History

Today, my daughter is singing—
something about the red of an apple,
a song she made up as she hangs
circles and circles of red paper
on her bedroom wall.

This, too, is history.
When whatever whisper comes
that carries us into oblivion,
mothers will sigh at kitchen sinks
while children play,
until the last of the lights dim.

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I don’t know if this counts for today’s NaPoWRiMo prompt. I was sitting here racking my brains for a good, poetic way to discuss historical events, and I couldn’t focus because my daughter was singing loudly about coloring apples. But then that became the starting point for the poem. I wanted to do more with it–make it a much longer poem about the mundane ways we carry on our daily lives during major events and upheavals–but my brain just wouldn’t cooperate.

I’m not great at writing about history, but one of my best friends is, and this prompt immediately made me think of her. She has a Shakespearean sonnet about Henry VIII that I really hope you read. =)

This prompt also made me think of a poem I wrote years ago, that is sort of about that same friend, and sort of about 9/11, and sort of about, I suppose, the innocence of budding friendships against the backdrop of a budding war. So I figured I’d share that too.

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As always I’m going to drop a link to my husband’s band here. I hope you check them out!

The family and I are trying to minimize screen time right now so that’ll be it from me today. ❤ Thanks for being here.

Russian Roulette

All of my mistakes
lined up around me, pointing
their empty shotguns;
my aspirations
with a single chamber filled
before me at point blank range.

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Poem based on this prompt.

It has been A Week, folks. Admittedly phoning it in a little tonight; I feel like I could’ve done this concept better and done more with it, but I’m tired, anxiety is running high, and I am admittedly starting to get burnt out and feeling a little discouraged on writing.

Going to skip the usual recommendations tonight. Might go try the Colonel Sanders dating sim game instead. (Yes, you heard me. Colonel. Sanders. Dating. Sim.)

In my next life, let me be mist.

Let me kiss forest tree-tops goodnight.
Let me tuck in a whole city. Let me bead
on grass blades and windows and in soft hair.
Let me settle on a lake Christ-like,
a billion droplet feet that will not sink;
let me be the forgiveness of gentle water.

Let me climb cliffsides and never pull a hamstring.
No more bad-back-nosebleed-acid-reflux-
watch-your-carbs. No more 9-to-5-sales-targets
boss-is-here-watch-your-tongue. Let me show up late
to the party and not care if I find a nice dress.
Let me dodge small talk about the weather.
If people must talk, let them talk about me.

Let me roam. Let me travel every highway,
come to rest at bogs and hillsides and graveyards.
Let me stretch and sprawl like a housecat
around entire houses. Let me hide lost lawn trinkets
and mountains. Let me drink rivers and bird calls.
Let me take in all the music, everywhere. Let me rest.

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Based on this prompt. Very often, when one of my friends or myself is complaining of some ailment or responsibility we’d like to not have to deal with, one of us will helpfully suggest, “Have you considered eschewing your corporeal form and dissolving into a mist?” And honestly, doesn’t that sound nicer?

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Each day this month I’m recommending a fellow NaPoWriMo participant’s response to the daily prompt that I really enjoyed. Today I’d like to share the poem Hawkfish, by @amalgamationink over on Tumblr. This person’s poetry always ends up being among my favorite submissions each day so I hope you’ll give it a read!

I’m also sharing a link to my husband’s band each day. Today I’m just going to be lazy and share their whole second album on Spotify. So here it is: STRAIGHT OUT OF THE SUN by St. George’s Folly. Just play it from the beginning. I know I’m biased but I am confident you won’t regret it.

Thanks for being here, y’all!

Farewell Wanderlust

Farewell wanderlust, you’ve been ever so kind
You brought me through this darkness, but you left me here behind
–“Farewell Wanderlust,” The Amazing Devil

You were a tease. I found you dressed in ink;
you wore lipstick the color of murder
and wouldn’t teach me how to wear it.
When you left, you didn’t even kiss me.
Like a dog on the streets of an old home
his masters have abandoned, I keep prowling
country roads and old CD cases. Once,
you drove me straight into the fire
at the horizon. Then–did you die, or did I?

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Today’s prompt was to write a poem inspired by and sharing a title with a song. I have been inspired by The Amazing Devil since one day in December of 2019 when I first listened to their first album, Love Run, through my headphones at work, and I swear I experienced every emotion humans can exist plus at least twelve more only known to a select species of shrimp. Then their second album, The Horror and the Wild, came out a couple months later and completely took over my life, and I have probably heard it over a thousand times since. (Don’t get me started on their third, album, Ruin. I can’t get through it without ugly crying.)

Anyway the point is you should listen to The Amazing Devil. Especially if you love folk music with a “screaming at the gods in the woods” kind of vibe. I’ve been trying to write a poem inspired by their music that actually lives up to their lyrics for years. Maybe someday I’ll get there. Today I was very very tired.

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Each day this month I’m sharing a fellow NaPoWriMo participant whose response to the day’s prompt I really enjoyed. Today I’d like to share When I’m Gone by @peaamlipoetrydoctor on Tumblr, which is based on the song with the cups from Pitch Perfect. Really fun song, and wonderful poem!

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Each day I’m also sharing a link to my husband’s band, St. George’s Folly. I love them…maybe as much as The Amazing Devil? They’re just a little rowdier and harder to wax poetic about. For the most part. Though I did briefly consider seeing if I could write something based on their song What’s Left to Do, which is one of their more ballad-type songs, very pretty and bittersweet. Check it out on Spotify and YouTube. ❤

Eclipse

In the last moments before the moon slipped on her ring,
     the sky turned sickly, a jaundiced fading yellow;
     shadows left and mocked their masters;
     all winged things screamed to the wind
     and the wind answered, clawing at onlookers
     with all the rage and futility of a caged beast

and then she was wearing it, a blinding white gold
     and all at once it stilled; the earth
     reached the pause at the top of the breath
     and we laid there in the dark, drunk
     on shadow and wrapped in night; we lucky few,
     for one minute, apart from reality.

And then the moon slipped off her ring, and the sky came back.
I no longer know what “home” means.

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I knew I’d get around to writing about the eclipse eventually. I just had to wait for the right moment. So here I am, fashionably late as usual, with my offering.

I really enjoyed today’s prompt. I don’t have much to say about my process, aside from that this is finally what knocked some Eclipse writing loose and I’m grateful for it.

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Each day this month I’m trying to highlight a fellow participant’s response to the prompt that I really enjoyed. Today, one of my favorite responses was a sweet one about a cat: Observing Poppi by Rosemary Nissen-Wade. (I have a soft spot for cat poems, and this one is lovely.)

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Each day this month I’m also sharing a link to my husband’s band, St. George’s Folly. Today I’d like to link to the music video for their song The Whiskey Ode! This is another song from before my husband was in the band, but it’s a nice song about drinking all night with good friends and it makes my soul feel warm. The music video was all done in on continuous shot which is pretty cool. =)

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As always, thanks for being here y’all!

In Which I Am a Sim

and that green gem, spinning and sparkling
and big enough to make a glorious ring for Goliath
himself, is worthless. It only tells you where I am,
and what good is that?

At least the swimming pool still has its ladders.
At least the doors are still there; at least the walls
haven’t moved, shrunk, become a cage, yet.
At least my job will give me a raise, if I show up
happy. It should be easy to be happy.

Somewhere, someone I’m not even sure exists
keeps canceling my plans. I tried to make dinner
and my stove caught fire. I tried to clean up
and ended up with my plate in the hallway,
so naturally I’m stuck and still starving.

I am a Sim, and my brain is the dish on the floor
between me and the bathroom. I can’t go outside.
I can’t get to my bookcase. I can’t get to my job.
It should be easy to pick up the plate, to not
collapse in tears in my own mess, but someone
keeps canceling my plans. I can only stay where I am
and what good is that?

It should be easy to be happy.

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If you’d told me when I first started writing poetry that one day for a writing challenge I’d write a mostly unimpressive poem about The Sims, depression, and executive dysfunction…I’d probably have said “yeah, that tracks actually.”

From the NaPoWriMo.net prompt, and this French stamp that for some reason depicts Les Sims.

It’s been a Bad Brain Day and anxiety is high, and it’s almost my kiddo’s bedtime, so I think I’m going to skip recommendations and links and stuff and just try to make the bedtime transition as seamless as possible. And then see if this secondhand laptop with suboptimal performance can run The Sims 4.

Thanks for being here y’all. ❤

I Watched the World End

I watched the world end, and I bought flowers,
          predestined for death from the moment of their picking.

And I bought flowers:
          stargazers like my mother loves, since I know nothing of choosing plants;

and I bought flowers:
          eager pink-tongue petals lapping at my sorrow like a cat at milk;

and I bought flowers
          to put on a marble gravestone I forgot to visit.

And I bought flowers
          to put on a countertop of only cheap imitation marble;

and I bought flowers
          because of the radiance they can make of only restless sunlight;

and I bought flowers
          so that, briefly, I could have the moon in my kitchen.

And I bought flowers
          and of course they wilted,
          and they did not bring me peace,
          and they did not unhurry the bullet to the child
          or unshrink the starved heart and lungs.

And I bought flowers
          and it was the year that spring came too early,
          and all the death seemed far away;

and I bought flowers
          and of course the world ended anyway.

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Today’s NaPoWriMo.net prompt kicked my butt for a good hour.

I started by reading the essay, Adventures in Anaphora, by Rebecca Hazelton. Then I made a list of possible words or short phrases I could use at the beginning of each phrase. Once I had several, I took a few of my favorites and tried to just brainstorm words or ideas that could describe those words or finish those phrases. Then I started writing a different poem entirely that was only partly on prompt, but a few lines in I realized that I actually had a phrase in there that I thought could work as a refrain of sorts, which helped me finally find my footing. So I re-read the essay by Rebecca Hazelton, and then wrote this, sort of in the style of the quoted section of Howl by Allen Ginsberg, and here we are.

I don’t know if it’s good, per se, but it is drastically different than what I would normally write, which in and of itself feels like a victory. Trying new things is part of why I do this challenge after all.

I did remember another poem I wrote for a past NaPoWriMo that would also fit this challenge, and then while looking for that one so I could link it here, I found yet another one. So this type of repetition isn’t new to me. But this is very outside my usual style in that I normally don’t have structured repetition of a longer phrase used this frequently. This was fun.

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Each day this month I am recommending a fellow NaPoWriMo’s participant whose response to the daily prompt really amazed me. I started getting the idea for writing this after reading Dihya Ammar’s This Land. That is a poem about genocide and colonialism, but it got me thinking about world events which spurred the first lines that became the foothold of this poem. It’s a very relevant and moving read, so that’s my recommendation for the day.

But wait! There’s more! You know what’s funny? The other poet I couldn’t resist sharing is 7EyedWonder…if those names both look familiar it’s because earlier this month I also shared both of them on the same post. Part of me tries not to share the same poets multiple times but since both their poems today really blew me away, and they had to share the recommendation once before, it only seems fair to highlight them both again anyway. So please check out Transmission as well.

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Each day I’m also sharing a link to my husband’s band. Today I’d like to share their cover of Rare Old Mountain Dew (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube; it’s available on most other major streaming platforms as well). This song is sung by the band’s mandolin player rather than their usual lead singer. It’s also one of a few songs that just inexplicably makes my soul feel good so I like to blast it when I need a dopamine boost.

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I really thought I’d have this done sooner; I thought I’d finish my work shift, get grocery shopping done, sit down to write, sit on my balcony and read, and then get my kid to bed. Instead I finished my work shift, took my kid out to play at the park for a bit, took way too long on grocery shopping because OOPS it’s Walmart on a weekend, put groceries away, made dinner, tidied up a little, helped my kid with her homework, called my mom, finally sat down to write but did it in between giving my kid a bath and getting her ready for bed, and now here we are. I haven’t gotten any reading done but I suppose the balcony is just as sturdy after sunset.

Thanks for being here. ❤

Road Trip

This pavement looks the same as this morning’s pavement.
The behavior of the road rarely changes; a straight needle
tedious as a weed, the same dotted lines, the same whine
of a thousand engines, the occasional smell of tar
as the white blossoms of quiet streets are left behind
for cars and cars and the same evergreens lining the few
quiet places where fiendish concrete buildings recede.
The only change is the sunset, a purple-pink scrape
of paint smeared across our terminated escape plan.
Home is a box fan, a pan of cheap noodles, a bed
that knows the layout of my body like a cross-country map.

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I was telling my husband literally yesterday how I hope we get a good process-based prompt soon because I always have a blast with those. Then one came…on the day that I had to spend 13 hours driving home from Ohio. OOPS.

I do like the prompt so I still gave it a whirl. The words I originally came up for were lines (sight); rumble (sound); tar (smell); pavement, blossom, evergreen (concrete nouns); escape, scream (verbs). I didn’t come up with anything off-hand for taste or touch, but I had a few of the rhymes (whine, tumble, car), and just winged it the rest of the way. It’s not the worst thing I’ve written this month, but I do hope I can come back to the structure of this prompt to see where it can take me when I have more time.

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Skipping the recommendation and fun fact about hubs’ band today. I would commit Crimes for some rest right now and that’s exactly what I’m going to get (sans Crimes).

GOODNIGHT.

An Atheist Believes in Fairies

I hang bells by the door now.
Leave a drink out and apologize to the walls
when I think I’ve blighted their name.
I ask them to return lost socks,
missing board game pieces, and my curiosity.

I think they started coming when my daughter was small,
bringing in souvenirs from nearby parks.
I read that they can be summoned with an altar
of rocks and leaves and berries.
She keeps her favorite rocks on a shelf,
swaps out pretty leaves and pinecones,
adds stickers and ribbons.
If it’s anyone’s fault they’re here, it’s hers.

We talk about how to be kind.
To not ask for favors.
To accept their kindness with the right words.

It gives some magic to life;
some comfort that what is lost
will come back to me,
as long as I’m good.
And I think maybe I understand God now.

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This is a slight rework of an old freewrite, so cheating maybe, but it fit the NaPoWriMo.net prompt. I feel I could maybe touch it up a bit more, give it more magic, but I’m not totally sure how to do that right now. We head home from our vacation tomorrow morning, so today we have to tidy up our hotel room, pack our things, meet with a couple more people we haven’t seen in years, do laundry, take showers/baths, and at least a couple other things I’m forgetting right now. And before all that we need to go get food. So I don’t have a TON of time to work on poetry.

Anyway as a Minnesotan I also felt obligated to write something about Paul Bunyan, either the legend itself or my fuzzy memories of visiting Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd when I was very small (and how TERRIFIED of the giant robotic statue I was), but maybe that can be a topic for another poem another time.

I may not get one in tomorrow, because we’re leaving around 6am and won’t be back to my home until around 7-8pm, and then we have all kinds of things to do. But hopefully I’ll squeeze in some writing before getting some sleep, and then it’s unfortunately back to Real Life.

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Because today is so weird and busy, I am going to skip the poet recommendation and fun fact about St. George’s Folly for today in favor of getting this posted and then moving on to lunch because it’s 11:30 and ya girl is HUNGRY. Thanks for being here, y’all. ❤

Observations from a Morning Hike

Sycamore roots enfold and hold the earth in a python grip.

River, are you hungry today? Look how quickly you take life to your mouth.

The worn arches of the stone bridge still bear trains and lovers’ hideaways.

Moss sprawls, yawning and stretching itself into a question.

Fog beads in my daughter’s hair and becomes flower seeds.

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Once a long time ago my daughter, probably 3 or 4 at the time, posited the idea that fog becomes flower seeds. I’m not sure where the idea came from, but it’s been bouncing around in my head, and felt like a good one-liner for today’s NaPoWriMo prompt. The rest of the poem is inspired by hikes we’ve taken this week.

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Each day this month I’m sharing a fellow NaPoWriMo participant whose response to the daily prompt really stuck with me. Today I’d like to share Dramatis Personae by Leonard Walker, who frankly is just a poet worth reading in general.

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Each day this month I’m also sharing a link to and fun fact about my husband’s Celtic punk band, St. George’s Folly, because I love their music and want people to hear it. Today’s link is to their song Baiting The Devil, which can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. The fun fact is that while most songs are written by the band’s lead singer, this one was written by the drummer. (Also, yes, many obvious jokes were made in studio about “‘bating the devil.”)

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Actually getting one posted early in the day again today. I’m on a roll! Thanks for being here y’all.