Last day of Napowrimo/National Poetry Month!

It's the last day of napowrimo! I'd like to thank all of the wonderful poets at readwritepoem for inspiring me to write a poem a day this month. I didn't think I could do it, but I did, and it was such fun. I especially loved reading other poets' work every day. What a treat! Today's prompt was "Give a line, take a line." I chose Catherine's first line and went from there...



Down
Between the birds and the trees
Is sky
I can’t reach it
Or span its dimensions with my arms
Or probe its corners with my fingers
I can’t know it
Or feel its texture on the bottoms of my feet
Or scrape it with my clumsy knees
It’s not for me
I’m stranded in shoes
Stuck in asphalt
I’m fastened to furniture
Cluttered with gravity
I want to jump up and grab
Fistfuls of sky
To stuff in my pockets
I want to bite off more of it
Than I can chew
I want to rake it with my fingers
And leave red marks
Just to prove I was there
Just to prove I was there

I don't think I can

Today's napowrimo prompt from readwritepoem asked us to brainstorm ideas beginning with the words "I don't think I can..." My list is rather random, but I decided to go with it...

I don’t think I can
Go vegetarian
Or take Oprah too seriously
Or ever, ever want to go running

I don’t think I can
Take an online quiz to find out what desperate housewife I am

I don’t think I can go more than 24 hours
Without burying my nose in a book

I don’t think I can ever live peacefully in a world that still gives
Dick Cheney airtime

I don’t think I can help my fourth grader with math much longer
Or be the kind of mom who offers him 20 bucks for each base hit

I don’t think I can ever
Twitter
Or live in Texas

I’m not sure if I’ll ever
Find downward dog restful
But I am sure I’ll never swallow
Chicken soup for my soul

But most of all
I don’t think I can
Ever, ever forgive people
Who pluralize noun’s
With apostrophes

Is that wrong?

Post Falls Gas Station

Today's napowrimo prompt asked us to write about the color red, which I already did on day four. So, I used one of readwritepoem's sidebar prompts instead. This prompt was to write a poem based on a current event in the news. I'm a couple weeks late with this, but I wrote about the tea party demonstrations from 4/15 When I heard one gruff gravelly
Gas station voice say to the other

Are you going to the tea party?

I smiled at the dissonance
Clinking in my head
Like cups to saucers

Thinking of these men in
Gloves and big hats with flowers
And doilies and itsy cookies
Sitting with my dolls sipping
My finest childhood brew

Hell yeah
Said the second gruff gravelly
Gas station voice It’s about
Time we taught that
Boy in the Whitehouse
Who’s really in charge

My daydream interrupted
I got in my car
And longed
For my teddy bear

pounding the pavement

Today the good folks at readwritepoem gave us a delicious wordle as inspiration for today's napowrimo poem. I chose to use the following words: impossible, wicked, cadence, lunacy, piggybanks. Not sure if it makes sense, but here it is:

It is impossible to ignore
the wicked cadence of my wants
the mad beating of me, me, me
pounding in my ear
then why, why, why
keeping time with my shoes
as they hit the sidewalk

Like bells around my ankles
they ring out as I walk
need, want, need, want, need
they hit and hit and hit my stride

I don’t know how to stop them
in their tracks
If I walked backwards
what lunacy would I find?
Could I undo my choices
and drop them like coins
in the piggybank
of my mind?

Martha

Today's napowrimo prompt from readwritepoem was "Let's get Metaphysical," and they provided us with poems from Rumi and Hafiz to inspire us. I wound up writing from the point-of-view of one who cannot get past the worries of the world to see or know the metaphysical. The painting here is by French painter James Tissot, 1836-1902.

The Word said to Martha
There is only one necessary thing
But still she put her shoulder to the stone

The Word said consider the lilies of the field
But still she scrambled about,
Annoyed at the injustice of it all

It can’t be that easy, she muttered
There is more to all of this and
It remains hidden from me

His eye may be on the sparrow but
Mine is left to dart from
Room to room and worry

I know no yoke that’s easy and sweet
A woman knows bread doesn’t bake itself
And cobwebs don’t clear themselves away

And water does not part itself for us
We can only carry it in heavy jugs
On our hips and on our heads

And yet my sister gazes, simple, at His face
And worries not her hands, and worries not her hands
While Salvation leaves me to clean up in its wake

Owner's Manual

Today's napowrimo prompt at readwritepoem asked us to write a "how-to" poem. I came at the prompt rather indirectly. I started imagining what an owner's manual for depression would look like (when written from depression's viewpoint).

Don’t be afraid
I’ve always been with you
Though the buoyant trajectory
Of childhood often outpaced me
I still napped in the corner of your crib
And balled up like a fist
In your young stomach
And painted that fear of displeasing
On the inner lids of your eyes

Don’t be dissuaded
Now that they’ve named me
If they could cut me out with surgery
They would but aren’t you afraid
Of what would grow in my place
And if they unwrap the wounds
I’ve long dressed and tended
How will you handle so dry a revelation
We do better together in the dark and the damp

Don’t be deluded
No new ways of breathing
Nor new modes of moving
Nor new pills they’re prescribing
Will keep me at bay
I am patient I know all your openings
I belong to your beginning
I’ll stand watch at your ending
And sleep you through everything
That comes in between

break through

Today's napowrimo prompt asked us to write about sound...

the Little Spokane

is loud with frogs and geese come

north where they belong

my winter ears stretch

and yawn, lean in to hear such

impossible song