Day 30 Poem a Day

Life in these United States

Swine Flu updates
Friendly repo letter
Handsome president (youtube)
Move in the direction of the resistance
like the oyster

Day 29 Poem a Day

Rain Dance

parchment skin whispers raspy lament
sccc sccc
a dry silt river runs down my arm's cracks and grooves
Sun, you are a strange bedfellow

Day 28 Poem a Day

Perspective

Even the gooseneck barnacles are beautiful
jutting out / a prehistoric bouquet

Day 27 Poem a Day

Looking for Whales

On the troller Mr. Max, green swells
slap-fling us airborne for a split second.
Salt spray mists our lips, our hair,
and we grip the rails smiling,
searching. I scan the horizon for hours,
looking for the telltale spray
from the Gray Whale cow
and calf seen swimming in the area,
but we see nothing.
Later in our room you ask for silence
while the cello plays Adagio in G Minor.
This is my favorite part.
Just then I look outside the window and see a spray,
or is it the surf hitting a rock?
I feel the warm thrill
of believing in something I can’t see below the surface.

Day 24 Poem a Day

Unrequited IV

Camp.
Smoke, canvas, denim, river rock.

Plantation.
Gravel, wind, dust, creek.

Horizon.
Blue (eyes), amber (skin), crimson (abrasions).

Gathering.
Coffee. Salt. Tobacco. Wax.

Wisdom.
Furrows, sinew, jackstraw, mourning.

Day 23 Poem a Day

Ablaze

she set herself alight
to set what’s wrong to right
flaming crazy freak?
torch for us to speak
sparking discussion
burning passion

charred human cinder

she called it an offering



Kathy Change was a political activist who committed suicide on the University of Pennsylvania campus in 1996 by lighting herself on fire (self-immolating).

Day 22 Poem a Day

Fragment

His hair swirls with fig and peppercorn

I open up to him/a confessor
I’m wholly ashamed of my
unfeminine hands

Day 21 Poem a Day

It is not open to interpretation

Digital Poem

Vinnie Kinsella's latest NaPoWriMo offering Bits and Pieces is an exciting experiment in sound. He recorded the sound clips using an app called Books to Text and mixed it in GarageBand. The result is a cool poem that reads very nicely on its own, and with the accompanying audio, it's propelled it into richer art form. I’ve got to try this for myself.
Kudos Vinnie! I love the stuff that’s coming out of all the poetry this month.

Day 20 Poem a Day

Discovery

I had a dream about a place that looked exactly like this. An old falling down house at the end of a long road.
He’d never mentioned a dream before
and I’d never asked.
Farther down the gravel road we discover an old white house, silent behind barbed wire.
The door plaque reveals the A.T. Smith House: Greek revival, built in 1856.

Two dead blackbirds stick to a window,
humors dried opaque to the glass.
Their bodies lie in symmetry and are not yet decayed.
Natural cause? I ask.
A ritual, he says, with the voice of authority earned
from scholarship or memory.

Day 19 Poem a Day

Note to Self
a collection of post-it notes found around the house

meeting 7:00 a.m.
turn on crockpot
towel
garbage
these are clean
I fed the dog
call Michelle
get cash
Devil’s Dream
G Lick #2
check
dryer
poems
Dirty Vegas
references
Morgan
24
ask about song start ---
ice cream
card
Paul Anastasio
China Study
hair
Freakonomics
empty

Day 18 Poem a Day

Conspiracy

Enlighten us, J-Rod.
Slip me some alien ESP.
You’re from the post-catastrophical future?
I’ll be the judge of that.

J-Rod is the name of an EBE (extraterrestrial biological entity) reported to be housed near Area 51. Area51 shadowlands

Day 17 Poem a Day

We Must Always Pursue the Light

Day 16 Poem a Day

Looking in My Purse for Poetic Inspiration, or, Why I Smell Like Lemon

Tune in Thursday April 16 to hear Vinnie Kinsella on The Sound of Ink's Open Mic Poetry Radio Show

On Thursday, April 16, Vinnie Kinsella will be the special guest on the Speakeasy Cafe’s “The Sound of Ink” Open Mic Poetry Radio Show. Vinnie will share tips for poetry writers on getting poetry published.

“The Sound of Ink” is an online open mic poetry radio show where you the poet are featured. Call in early if you want to read your work.

Showtimes:
4:00 PM West Coast
7:00 PM East Coast

Call in Number:
646-595-3965

Websites:
www.blogtalkradio.com/speakeasycafe
www.myspace.com/thespeakeasycafe

Day 15 Poem a Day

Viewpoint Query

UPDATE Attitude
SET Emotion = Happy
WHERE City = 'Portland'

UPDATE Attitude
SET Emotion = Emotion + Positive

SELECT DISTINCT Emotion
FROM Attitude

TRUNCATE TABLE Attitude

SELECT *
FROM Attitude
WHERE City = 'Portland' OR City = 'Where ever you happen to be'

Day 14 Poem a Day

Christmas Day in Forest Grove

It’s not an L.L. Bean catalog scene, but there’s snow,
and a roaring fire inside this dusty house tucked in the woods.
A sick dog stands on the porch. Music fills the air.
Guitar first, then piano, playing songs from The Band.
Lightheaded in my hot wool socks and long johns,
I pad across the hardwood to look for a John Hartford CD.
A frozen fir tree falls on a line and knocks the power out.
Darkness blinds and disorients me
until I can focus on the fire.
I never want to leave. Make the cowboy coffee and the glow
from your pipe linger. But this is not my story, not my house.
My skin aches from the high road. It’s calluses
I want to see on your hands
and the chance to touch them.

Day 13 Poem a Day

Winter

It serves me right to suffer. It serves me right to be alone.
—John Lee Hooker

1. small talk with your wife
2. bartender mentions us in passing
3. everyone is holy and nothing gets done

1. small talk with your friend
2. waiter shows me to your table
3. I’m funny but you don’t laugh

1. small talk
2. you mention your son
3. the carnelian pendant swings cold on my chest

Day 12 Poem a Day

Outline of a love poem

Easter is light.
Lines cross over my iris.

A bunco lady arranges a luncheon,
puts on fishnets for charity.

His hands are older than his face,
trims a perfect square of white beard.

Deep chin groove.
He is made of flesh and yields to impact.

Dew forms on the dyed eggs
hidden in the grass ahead of time.

The air smells of nothing.
An electric scooter buzzes by.

She has fragmented.

An invisible whistle blows
when she looks behind.

Day 11 Poem a Day

Today I'm playing the random poem generator card. Four of the following poems are from a random poem generator I found online (link below) and one of the poems is one I wrote. Can you tell which is the human-generated poem? It's difficult to think randomly.

Two of the randomly-generated poems have a certain theme, and the other two have a different theme. Can you guess them?

The stormy tuna swiftly desires the ship.
Grow quietly like a rough lad.
Never command a gull.
The small mainland swiftly leads the shore.
Never fight a shore.

Moons travel!
Why does the breeze travel?
The sea waves like a sunny reef.
Why does the captain rise?

Walk roughly like a cold girl.
Ah, action!
Noise, love, and life.
Why does the rain shrink?

Corners grow!
Windows shop like dark cars.
Never love a window.
Action is a dead window.

Appliances risk festivities.
Expand like a rucksack loofah.
Bassoon, a floppy rant.
Fly into the shingle.

This is the link I used:
http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/PoemGen/PoemGen.htm

This is another cute one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/themes/books/dylan_thomas_rpg.shtml?

Day 10 Poem a Day

circle of least confusion*

I see two moons tonight. Three if I drink wine.
If I squint and concentrate, I see the flatness of the sky
and fill in the depth.
Cliché, like a Kurt Vonnegut tattoo.
When they weren’t looking, I played hopscotch in the boardroom.
I don’t believe. I don’t believe.
I hand you this thin tribute.


*Circle of least confusion

Day 9 Poem a Day

Drunk Johnny

Found me an ax-swingin’ heavy drinkin’ fiddler
Lives in a cabin down near Gales Creek
Goin’ downtown to buy a sexy dress at Wal Mart
Fixin’ to mend my drunken logger’s lonely heart

If he says so I’ll swing his ax in the morning
So he can keep sleeping in his rustic ol’ bed
I’ll make him some biscuits and coffee black as coal
And put it on a tray by his whiskey and Skoal

Found me an ax-swingin’ heavy drinkin’ fiddler
He always smells like pitch and gasoline
Play me a song on your fiddle drunk Johnny,
And I’ll stomp around until you twirl with me.

Congratulations Fishtrap Fellows

Congratulations to the Summer Fishtrap fellowship winners:
Jonathan Harnum, Kelly Luce, Jay Schroder, Ceiridwen Terrill, and Amanda Coplin.

Day 8 Poem a Day

From the mouths of annelids: books of apparent profundity on the top shelf that I have yet to read. A found poem.

God & Nature
In Search of the Big Bang
Science and Religion
The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates
The Path Between the Seas
Worms Eat My Garbage

Day 7 Poem a Day

Neighborly

Come in through the side door.
Tonight we can trade you a bouquet of rosemary
for your celebrity magnets and gin.

Call ahead if you come ‘round tomorrow.
We’ll tumble a bagful of agates.
(Bring your clamshell castanets.)

Day 6 Poem a Day

Nightshade Fragment

The kids next door
sound like barking dogs.
Language and animal vocalization
blend into one high-pitched cry.

Poem a day poets: Vinnie Kinsella & William Harryman

Check out these other poem a day poets:
Vinnie Kinsella
William Harryman

The world is a better place because of all the new poetry that’s being pumped into the universe this month.

Thoughts on poem a day

The poem a day challenge has proved interesting. At first I was uncomfortable with publishing first very rough drafts of these daily poems, but I quickly got over it. This is like an extended writing exercise, intended to get the juices flowing. I realized that stuff I write in the evening is harsher and less positive than the poems I write in the morning. Kernels I start with at night go in a different direction in the morning. For example, the poem I posted this morning started out last night and included this line: “Can’t say fuck you! loud enough, but we try.” Huh?

Day 5 Poem a Day

A Nice Spring Day

John Greer’s Two Step
Wetlands conservation
Equal rights for all
Video game yoga
Cookies and Woody Allen
Medicine show dreams

Day 4 Poem a Day

The Ballad of Debbi Kaluza

I’m writing a ballad for the poem of the day today. This is one that I need to revise before I post. I’ll post a little of what I have, but it would be a disservice to Debbi's story if I posted it before it was ready. It’s in a skeletal outline now.

A little history:
Debbi Kaluza’s obituary from September 2005 moved me. I kept the obituary in my files knowing that I’d like to write about her one day. Debbi was described as Coffee Creek prison guard who appeared mean and lonely, but had a soft spot for dachshunds. She showed her champion dogs, preferring their company to people. Debbi never married or had children. She’d save her vacation time and money and drive to dog shows, sometimes camping in her van. She wrote a romance novel with dog shows as a scenario, but the manuscript was lost in a computer crash.
I’ve often thought, “There but for the grace of God go I” when I think of Debbi’s life story. It makes me sad to think of her lack of human contact, but then again, she chose her life and appeared very happy with her situation.
I decided to attempt the ballad form because I’d never written one before, plus songs have been influencing my ear lately. The subject seemed to lend itself to a ballad.

Here’s one section from the Ballad:

Coffee Creek women fell in line
the prisoners never talked back
In uniform o’er six feet tall,
Kaluza took no flack.

Day 3 Poem a Day

A Tale About Voices

For five days he was in love with a woman who kept Lesser Jardin’s parrots, a fact he didn’t learn until the fifth day. They flew around her studio while she sewed, and sometimes landed on her shoulder. He told her the legend of Alexander von Humboldt, the 18th century German naturalist. Explorer von Humboldt discovered that the Maypure tribe of Venezuela had been killed off by a rival tribe days before his arrival. The Maypure had kept parrots as pets, which the rival tribe took for their own after the killings. The birds were the last remaining speakers of the Maypure language. von Humboldt recorded their words, saving the language from extinction. She didn’t return his calls after his telling of the story. Was she saddened or disturbed? He didn’t know. It made him happy to think of the parrots and their usefulness as unwitting recorders of legend.

Day 2 Poem a Day

Stormy, Rain, Change, Fair, Very Dry

On his bench, the collector fixes a brass barometer to a marble base.
On the wall hangs an antique German barometer
shaped like a ship’s wheel.

Everywhere in the tidy workshop instruments are gauging pressure changes.
Crossed pistols, Japan.
Regency style, UK.
Art deco, Sweden.

All needles point to fair on this quiet April night.
The old navigator drills and glues, measures and screws,
displaying the weight of the air.

First Poem a Day

Describing Nokkelost* to Disarmingly Handsome and Unfailingly Polite Mr. C

Nutty, creamy, and spicy. Intensifies with age.
Supple. Elastic. Smooth.
Fragrant clove buds hide inside these pale, creamy walls.
Slight saltiness lingers on the lips.
Semihard. Aged. Generous fat content.

Sometimes smells like rye.



*Nokkelost is a Norwegian cheese, banned in the US over mad cow disease fears.