NaPoWriMo: Day 30 & Goodbye

Today is the final day for National Poetry Writer’s Month 2013.   I didn’t follow any prompt, I just looked out over the balcony, with a glass of Shiraz,  and let the poem write itself.  

 

 

 

Go out into the day. 

Feel the breeze 

pass its warm palm

across your cheek 

and notice the way

your hair lifts to greet it.

Don’t sit at your chair

fretting over matters

that matter not, when 

the sun is high and 

shadows create spaces 

where you can seek respite.

There will never be another

blue sky exactly like this

where the clouds

shape themselves into

your happiest moments. 

 

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo: Day 29

Pourquoi m’aimes-tu?

I answer that question

Je t’aime parce que tu es toi!

~ with no hesitation.

 

NaPoWriMo: Day 28

Today it’s all about the color:

Her note was written

in blood red ink, telling him

that it was over.

His answer was sent

on the bluest of paper.

He knew all along.

When they last parted

the road they walked away on

was a clean white canvas.

NaPoWriMo: Day 27

National Poet Writer’s Month challenges participants today to select a common proverb— I chose “a picture is worth a thousand words”— and then Google the first three words of the phrase.  Peruse the sites for words and phrases that capture your imagination and use them as the inspiration for your poem.  I found an interesting page that involve an astronaut tweeting from space and used it as the foundation for my poem today.

The writer struggles

to paint a picture without

brandishing a brush

The dry and folded

skin of the great Sahara

looking like pie crust

Seen by a spaceman

adrift on an infinite

plain, above us all

Sometimes it doesn’t

make sense unless you see it

with your own two eyes

NaPoWriMo: Day 26

Today’s poetry challenge was to take an existing poem and redact all but the words you select to create another shorter poem.  The words must flow in the order they were originally written.  Make sense?  If not, NaPoWriMo explains it in more detail.

The poem I chose as the source for my own, was Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess.

Strange passion–

Its earnest glance ’twas not joy

Such stuff  ’twas my gift,

a smile cast in bronze.

NaPoWriMo: Day 25

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a ballad.  Music once again provides the inspiration, and this time it was the lovely ballad, Tam Lin, performed by Fairport Convention.  This song is so beautiful, I remember where I was the first time I heard it on the radio almost 20 years ago.   I wanted my poem to have a mystical, traveling feel.  It turned out rather folksy, but that’s ok,  here you go…

Traveller

The hour is late, and yet I’m still walking

29 steps to go

29 steps, and a hole in my stocking

29 steps to show

 

So no time left for your moaning and rocking

There’s 29 steps, so quiet your talking

 

I already know what I came here to find

A singular circus

A singular thought, of the critical kind

A singular purpose

 

So don’t peel oranges just to feast on the rind

You’re a singular clown, with a juggler’s mind.

 

I take the last bow, as my heart tends to swell

Four seasons to sing here

Four treasonous stories for strong men to tell

Four reasons to linger

 

So careful, don’t fall for the sorcerer’s spell

And when all is told, we can know it ends well.

 

NaPoWriMo: Day 24

The Kathleen Edward’s song, In State, was running through my mind and prompted me to write the following poem:

 

In my arms you find shelter

from your crimes of passion

again, and again.

In affairs of the heart,

you are just one arrest away

from doing life.

 

This is a terrific album, by the way…