@April turns to May

Well, April did step outside the conventional sense of time! Saying farewell to the brilliant community site, Read Write Poems, after an all too brief journey with them. Yet going out in a blaze, as they sponsored their own site group participation for the National Poetry Writing Month (napowrimo). I’d never written with that sustained a level of frequency before – one poem a day throughout the month. (No pretense for the quality of those “30″, but a few seemed fair of face.) Then add to the mix, sticking out my toe into the muddy, and co-founding one of a few poetry sites that emerged from the ending of RWP, We Write Poems. Unexpectedly, writing even taking a backseat for near half a month!

Short-fallen in several ways. Didn’t have time or energy to read and comment on other people’s poems near at all so much as I’d thought to do (or should have). The daily chore of work, then site development, and oh yea, a touch of food and sleep, left me with sometimes only a few minutes to write – poems that is. So the commitment became more prime than considered labor toward any hoped for quality. (Learned to accept “lesser” poems of necessity. Is that good?) Banged my head into bricks for a while along the way. Yet April’s gone, and I remain.

So be it, is about the best I can say. It near feels like a new year beginning here. And much remains to discover, learn, appreciate.

Thank you to the many who joined with April’s labor in good care. As well, you all who’ve also remained in this greater community of us. ~Neil

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saying goodbye (napowrimo #30)

read write poem   napowrimo #30

prompt by the Read Write Poem Staff   free day (and farewell)

Today is the last day of (Inter)National Poetry Month and the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge. The prompt today is a free day — you are free to use any prompt you have not yet written to from those provided this month, or you can write, and share, whatever you like today.

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the challenge! For those of you who wrote a poem every day this month, tomorrow we will post instructions for submitting work for the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge anthology.

Remember that the anthology is the culmination of the work done here at Read Write Poem. It will be posted on this site and on issue.com toward the end of May. Other than the anthology, as of May 1, the Read Write Poem site will no longer be live. The site’s main content will remain up as an archive, while all social elements (i.e., profiles, wire posts, private messages, groups, forum posts) will be removed May 1. Please make sure you have retrieved any information you want to save.

We also want to announce that Deb Scott — who served on Read Write Poem’s administrative team — and Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond Wickham — who were part of the site’s creative team — have started a new poetry community. The three will share poetry prompts and other poetry-related content at Big Tent Poetry. Their writing lineup is comprised of many fine poets, including several contributors to Read Write Poem. We hope you will check that site out and see what’s going on under the big tent.

Thank you all for taking part in Read Write Poem, and for taking the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge this year. Read Write Poem was intended to help poets share work with one another and learn more about poetry. We hope you will continue on that path. Or, in short, we hope you will all poem on — wherever poetry takes you.

saying goodbye

saying goodbye some people don’t like to do
it makes them sad or they think it will

some people raise their arm their hand
like sending you a piece of sky

some people look shyly down, affection on their fingertips

saying goodbye can be a challenge you see
saying goodbye can be falling off a log
saying goodbye can be a mountainside

saying goodbye can have a long list of things to pack
or keep or give away or write home about

you can see goodbye in eyes
you can feel it on the tips of tongues
you can sense what arms might say if they spoke
goodbye is on the noses of dogs, but so’s hello

saying goodbye is eagerly reluctantly

every train that goes by is saying goodbye

saying goodbye is full to the rim with appreciation
if you count your wisdoms generously

I’ve said goodbye over coffee
I’ve said goodbye at the airport, and always wait
till your wings become colored blue
I’ve said goodbye graveside too

Said goodbye to friends, lovers, one mother
grandparents, a housemate lost on the river
dreams, nightmares too, people afraid
good ideas and bad ones to boot
and people I’ve left behind absentmindedly
and too soon, the girl from down the street
a small dark haired cat who liked my scent

say goodbye say goodbye, no, I’m not ready yet
it’s not inertia, it’s gravity, rising from the earth

then toss it into the sky, make ready for a global arc
that’s what grandmother did

think I’ll take her example and just wave
you already know what I mean

like you know, the way breath is, you’re still here, inside

take a breath, farewell my friend

Neil Reid © April 2010 farewell Read Write Poem

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Robots work to stop leak (napowrimo #29)

read write poem   napowrimo #29

prompt by D.S. Apfelbaum   front page news

You’re almost there, and inspiration for your next to the last NaPoWriMo poem is at your fingertips! D.S. Apfelbaum recalls what William Carlos Williams once wrote, “It is difficult/ to get the news from poems,” but asks, “Who says you can’t get poems from the news?”

For this prompt, choose your favorite newspaper or online news provider. Jot down five to ten headlines that jump out at you and without reading the articles, select elements from each headline to create a new event about which your poem reports.

Alternately, let short-format sections inspire you. Write a poem in the form of an obituary, a personal ad, a classified ad, etc. (Bonus points if you can pull off a poem in the form of a crossword puzzle.)

(Just no excuse at all!)

Robots Work to Stop Leak of Nerdiness,

Including Newly Found Fault Lines

Local correspondent reports it’s true, from off-shore
of California. No longer are nerds confined to Cal Tech
and computer games! They are sprouting up right
from our feet – the very ground we thought safe.

Unwilling to be confined to the stratus of higher mathematica,
now they’ve turned to writing poems right in public view.

No shame at all, a local resident exclaims,
why just yesterday at the market down the street,
my children were exposed to free form stanzas!

Librarians are printing their own chap books!
Politicians coming up with their own ideas!
What horror next, sushi bars are no longer safe!

Scientists using the most modern of deep reading
sea submersible robots are seeking out faults to seal.

(Oh wait, they’re already nerds too!) All is lost.

Poems at five!

Neil Reid © April 2010

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when moons collide (napowrimo #28)

read write poem   napowrimo #28

prompt by Julie Jordan Scott   intuition

Arthur Koestler wrote: “The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.” Akin to a “sixth sense,” intuition brings pieces together. It gives the gift of heightened awareness.

One single, specific memory I have from a math class comes from the first day of geometry class. I was 15 years old.

The teacher asked “What is intuition?”

I raised my hand — an unusual act for me when math was involved. “Intuition is having a hunch,” I said, “sort of knowing or having an idea of something out of the blue, like without really knowing you somehow know.”

What does this have to do with your life and your poetry?

Take a moment to remember a breakthrough moment in your life or a “freeze-frame” moment from long, long ago. An “a-ha” or an “epiphany” moment or a moment that has a story yet to tell.

Let’s prepare to write a poem using our intuition intentionally today. Write this prompt on your page: “When I remember my “a-ha moment” from my past, I understand the place I am meant to go with my words and poetry today is … ”

Restate the prompt as you free-write and don’t write a poem yet. Instead, go about your business of the day purposefully not writing a poem.

Notice surprising turns of phrases you hear. Listen to people who say things to you that seem especially surprising, lyrics to songs. Eavesdrop intentionally. Wait for at least 2 hours and then write your poem from the words your intuition and your free-writing gave you.

when moons collide

curly! hey!
early? no, I’m not early
what?
who’s early? chimes a third

eventually settled to a dull understanding
she remembers by mirror-eye her curly locks
he’s still not sure, slow to rhyme
tangential third veers away only slighty
perturbed

no collision, just random tides
a minor close call
another moon in another sky
surely nothing to do with the tear in her eye

Neil Reid © April 2010

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napowrimo what? (napowrimo #27)

read write poem   napowrimo #27

prompt by Carolee Sherwood   let someone else take the lead

Carolee Sherwood wonders if you’re running on fumes like she is. She hopes her prompt takes some of the heat off and points your exhausted brain down the path where your 27th poem lies.

Take a word that’s part of you — your name, your birth month, your favorite animal, your guiding principle. Write that word vertically down a page and use the letters to start the lines of a poem. When you’re done, you’ll have an acrostic poem. (Though the prompt could be as simple as “write an acrostic poem,” the word sounds scary this late in the month. This prompt is designed to ease you into the final stretch. Don’t stress too much about the word you choose. NaPoWriMo is just for fun. Are you having fun?)

napowrimo what?

someone’s knocking at the door again!
enough, enough, you go answer it for me
please, no, I just know it for you, it’s
those poetry people… again!
expletive-deleted-here   OK OK
my head is spinning already, please, what?
beautiful, just four more you say?
envision an empty space, you suggest? I do
remember the scarecrow?  before dorothy!

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Metered step (napowrimo #25)

read write poem   napowrimo #25

prompt by Joseph Harker   first things first

It’s Day #25, and you may be getting tired. In Joseph Harker’s prompt today, let others do the heavy lifting of inspiration.

Keep an ear out for the first sentence (or even word) that is said to you after you read this prompt. (Poetic license: If the first few words are exceptionally boring, wait for the first uncommon or peculiar one.) Take that word/sentence — it could be “mango” or “exemplar” or “have you ever been to this Ethiopian restaurant?” — and build a poem around it. Maybe you have deep thoughts on mangoes or a narrative of heartbreak and spicy injera from the restaurant mentioned. Trust in fate.

(Oh my, 25 cents and this poem won’t even get you a cup’o joe.)
(But a good prompt, and I’ll save it again for some lovely rainy day!)

Metered step

“Pardon”, she said, “I have to go and learn about the meter.”
You mean like with a man named Fred, one-two one-two
one-two-three? I wondered aloud.
But there’s no formal gown in town, much less a ball!
“No”, said she, “it’s Charlie you see.” A little something
about the natural flow. Like the tides, the weather,
something super-natural perhaps? Random thoughts,
yes, produce random results!

But yes, I see, a matter of pennies. And these days
don’t they all count very much, closer as we are
to the man with the big wrench in his hand.
“No, not him”, amused as slight her smile was.
“Rather, the utility gas man I mean.”
How mundanely essential,
grimly I thought.

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Periodic Table (napowrimo #24)

read write poem   napowrimo #24

prompt by Marie Gauthier   find a phrase

With words like codswallop, it’s clear that Read Write Poem member Marie Gauthier means business! Now is not the time to let your NaPoWriMo work ethic slack.

Clichés, idioms, what-have-you. As points of inspiration, you might think they’re dead in the water, but that’s a load of codswallop. Time spent investigating word origins is never time wasted. “Left in the lurch” is one example. Here’s what The Phrase Finder says about it:

There are suggestions that lurch is a noun originating from lych – the Old English word for corpse, which gives the name to the covered lych-gates that adjoin many English churches. The theory goes that jilted brides would be ‘left in the lych (or lurch)’ when the errant bridegroom failed to appear. The lych-gate is where coffins are left when waiting for the clergyman to arrive to conduct a funeral service. Both theories are plausible but there’s no evidence to support either and in fact lych and lurch are unrelated.

For our purposes, it doesn’t matter whether the derivation pans out as true or not. Your inquiries are meant to be catalytic crackers. Surely “lych-gate” stirs an idea or two!

So for today’s prompt, travel a while on The Phrase Finder website until you find the phrase or phrase origin that most interests you.

There are no hard and fast rules. The Phrase Finder has phrases from the Bible, from Shakespeare, phrases coined at sea, something for every taste. Take some notes, do a free-write or three, and see where a little word exploration takes you.

(My little black pot.)

 

Periodic table

 

Body parts simply to die for, or
brew the brew of true love, desire and all

Eye of newt and toe of frog,
wool of bat and tongue of dog

Don’t simmer, boil over the stew instead
set the broken plates, bring out the best
rusty silverware, dull the knives
bang the pot, lick the spoons

Reach deep and scoop into your dreams,
a rabid mutt, bats in a fishnet sock, scrape
a little shy fuzz and night breeze into one,
then that stone, the one that clutched
your falling foot, break the bandage
and beneath a lovely ripe mood,
a toad or newt, slightly slick,
just right

Give it to the moon in an open toed shoe,
a fortnight at least, stir repeatedly
then pour over children’s toes

Borrow the best laddle from a neighbor’s
barn and serve after eight with mints

Periodically varnish your table, hand rubbed
to a brilliant sheen. Guests arrive by
sevens and nines.

 

 

Neil Reid © April 2010

 

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Rag doll (napowrimo #23)

read write poem   napowrimo #23

prompt by Sage Cohen   unlikely couples

Read Write Poem member Sage Cohen has a terrific suggestion for today’s poems: Write a poem in which you combine a speaker and an event that normally don’t go together (such as sports broadcasters and poetry writing), as Jay Leeming does in his poem, “Man Writes Poem.”

(slightly twisted)

rag doll

my dear rag doll, said a mother’s voice
please, no alarm, they will love you as much as me
don’t you want to speak, like you always have
beneath the sheets, whispering when the lights
go out, so yes give me your ear farewell
and they’ll treasure you right through to the end
or when your eyes fall out, whichever
warrantless tick first arrives, I’m sorry dear
and oh yea, have heart, she whispered still
to one tender ear, you’re not the doll are you dear,
I am

Neil Reid © April 2010

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weather report (napowrimo #22)

read write poem   napowrimo #22

prompt by Catherine   a wordle!

Today’s prompt is from Read Write Poem member Catherine who provided the contents for today’s prompt, a Wordle. Use one, or use them all, in the poem you write today.

reverberate dizzy squall tomorrow fierce emporium
flinch rust saffron pepper tendril crow

(a minimalist poem today, again)

weather report

squall ushers in rusting crows
emporium peppered in saffron
fiercely we reverberate
unflinching what tendrils tomorrow seems.

dizzy from falling forward.
(more crows again)

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Prodigal child (napowrimo #21)

read write poem   napowrimo #21

prompt by Kristen McHenry   perfectly flawed

Today’s prompt is from Read Write Poem member Kristen McHenry:

“In ancient times, Persian rug makers were deeply religious and believed that only God could make something perfect. They would deliberately drop in a small faulty stitch, a flaw, into each Persian rug. In doing so, a ‘Persian Flaw’ revealed the rug maker’s devotion to God.” — Karel Weijand

Like many of us, I often struggle with the gremlin of perfectionism. The above quote reminds me that achieving perfection is not my prime directive in life, and that in fact, striving for perfection can be a form of hubris.

Write a poem about flaws and perfection in yourself or in nature or write about how you feel about being imperfect or perfect.

Here are some things you may want to reflect on as you write: Do flaws add beauty to the world? What does it feel like to experience perfection? What is it like to encounter flaws — in our selves, in others, in systems or in objects? As imperfect beings, are we able to adequately judge perfection?

If you’d like, you can try contrasting these both concepts in one poem or just choose the one that you feel most drawn to. There is potential for both perfection and flaws in everything on earth, so there’s no limit to to subject you use to frame your poems.

(Pardon my perfect clumsiness.)

Prodigal child

show me the rain that does not fall
show me the river that does not flow
even a lake     evaporates

tell me the imperfection you see
perfection resides like beauty does
you see?

think of a forbidden tree    think apple    think red
think of a tar baby too, and someone said
oh no, whatever you do, don’t eat that!

a sense of humor helps     you gotta appreciate
it was not the tree of the thing
it was the tree of the thought of the thing!

you just gotta laugh!

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Peter (napowrimo #20)

read write poem   napowrimo #20

prompt by Jessica GC   the hero poem

As a child, Jessica GC says she had two heroes: Wonder Woman and her mother. “To me, they were one and the same,” says Jessica. “Both had long dark hair. Both were strikingly beautiful, and both had incredible strength.”

Write a poem in which you to pay tribute to your hero, past or present.
Here are few possibilities for inspiration:
• What made your childhood hero so special? What traits did you envy? Are super powers involved?
• Do you have more than one hero? Consider drawing a comparison between them.
• Honor the everyday heroes among us — the policemen, the fire fighters, the troops — risking their lives everyday.
• Did your hero ever fall from the pedestal you put him or her on?
• Maybe you’re the hero you want to write about! Have you ever had a moment when someone has made you feel like a hero? Did you ever save a cat from a burning building? Or maybe it was something as simple as staying up all night with a friend who needed you.

In any case, share with us in your poem what made or makes your hero so deserving of admiration.

Peter

Peter, none would call a saint, neither me
and in those days, a righteous thing
plain and simple as dirt, rubbed right on
jeans, hands, a little unscrubbed face.

And who in dreams does walk, then only
as awake, does fly above the fray, not
that a little fray isn’t also fun,
nothing disqualifies.

Old dream, falling you know, but to
fall to fly awake, would that be the best
of reality?

And I’m sure I was too old when the
news finally settled in, depressed for
a week, that my lad, Peter Pan
not only was gone, but never never was.

Neil Reid © April 2010

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cowboy in blue (napowrimo #19)

read write poem   napowrimo #19

prompt by Rallentanda   light bulb moments

For today’s NaPoWriMo prompt, Read Write Poem member Rallentanda introduces a word that’s new to many of us: éclat. Online dictionaries list several definitions, but it is the etymology that inspires the meaning chosen for today’s prompt. The word éclat is French, and we’re paying attention to its root éclater, “to burst (out), shine.”

For Rallentanda, and us, this means a flash or light bulb moment. Everyone has had one. Things suddenly fall into place (a realization of the truth of the matter).

Often the situation is too painful to address, so you hide it. For example, you suspect your husband is having an affair with your best friend or you suddenly realize where the missing cash went from your wallet all those years ago.

It can even be humorous. You usually wear your best under garments for a visit to the gynecologist, but as you’re ready to strip off you suddenly realize you are wearing your old gardening knickers with all the broken elastic. Try to describe the ensuing feelings of embarrassment and desperate attempts to rectify this situation.

I actually know of someone who tripped and fell on stage at a gala performance. She was so humiliated that she pretended she was having a heart attack (which seemed, to her at the time, the better option).

Your poem should express the emotions that grip you as you experience your ’shock’ moment.

(This is perhaps more “a light shining darkly” here. Too many, too few, but I landed here. A pivotal moment for many years, and see if you catch the genuine lie, or the important one at least. Think if I had the time, I’d set this whole thing right back into the wild west, but that’s for a revisionary day, not today. So, the first time I discovered lies.)

cowboy in blue

I was more sheriff in my head than dress
more complete more whole even more real

but what’s the word of a child like that?

so say something unkind (I dare you)
but someone did (didn’t matter the dare)

crushed the hat crushed the boy
see the bloody dare?

people ask me where do wars come from?
right there I’d say, something so slight
less than a bullet is

but lethal all the same

and then I knew my truth
not about imagination, but about you

a genuine shame
and all lies, not the cowboy

but about us (broken scraps)
and both ways & to tell the truth

it’s the long dusty trail that matters most

Neil Reid © April 2010

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res cue! (napowrimo #18)

read write poem   napowrimo #18

prompt by Irene   meow!

“I’m cursed. I’m a tiger,” says Read Write Poem member Irene. She’s talking about the Year of the Tiger, and it’s the inspiration for her NaPoWriMo prompt:

The tiger is a creature known to create wildness and tumult. In Chinese superstition, it is not a year to marry or have children. The tiger is too aggressive. It stalks and preys.

Write a poem featuring the cat family, whether big or small.

There are many cat poems that may inspire you. The first poem that comes to mind, William Blake’s “The Tyger,” wonders why such a creature is created in the first place. Did such a creation come from the Devil himself? God will only create a lamb, right?

Ted Hughes wrote about the jaguar, a not-so-distant cousin. I think a jaguar looks even more fearsome. There’s a playful feline quality about the tiger. Not so with a jaguar! It is like black rage. I’ve seen a jaguar in a zoo, pacing endlessly in its cage. Here’s how Hughes wrote it, in “The Jaguar,” “He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him” and “his stride is wildernesses of freedom.”

Then there’s the pussy cat. In “Esther’s Tomcat,” also by Hughes, the cat becomes, in a figurative sense, the protagonist, the beleaguered husband. Hughes describes him as “an old rough mat” and reveals, “Continual wars and wives are what/ Have tattered his ears and battered his head.”

Is that enough to go on? Roar! Purr! (You choose.)

(Perhaps there is a desire, a love that lives everywhere! Including here?)

res cue!

I’ll be your baby tonight

a positive fright        that child lost in the woods

howling for relief        rescue me

shrill

an artist’s brush

the softest        touch of finger        print

wet stride        beneath old oak

rescue        meeee!

toes in sand        translucent sharp

bark on the tree        a ladder up        climbing

stealth on a limb

muscles relaxed        ready        leap?

waiting for you

hear me cry        loving you

wanting        you        feasting you

you shudder        in the night

you should

Neil Reid © April 2010

(dangerous love)

My thanks to Irene for this prompt, surprising me. Thanks also to Carolee, making me see a little “dangerous”, and Angie, bright words like sticks and stones.

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sacred bloody thumbs (napowrimo #17)

read write poem   napowrimo #17

prompt by Neil Reid   something elemental

Look at you! Writing past the half-way mark! Today, Neil Reid (that’s me) invites us to keep going by writing about the elements:

Let’s be elemental. Fire, earth, water, wind. They touch our lives every day. Choose one that interests you, then take a point of view that is not so much your usual. Observe what interaction you’ve known, or not known, with this element.

You might make it personal or take the element’s point of view (how might humans appear to you from that stance?) or wander where you may. Tell us something about your element that we don’t know.

You’re welcome to make your own rules, and as always, the most important point is simply to write and share, however it comes your way! Have fun!

(Well it’s my prompt, so I get to define “the rules” as I might. Here, a poem I’ve been working on for a few days, and we’ll take it as “elemental” in terms of the human experience, a slight progression if you will. Not intended initially for this prompt, that was something else, but this is what wants to come out and play today.)

sacred bloody thumbs

You burn each day, just a little a lot.
The fabric of you is precise, fire and water.
Cast these stones to speak.

sacred does the dishes, or doesn’t
sacred counts ten toes & socks in the drawer
sacred pulls the weeds, says excuse me please
sacred likes that hammocks swing
sacred would swing anyway
sacred eats every crumb
sacred scratches its head
sacred leavens the bread
sacred turns on the light
sacred lays on a bench
sacred gets up again
sacred sees in the dark

             ***
blood gets easily confused
blood remembers rhymes
blood plays the drums and xylophone
blood loves Halloween
blood turns red when you look
blood reveals stonehenge relatives
blood has a favorite color (not red)
blood is fond of salt
blood can’t keep a secret
blood likes to play indoors
blood likes to chase
blood leaks

             ***
thumbs write books, like The Trees of Portland, Oregon
thumbs mind their own business
thumbs think everything is their business
thumbs are only rarely green
thumbs whistle like hummingbirds
thumbs play with themselves
thumbs stand outside the window and tap
thumbs never ever knock
thumbs turn the other cheek
thumbs admittedly take things personally
thumbs still think hitching is a good idea
thumbs are scared of splints

Rub two thumbs, two sticks.
Dance with me. Fire flies.
We might combust! Just romance.

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Unpacked (napowrimo #16)

read write poem   napowrimo #16

prompt by Julie Jordan Scott   what’s that smell?

RWP member Julie Jordan Scott launches her NaPoWriMo prompt with a quote from Diane Ackerman: “Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.” Julie reports having discovered in her own notes 17 pages on the subject! Here’s the prompt she culled from material she’s collected:

Practicing the art of writing from the sense of smell will open language in a different way than writing from a more “language friendly” sense, like the sense of sight or sound. Because of this, writing that uses a scent prompt evokes visceral, richly experienced poetry.

Scientific fact: Salmon smell their stream of birth from hundreds of miles away. The scent of this particular stream weaves its way to the salmon like a love-call. It rises and falls with the water, its essence calling the ancient connection. The salmon respond to this invitation and make their way back to their spawning ground.

Humans have primitive connections to the sense of smell, as well. It is our most primal sense, especially since the connections between the language centers and smell sensory centers are so few. Our sense of smell is tied to our most ancient selves. Another intriguing fact? Smell is connected closely to our memory centers even though it is distant from our language centers.

Somewhere near where you are sitting is something with a specific smell that will conjure a memory rich with images. Take a moment to find any such object and breathe the scent of it, deeply. It may be as simple as a strand of your hair, a ketchup bottle from the refrigerator, a potholder or a bottle of lotion.

Add to your breath the simple phrase, “I remember” and breathe the scent in again. “I remember.” Free write from “I remember” for at least five minutes, repeating the prompt “I remember” if your writing slows.

Use the seeds from your free writing to write today’s poem.

(Thanks Julie. I adore Diane Ackerman! Here’s another some short of time to really do it as I’d like to have lingered more. But, what’s new?)

Unpacked

I remember, it smells like sixteen walls.
Two sleeps away and six months halved.

I’m far, farther than scent follows me.

My blunted nose forgets.
You gave me a bottle once, said it was yours.
Rich deep floral memories, but not you.

I keep it close. About empty now.
It escapes at night when I’m looking away.
But not really you. You remain.

Someone, something, some place else.

When I say, most don’t believe. Think,
don’t say, maybe I’m too crude, too animal.
But I understand beastly adoration.
Real pheromones!

My old cat understood.
Relished a pile of laundry undone.
All nose, her love!

So I opened that suitcase of mine.
You’re inside beside all my clothing there
my shirts my hat my socks.

I remember, some subtle scent, no perfume
but what just hangs in the closets, lurks
around corners, follows you down the hall.

Almost too shy to speak.

It is coming in the door, climbing stairs,
looking to the kitchen first, your food scent,
are you there? and even the laundry room
knows your name.

I call it home.

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Suddenly honey (napowrimo #15)

read write poem   napowrimo #15

prompt by Dale Favier   carrying a tune

Do you have the courage to attempt today’s prompt, written by RWP member Dale? If you haven’t practiced being silly in a while, this is the perfect assignment for you:

In a nice private place, pick out a stanza, or a few lines, that you like from a poem that you don’t otherwise feel was very successful. Say them over to yourself.

Now hum them. See if you can find the tune.

And now sing them aloud. (Who cares if you can sing? You’re in private. And this is poetry!)

Throwing away the rest of the poem, write two more stanzas (stand-alone or connected) that go to the same tune.

No fair doing it silently!

(How Dale-like a prompt this is! Think my musical ear is somewhat small, perhaps more dragging this prompt behind, than carrying. Well, that’s what they mean, a challenge, huh?)

Suddenly honey

In the dark and deep

I clean and scrub and tend

My young depend on me

Far the flight and seek

Bring sky and amber a seed

My home depends you see

Bring by eye by thigh

Twist and dance and spin

My life is in their wings

Neil Reid © April 2010

and this is why I mumble in church

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Double helix (napowrimo #14)

read write poem   napowrimo #14

prompt by Nicole Nicholson  you want me to write a what?

Nicole Nicholson has a big challenge for us on Day 14: Write a cleave poem. What’s a cleave poem, you ask? It’s three poems in one.

The whole idea works something like this (quoting the creator of the form, Dr. Phuoc-Tan Diep): “In its most basic form it is three poems: two parallel ‘vertical’ poems (left and right)…[with] a third ‘horizontal’ poem being the fusion of the vertical poems read together.” He goes on to say, “One of my aims was to examine how something can be more than the sum of its parts and can be 3 in 1: synergy, fusion, co-operation, dialectics, marriage, interdependence, teamwork and The Trinity.”

More info can be found at The Cleave (including samples) and at the “cleave” entry at Writing.com.

Happy writing! (Editor’s note: A good idea, for those who fear the cleave is too challenging: Try a short one or simply try a form you have never tried before.)

(Yikes! Well no pretense of any poetic quality today! It’s like having a crossword puzzle inside my head, all at once. Did I say yikes!)

 

Double Helix

 

        the painted snake rolled up an arm     why would you to do this to yourself?

curved under, beneath, filling every pore     god spoke on the tv in simple terms

          flicked its tongue like finding spice     no, I mean sitting on the box

             for a dollar more, there’s a knife     that sure got everyone’s attention

        it wraps around to double the point     yet, no, he said, that’s not enough

                               dangerous to ignore     I want you to remember this time

              the message you meant to say     where you’ll see it every day

                           don’t tread on a heart     onto the forehead of each of you

        what’s inside of me, like apple core     live in peace, my peace

         follow you home, live inside of you     just as it already is

Neil Reid © April 2010

 

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Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie (napowrimo #13)

read write poem   napowrimo #13

prompt by Sarah J. Sloat   smoke a dubie

Today is Day 13, also known as your lucky day. Sarah J. Sloat has a wonderful prompt for you; it’s bound to get you going! She says,

I’m partial to the tried-and-true prompt that calls for starting a poem with a line written by another poet. For this go-round, it would be interesting to see what poets can launch using a line from Norman Dubie.

In his poems, Norman Dubie tells stories, sets scenes and paints landscape, sometimes lush and sometimes wretched. His writing is sure and vivid, and his language is beautiful. As you’ll see below, his similes are incomparable. If forced to compare him with anyone, I’d be more likely to pick a painter than another writer.

For this prompt, take a Dubie line to jumpstart a poem of your own.

(Going on a diet of words today.)

Poem Starting with a Line from Norman Dubie

A light in the mountains

The loons together made a sound worthy of birthing dragons.

Clouds don’t so easy surrender mountains back to sight.

Lone wolf stalks, watching time’s borrowed charm.

Wind blows and blows, knows better rhyme.

Hold fast your standstrong walking staff.

The trail strides by light to dark to light.

Keep feet between the rocks.

Roots understand.

Words like light.

Words like light.

First line by Norman Dubie, from “The Spirit Tablets at Goa Lake”.

Neil Reid © April 2010

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monsters under the bed (napowrimon #12)

read write poem   napowrimo #12

prompt by Carolee Sherwood   secret codes

We are more than one-third through NaPoWriMo. If you feel like you’ve started to make things up (two parts desperation, one part coffee grinds), then Carolee Sherwood’s prompt for Day 12 will play into your hand.

Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal.

Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem.

(Iris are to sheep as wool is to warm soup. If monsters dare, why not me?)

monsters under the bed

study reveals monsters under the bed are real

japanese scoff, over your shoulder beware they say

and why am I wearing his face? you might ask

only a mask, vulcanized, but the beard is all mine

transmogrified

it ain’t that gambling is wrong daddy dear

but betting everything has consequences

did green lips devour your pictures with me

or her remorse tear you to shreds or

were there simply none?

here sailor, stand behind the poster

get your photo snapped and halved

reduced in a puff of smoke

or was it little girl shrills as hairy hands

grabbed your ankles, whisked you away?

did you groan? perhaps (I wish)

just another plum pudding gone astray?

all you left was your face

I carry it, but changed the name

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Mother undone (napowrimo #11)

read write poem   napowrimo #11

prompt by Angie Werren   The thing you didn’t choose

RWP member Angie Werren invites us to write about the choice we didn’t make:

Everyday we make choices. Some are small: English breakfast or Lipton? the highway or back roads? Some are more significant: convertible or mini-van? farmhouse or condo?

Some choices lead us straight into the life we’re living, but for this poem, think about one of the things in your life you didn’t choose.

Be concrete. Pick an object — something tangible* — and write your poem directly to it, as if you were writing it a personal letter. Explain why you didn’t choose it. What could things have been like if you had? Talk about what your life has become without it. See where the “confession” takes you.

*As an alternative, dig a little deeper and write your poem to a person you left behind.

(Almost too volatile a prompt? Many many choices to make right here and now. I listened. This one finally came, spoke the loudest to me. So be it. And not coincident, a core part of near long gone reason why I write. Express, no matter what. Lines being rewritten even now, so likely for a future revision too, this will be. And thus it is, my first relationship.)

Mother undone

Dear Mother,

You’ve gone back to earth so I’m writing here

where just anyone can read can see, witness

a mother and son, writing from your very last home

sitting in the very bedroom where you slept

although I’ve painted the walls since then

                    *   dry

Things are getting rounder now, rough worn smooth

like water does like it was too shallow then, was that it?

A flood would have revealed more than dry autumn fled

                    *   leaves

Sitting next to me on that single bed I remember

the postcard you said to me (it wasn’t enough was it mom?)

But children hear everything (don’t they mom?)

And I bet you felt everything (didn’t you?) (I did and do)

                    *   where

Like they say, you did your best (I’m sure you did)

Your best to endure to provide to carry on years and years

but I would have liked the taste of your tears the frantic

unmoving underbelly of your pain (just to know out loud)

                    *   spring

Instead I ate the fear unspeakable (bad choice you see)

                    *   will

Like mother like son?  I suppose, that much that wasn’t

foolhardy fearhardy loving-instead-of-silent-not-breathing

And maybe (we won’t know) I could have taken the pain

That’s possible!

                    *   come

So I’m supposed to say what I didn’t choose, you know

and they’re all listening here, where the April rain comes

singing down on my roof and the garden I dug and planted

outside, listening like on that creaky old bed

And what would my life have been otherwise?

(They asked me mom)

                    *   to bear again

I didn’t choose to be less afraid than you

I didn’t choose to jump into your silence with better breath

I didn’t choose to be only me (and not partly shadow of you)

I could have comforted you (who knows what’s possible!)

Maybe you would have even been comforted, surprised

by what life can become unexpectedly

Could have been a mother and son

Instead, half a life, coming home, rendering some comfort

maybe you always wanted even if you couldn’t say

But home is home no matter the road

Love, your Son

Neil Reid © April 2010

(every fierce battle in your life is with a paper dragon)

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I remember you (napowrimo #10)

read write poem   napowrimo #10

prompt by Pamela Sayers celebrate!

RWP member Pamela Sayers says, “I live in Mexico, and one of the things I love most about this country is that people here celebrate their family and friends to the utmost.” And it is in that spirit that Pamela asks us to write about any celebration we have been to recently.

Write about a birthday party, a wedding, a baptism — any kind of celebration where you were with family or friends or both. Write about the colors you remember, the sounds (and how they made you feel) and the tastes you remember from any of those events. Did these things make you feel good? Did you experience any new foods? Did you meet any new people?

Sometimes, beyond our control, festivities can take a turn for the worse. Maybe that happened to you or someone you know. Whatever happened, be it great or not so great, let’s write about it!

(A church gathering, family really to us. Celebrate. And just one moment of that kept coming back, begs me to speak again. So be it.)

I remember you

Three-quarter moon of white linen tables

Twelve gather, make a ring, acknowledge roots

Eyes ahead, who we are

that might become

Celebrate

Food on plates, the service is robust

sparks were silverware might be

hand to mouth. Old tomes beneath the tables,

we call them feet

The river’s miles that brought us here

Share to speak, all of us as one

Then comes one hand, remembering

Thanks for those parted from

                    * * *

It was an afternoon some when

far past. I was the one who got the phone

Sister of one of us, family

The river was high, the water fierce

His son was plucked and safe on the bank

But Paul, a father, a friend, one of us

He was not coming home again

And it was me who got to turn, face family

and speak his name, say, he was gone

                    * * *

Years later now, again, it was me

remembering (and how we all forget)

(not unkindly, but we do you know)

but not that day, and I remembered now

A second time, to speak his name

and celebrate the life he had given us

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Open this box (napowrimo #09)

read write poem   napowrimo #09

prompt by Robert Peake your mission

RWP member Robert Peake has shared with us a prompt he used recently with one of his established writing groups:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to:
• Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker;
• Include something that tastes terrible;
• Include some part (from a few words to several lines) of a previous poem that didn’t quite pan out; and
• Include a sound that makes you happy.

(Strong grip on the saddlehorn. It’s NYC in the rain. Two women hail a cab.)

Open this box

Your city streets wet beneath snapshot feet.

You said you’d meet my spoon, here, what’s this?

stumbled slippery shoes, looking past color lights.

Red hat tops like a candled cake

slim, woven close, your little black dress

shoulders arms bare naked back. Lioness

of urban middleveldt. Curve of belly, ripe.

Arm raised & yellow tumbles gone.

Left behind, a scrimshaw box, only ambergris inside.

You, Finder, read this please.

Does a winter torch bruise the summer walker?

Two marionettes inside a jug inside a pail on someone’s lap.

Rug with memory spilled, octopus arms, laying limp.

Dust, you remember dust?, drawn up the long chimney

Like talons want, slow worn like pumice rubbed.

Toes jammed into fringe. Drafts beside the bed.

Sputter, kindle, reborn.

Found Poem, it said to me, shamelessly

like cheese only a mother would love.

Then strode away on two huge hind feet

like boxes hardly ever do and into

sweet sweet lullaby of pattered rain upon its skin.

Ten toes, ten rabbit shoes.

Mystery unresolved.

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Watershed (napowrimo)

read write poem   napowrimo #08 two

prompt by Jill Crammond Wickham unusual love connections

Just a second poem for this day, and just because. Still some related to Jill’s prompt, but also after reading some, this is what arrived.

Watershed

All fall down

since birth, falling forward into time

feelings like gloves, thin and wooly thick

used then dropped behind, chrysalis

fingerprints like faces line up

bricks laid like thought,

memory’s goat on a leash

metered flood of prayers

every word ever said, all of them

all scoured and licked

groomed into wings

stout or not

your few words in this rain

make such difference

upon the tongue

and all these layers shed

toward what remains downstream

of me

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Curved space (napowrimo #08)

read write poem   napowrimo #08

prompt by Jill Crammond Wickham unusual love connections

Valentine’s Day is long past, says RWP member Jill Crammond Wickham, but we poets must keep up our reputation as the world’s foremost experts on writing about love!

Today, think of your current love, your current obsession or the one who got away. Now come up with five or more unusual metaphors for the object of your affection/obsession: wool scarf, cough drop, puddle, half-empty bottle of red wine… Choose your favorite of the bunch and write a poem celebrating (or trashing) your love.

(Small praise to Mr. Newton.)

Curved space

First Law of Motion

what begins as a trickle, gets magnified

Einstein was right, space is curved drawn inside

wells of gravity, more than simple random dumb luck

gravity like thighs, even if covered in jeans, rain-soaked

history, standing outside the theatre in a line

in the rain

rapturous stones in pocket

then glory! behold, binary momentum

Second Law of Motion

what’s on a roll is likely to fall off a log

celebrate gravity, celebrate no-choice (we say we do)

(we lie a lot), celebrate red pickup trucks with bench seats

celebrate jeans like fruit, what conceals no lies!

go ahead, debate with gravity!

or be the child of source, another, bright!

Third Law of Motion

things react equal in motion from whence they came

fumbling feet seek their seat

some darkling trail, you follow close, dare stumble

while better sight escapes

as trees pull earth into sky, as does gravity

know two yearning pairs of limbs

lost roots and falling either way as do we all

each in desire, love’s gravity

Neil Reid © April 2010

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Like a brick (napowrimo #07)

read write poem   napowrimo #07

prompt by Alan Summers love, funny side up

Alan asks that we write about “humor in love” and in the form of a 5-line type of poem called a “tanka”. You can read more detail here if you wish.

Well me, sometimes I have this certain sensitivity to authority, leastwise, being told what to do. And about “forms” in poetry, I’m mostly blind by choice. So my reply (and pardon please) is both reply to the prompt request, and the poem-response itself. Two in one?

(And I’m not sure this is all so funny as sad. Maybe, if I live long enough, I’ll become more amused!) (Ouch!!)

Like a brick

don’t tell me what to do!

even two, even if not naked, yet

but fingers bent to suggest, come hither now

about my moods I’m the best of fools

stubbornly, don’t tell me what to do!

Neil Reid © April 2010

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