DAY 1 - NAPOWRIMO 2011

For NAPOWRIMO 2011 Day 1
Posted to Writers Island
and Big Tent Poetry

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

It's starting
Just beginning
When will it finish?
Where will it end?

From start to finish
From beginning to end
It's starting to finish
Beginning to end

HAPPINESS

For We Write Poems - The Pursuit of Happiness
And posted to Monday Poetry Train Revisited


STARTER'S ORDERS

You'll always be at least one step behind
Don't ever let it out of your sight
You'll never get ahead of it
So aim to catch up with it
And if, and when, you do
Grab it with both hands.

With all your heart
Cherish it...

Own it...

On your marks...

Get set...

Go...!

NUMBERS GAME

For We Write Poems

NUMBER’S UP

Wake up O-seven O-O

Bathroom, for a number one
Or maybe a number two
Then four minutes in the shower

At forty five Centigrade

Breakfast – bet you can’t eat three
Cup of coffee, zero milk
One sugar… stirred to the left

Twelve paces to the front door

Into my four door saloon
A sixteen hundred cc
Five forward gears, one reverse

Some take the ninety nine bus

Arrive at work eight thirty
Day starts at nine on the dot
Ends at five, or thereabouts

Then back home, to Number Nine

Takeaway dinner tonight
Chinese, number forty two
Pork in green pepper, black beans

Two or three glasses of wine

Then up thirteen stairs, to bed
And I don’t mean forty winks

Morning, back to the grindstone
Five days a week, forty hours
Fifty two weeks every year

Until I reach sixty five…

Then, one day… my number’s up…

GRATITUDE

For Writer’s Island prompt #31 2010

THANKSGIVING

Although not American
On this day, especially
I have reason to recall
And reasons to be grateful

Funny how you remember…
(Some things, you just don’t forget)
Must be fifteen years ago
… Seems like only yesterday

You didn’t ask me for it
But I knew you wanted it
You didn’t even say it
But it was clear you meant it

Just an item of clothing
But you folded it, neatly
Tucked it into bed with you
Probably dreamt about it

It was such a privilege
I’m eternally grateful
For having witnessed such an
Expression of gratitude

DON'T GIVE UP THE DAY-JOB

For Big Tent Poetry – wordle

WORKAHOLICS?

Only just awake if truth be known
Still hung-over from last night’s session
Pen in hand, and a freshly inked nib
I check-in my pal, another lush
so the boss won’t know he’s passed out, drunk
We blame the clunk and thud of presses
(and the Coalition Government)
for a condition that resurfaced
when we thought it was under control
We’ve both spent time at de-tox session
Been named, shamed and dragged over the coals
Forklifted from the ash-pit, hand washed
and hung over the boiler, to dry
Still we don’t seem to understand why
the consumption of alcoholic
beverages is prohibited
while operating machinery

METAPHOR

For Writers Island #30 2010 – Peerless
And We Write Poems – Swimming
Ans posted to Monday Poetry Train Revisited


UNTOUCHABLE

Morning, bathed in rays of golden sun

Met her for a sink or swim showdown
Hoping we could pool our resources

Shall we synchronise watches? I try
Should have gone to greater lengths than that
Am I in her thoughts…? Won’t hold my breath

Learn to crawl before you walk; she laughs
That would take a stroke of luck; I think
One of us may have to take a dive
Which will send me right back to square one

Passing on the water; ships – that’s us
In her presence, I’m out of my depth
She’s aloof; Madame’s a butterfly
Floating freestyle through a crowded room
Clutching secrets to her heaving breast

BREAKTHROUGH

For Writers Island prompt #19


RECESSION PERSISTS

State of the art premises
Cutting edge machinery
Microchip technology
Computer Aided Design
A world class management team
And a highly skilled workforce
A winning combination
A recipe for success

One ingredient missing
… The Mother of Invention

Poems hang out where life is.

For Big Tent Poetry


This week’s prompt
Poems hang out where life is. – Susan Wooldridge
So you’ve spent most of the summer at the pool (or the lake or the beach) and you’ve hardly written any poems. (Or maybe that’s just me). Maybe you’ve been working too hard at your day job and you’re just not feeling the poetry. Whatever the cause, if you are feeling your well is dry (or even if you’re not), it’s high time to make a word pool!
For this week’s prompt you’re going to need a little notebook, something you can carry with you in your pocket. And you’re going to need to, as I say to my young art students, open your artist eyes and ears. Because before you write your poem this week, you’re going to look and listen and gather all the words and phrases your world has to offer.
“Pick me, pick me!” you hear the neighbor kid shouting. Write it down. “… no reading required,” you spy on your child’s Memory game. Write it down. Step outside your door and write down the first five things you see: cracked stair, beach towel, empty bird bath, overgrown garden, green plastic watering can. Go back inside and raid the pantry: cumin, ground pepper, canned spinach, lazy susan.
The idea of a word pool is one I originally learned from Susan Wooldridge in her wonderful book, Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. As she describes the process in her second book, Foolsgold,“Gather words at random, sloppily, aslant, in circles, even upside down on a page.” Once I started really opening my eyes and being in tune to all the amazing words and phrases just waiting to be used in a poem, I couldn’t stop writing them down.
This week, give yourself permission to eavesdrop and steal. Take words in the name of poetry and call them yours. Then weave your favorite words into a poem. It’s like a Wordle, but more personal!
Then come back, starting Friday, and share* your poem!
*When posting, it might be nice to tell everyone a little bit about where and how you collected your words!


WHERE THERE’S LIFE, THERE’S HOPE

Hopes seemed dashed at breakfast time
What to do? Four souls to feed
Fridge is empty, shelves are bare
No frozen, processed, powdered
Conveniently pre-packed
Early signs suggest a need
For vital kitchen upgrade
Improvement for little room

A fresh approach is required
Open window raises hopes
Outdoor edible menu
Organic, free-range produce
Vegetables, spices, herbs
Bounty hunter's net result

But what’s on today’s menu?
Fresh fruit salad for starters
Main course cock-a-doodle doo
Sticky staple; just dessert

Bill of fare, no price to pay
Bob’s your uncle; problem solved



Notes: Kitchen, bare shelves, empty fridge, window
‘Edible menu’ lifted from this post
Sights: banana, papaya, mango, coconut, tamarind, men fishing, rice fields, chickens, sugar cane, honey
Life: vital signs; walking, crawling, swimming, flying, growing all around
Hope: dashed, raised, Bob ‘your uncle’ Hope
Improvement for little room; twist on room for improvement
Bounty hunters net result = fish
Sticky staple = rice
And it’s all free!

WORDLE YOURSELF

FOR WE WRITE POEMS

Nicole Nicholson brings us this week’s prompt, which is to Wordle yourself. She says,
“For this week’s prompt, we’re going to do a little something interesting. You’ll make your own Wordle from one (or more) of your own poems, and then write a new poem out of the resulting Wordle.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1. Visit http://www.wordle.net/ and click on the “Create your own” link near the top left of the page.
Step 2. Paste the text of one of your poems into the first text box at the top of the “Create” page.. If your poems tend to be under ten lines or if you wrote a bunch of really rockin’ short form poetry (like haiku, haynaku, lunes, or tanka) then you can use several of those poems for this exercise.
Step 3. Click the “Go” button right below the text box. You will be taken to the resulting page where your brand new Wordle will appear! (Note: you can monkey around with the color, font, and layout as you like using the menu options shown above your brand new Wordle.)
Step 4. Write down between six and twelve of the largest words in your Wordle and use those words to write a brand new poem.
Here’s an example of a Wordle that I did this with my poem, Backwards. You’ll have to come back Wednesday for the Post Your Poems post to see my resulting poem.
If you can’t do the Wordle for technical reasons, then here’s another way to approach the prompt: take a poem (or two, or five) of your own and pick out between six and twelve of your most frequently used words, and then write a new poem.
Feel free to post your Wordle image with your poems. And have fun with the prompt this week!”


Wordle from this post


GUILTY SECRET

You moved in circles populated by important men
To centre your attention on your own self-serving needs

Conflicting images, provoked by indirect, free thought
Compel you to explore the words that issued from your lips

As ready as you’d ever be to face up to your flaws
Your weaknesses exposed, revealed the depth of your self-doubt

Decreasing popularity, a rapid fall from grace
A half-truth half uncovered and a hasty exit made

The tightly-woven web of lies surrounding your affairs
Displayed a calm exterior; concealed a troubled mind

Unguarded overnight, the rusted gateway to your past
Saw souls forgotten breach the threshold; dominate your dreams

By morning light, decaying fibres frayed, dissolved to dust
A solitary strand survived intact; remained untouched

IF ONLY…

For Writers Island prompt #18 2010
And Monday Poetry Train Revisited


UNWANTED GIFTS

The vastness of space
Is not nearly enough
To contain all those gifts
Unwanted
Ignored
Or returned unopened

Consideration
Love
Peace
Compassion
Faith
Hope
Charity
To name but a few

In favour of thought
Ignorance is bliss
Apathy prevails
Hatred
Hostility
Cynical attitudes
Suspicion
Despair
And self-serving greed

Only if we take
Possession
Ownership
Of what’s rightfully ours
But wrongfully spurned
Then
And only then
Can we realise
Our full potential
Certain in the knowledge

All things are possible

ABSTAIN, HALO, PRAYER

For Three Word Wednesday
And Friday Flash 55


TEAM TACTICS

Not two seasons into his leadership, the once popular captain had allowed his halo to slip, triggering a decline in form.
The team’s ability to recover and mount a serious title challenge now rested on a wing and a prayer.
A collective decision was made to abstain from voting him in for a third season.

MANUAL TASK

For Big Tent Poetry


This week’s prompt
We are going to start this week’s poems with our hands. Really. There is a — forgive me, ahem — “hands-on” portion of the prompt and a writing part. My hope is that if you attend (mindfully, of course) to a manual task it will influence the poem. Maybe it will provide the action. Maybe it will impact the pacing. Maybe it will suggest an image.
So here’s part one: Do something with your hands and really pay attention to the motion of your hands and arms and to the movement of other objects that may be involved. Open something: a dresser drawer, a bottle of wine, the garage door. Fold something: the laundry, a letter, a paper airplane. Scrub something. Touch something. Pack something up: a game, a suitcase, a box. Braid something. Plant something. Chop something up. Make shadow puppets.
Anything will do. As long as it is a manual task. As long as you really, really, really pay attention. It may also be wise not to read ahead to part two; it will make the first draft of the poem more spontaneous if you don’t plan too much or think too hard.
And here’s part two (and it’s brilliant): Write something.
OK. So maybe that wasn’t so brilliant. Unless part one was enough inspiration for you. If it was, get writing. If you need something more, however, hold the task you just completed in mind while you write about one of the following: a kiss, a dance, a swim, a burial, a sacred space or something that’s been injured physically.


DIGITAL DISPLAY

At first clumsy, hesitant
Words wouldn’t come easily
Until a single-digit surge
Under pressure, from the Right
Delivered the message LOUD – unclear
Syllables s-s-stuttered across the screen

Middle finger soon joined index
And later thumb....... for spacebar
Later still, five fingers were tapping
Was it the sound of one hand clapping?
Or was it just a classic case
Of the left hand never really knowing
What it was the right hand was doing?

At every opportunity then
I practiced my new-found skill
The only thing I could ever do
With one hand tied behind my back

Day after day
Night after night
Time after time
Time and again

Again and again
Repetition, refrain
Repetition defined
Definition refined

Never relaxing
Often head scratching
Sometimes nail biting
Always typewriting

Left hand going through the motions
Playing an occasional cameo role
But even two decades down the track
The left hand still doesn’t really know
What its partner, the right hand is doing

SIX WORD MEMOIR

For We Write Poems


If you haven’t come across this site yet, you should have. It’s an initiative by SMITH Magazine asking people to write their life story in six words. There are now expanded sections with categories to base your memoir on, such as Childhood, Travel, or Revenge, but my favourite is the original life story six-word memoir.
Click the link to see examples from famous people and unknown names alike, and spend the week trying your hand at six-word memoirs. See if you can write one for every category on the website. Possibly one will inspire you to write a longer poem–will it be one of your own, or a stranger’s that you read on the site? This prompt doesn’t require you to write many words, but it does involve some deep thinking and manipulating of words. Let it inspire you to write more, or less, than you usually do in a given week. And definitely come back on Wednesday to share your favourite six-word memoirs (or other, longer material you’ve written out of this prompt) with your poeming-friends!


NO SHORT CUTS; ALWAYS SCENIC ROUTE

Yesterday; a day of broken promises
Ineffective guarantees, followed immediately by disclaimers

Same old same old Rat Race
Old too soon? Long time Dying?

Life is tough; deal with it!

Today, I choose a different path
No short cuts; always scenic route

As sure as day follows night
Tomorrow follows today, bringing fresh hope

The best is yet to come

PENSIVE

For One Single Impression
And Monday Poetry Train Revisited


WHAT THOUGHT DID… MORE OR LESS

I’ve been trying hard
Not to think about
All I am

I’ve been trying hard
Not to think about
All I have

I’ve been trying hard
Not to think about
All I know

I’ve been trying hard
Not to think about
All I see

I’ve been trying hard
Not to think about
All I feel

But the more I try
The more I think

The more I think
The more I feel

The more I feel
The more I see

The more I see
The more I know

The more I know
The more I have

The more I have
The more I want

The more I want
The more I get

The more I get
The less I need

The less I need
The less I feel

The less I feel
The less I see

The less I see
The less I think

The less I think
The less I know

The less I know
The less I have

The less I have
The less I am

The less I am
The more I try

To understand

What I know
What I think
What I feel
What I see
What I have
What I want
What I need

What I am

TIME TRAVEL

For Writers Island prompt #17


RELATIVITY

The story of my life… so far

Still just forty six years old

Seen fifty eight, spanning

Two Millennia

Three Centuries

Eight Decades


Question…

How?