats
for the movie next door.

I rock a mic
when it happens to be a rock.

I kill a crowd
held in hospice.

I take the end stage
of any illness

closing don any
foreclosed property.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Twenty-Five

Work Poem

Faith is a shield
no stronger than the paper
your god's weekly newsletter
is printed on.

Faith is saying Thank God
the children are safe
until the children throw rocks.

Work is mopping
all that faith
left to fester
in the bathroom stall.

Faith gets two for flinching
every time a work
is thrown up in its face.

Hopelessness is a hand
thrown up in front of yoru face
working to block
other people's work
from hitting our face.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Eight, Poem Twenty-Four

Condensed Wisdom
"In Bed" optional

Your work does not
appreciate you.
Pay them.

Lovers burn you
from their beds.
Thank them.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Six, Poem Twenty-Three

Lunch Poem

I can only ask
once ever time
at the one pizza place
with decent salads
to not over cook the crust.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Five, Poem Twenty-Two

Hunger

City welcomes
any thing
uglier than.

Wards placed
corners close
to buses, streets.

Same studio
been there
damn near decade.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Five, Poem Twenty-One

Begin

No time
like past

wich for
good thing
what works

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Five, Poem Twenty

My Last California Poem

Will not be found
in the airport concession stand
selling seven dollar candy,

or the co-opted nature food shop
with enough uneaten natural ingredients
to cap off a landfill,

or the wedding held
in two separate ranches,
the guests hiking up and down
like the burros they used
to haul their grapes and olives.

Go to our cabin refuge.
It will be empty. We paid an extra night
so we could store our luggage
before making our red eye.

While no one's there,
you can enter, crawl to the top floor
where a little girl
kicked her feet on the wall
while instagraming
to count the ways
she didn't want to return to Southie

and an apartment not much bigger
than our suites by the bay
where she sat in her mother's robe
to try and slow the hours
to each departure.

Find your poem there.
I tried, but the land
only resists change
for those who live there.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Two, Poem Nineteen

"That Was Thoughtful of Your Stalker"

to give you that collection
from Ferlnghetti
in time for your trip,

leaving the bookmark
on the first poem
"Away above a harborfull,"

knowing by way of
hacking your records
that you would be staying
in a hotel with an
excellent harbor view

and that his room
across from yours
would give himself
an excellent view
of you hanging clothes
on the patio,

as similar to
the woman in
the bookmarked fantasy
as he could ever achieve.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Two, Poem Eighteen

Frisking Frisco

Sit on the public steps,
look over sidewalks
where no park benches
tempt you to stay.

Ask from which street
came the women
too nice to you
as you passed by.

Watch the cabs meter
keep going as lovers
prolong goodbyes.

Be wary of the man
asking you the way
to another hotel
while he eyes your
taxed paper bag
finding only water.

God love out of towners
like us, he says,
resuming unsure paths.

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Two, Poem Seventeen

Edit: The "Bookshelf" poem has been edited, revised retitled and sent out for publication. 

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Two, Poem Sixteen

Served

Your time becomes
others' buffet

attendees forego plates
gather napkins fall

NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Two, Poem Fifteen

Backtrack

This is the stuff
memories are made

to be broken
down to three

NaPoWriMo, Day Eighteen, Poem Fourteen

Heft

Hard room
high and mighty
harder than
their own
first time.

NaPoWriMo, Day Seventeen, Poem Thirteen

Half a Holiday


An email warning
Marathon Monday
is not a national holiday.

As if they've never confessed
the thrill of an empty hallway

while people peddle
for a plot to give props
to the human blur,
a high five from the freeway.

Is this what my father lived for,
an excuse to go in his office,

pilfering any pause
from a daughter's boyfriend
proving police raids,
a son blindly extending
poems like pencils.

Even a bomb could not
provke deluge
on annoying picnics,
more waiters working at
fish and chips with a dash
before the check.
 
Holidays exposed
the willing workers
walking aside bodies
not on them
ask a moment of silence
and nothing else.

 

NaPoWriMo, Day Seventeen, Poem Twelve

Outbound

The train
does not
welcome

wisped you
to way out
haybaled.

Last one
last stop