NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 24

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Photo Credit: Zoltan Tasi
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I’ve missed a couple of days this month, but life has a way of sneaking up on me. The marking period ended and grades had to be entered and finalized. I’m preparing for all the year end activities—concerts and shows and oh yeah, my baby graduating is graduating eighth grade.

Wait.

My baby is graduating eight grade.

Sigh.

He’s off to high school next year and new big adventures. Leaving mama in his dust and growing to be such an amazing human.

Now I’ve probably got you thinking I wrote a poem about the Little Wonder. Not yet, but I can promise you one is brewing. That kid is one of a kind. A child I begged God for—one that nearly cost me my life but worth every bit of everything.

Any way I digress…

The prompt for today had us start off by reading Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s “Lockdown Garden.” Then we had to try to write a poem of our own that has multiple numbered sections. The goal was to attempt to have each section be in dialogue with the others, like a song where a different person sings each verse, giving a different point of view. Finally I was to set the poem in a specific place that I used to spend a lot of time in but don’t spend time in anymore.

As always, the poem started with me having an intention of direction, and the poem (wild and untamed beast that it is) went its own way. I’m not sure it met the prompt, but as always, it met me where I needed to be. Enjoy!

Blood Moon 

1.
The water understands;
sound stirring
the light loosens
unraveling fingers
into the dark night.

2.
There is loneliness
in my glass bowl—
hands folded behind,
waiting and wondering
when blue and green
will bring on the birds.

3.
Circles slacken
fan and wrinkle;
four corners unite
under the roll
of lapping waves.

The sky looms
a vessel become void.
How does water
siphoned, fill the fissures
below the surface?

4.
I turn around,
turn toward the ripe
red berry rising;
night has darkened—
only lingering light
haunts me.

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 20

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Photo Credit: Diane Picchiottino
https://unsplash.com/@diane_soko

The life of a teacher never ends and report cards are due tomorrow for all 450 ish of my students, so my time has been maxed out today. I always promise myself to transcribe my old school pencil grades into the electronic gradebook earlier than the week grades are due, but alas, I cannot seem to learn my own lesson.

So here I sit, tired, wanting sleep so badly, fighting off a virus on some sort, and desperately wanting to keep up my writing streak for NaPoWriMo. The poem below is one I have written and revised earlier, but it satisfies me to publish it today for you to enjoy.

Today’s prompt was a good one. Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists will make of us? What about what someone from an alien civilization will make of us?

NaPoWriMo today challenged me to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist. The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone.

I chose instead an object from the past with deep significance. It misses the prompt perhaps, but it doesn’t miss my heart.

grandma's table

the magic of the mahogany table, relating
not so much to the nature of the grain, running
like streaking waves of darkness toward the light,
but to the explosion of connection, gathering
strength to weather whatever lay ahead. wondering
if the jagged crack near to the one end, weakened
any hope for repair.
when great grandma sat there
three months before her passing, when she complained of not hearing the words,
should we have known?
when she bowed her head with focused chewing
and wanted her black coffee light with cream,
should we have pulled her back to earth, resisting
the angel of death hovering nearby.
or is death the true wonder of all mysteries, pointing
toward the light, always toward the light, moving?

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 16

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Photo Credit: Giorgia Finazzi
https://unsplash.com/@giorgiafinazzi_

A new day, a new discovery—this seems to be the way that April goes for me.

The daily prompt for today was to write a poem of negation – yes (or maybe, no), the challenge was to write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like. For example, if I chose a whale as the topic of your poem, I might have lines like “It does not settle down in trees at night, cooing/Nor will it fit in your hand.”

Well, I started the process describing climbing since Ev has recently taken to the sport of rock climbing. It started well and I wrote three nice quatrains that were ok but sort of sing songs and bland. The fourth quatrain turned the whole poem around and began a totally new stream of thought.

So, I abandoned the prompt (once again) and the poem took on a life of its own.

Mountain Climb

I have built a house
on the middle of a mountain;
it is here I discover
my desire for dance.

I love the rhythm of jumping
boulder to boulder; I become
my own secret Argentine tango—
forward, back, cross-step, turn.

Here I learn forward ascent is felt
in the heart, not the feet;
and here that I realize
the summit was never the goal.

The thick branches, sap running dry,
the unexpected violence of shifting stone—
the flesh of the mountain as it
mistakes me for an intruder

reminds me of the drapes of darkness.
But the glow of Venus before dawn
grants me a time to wonder,
what is the light for if not to illuminate?

I have built a house
in which I fear nothing and no one.
It is here where before I begin to die,
I learn to live.

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 15

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Photo Credit: Sydney Riggs
https://unsplash.com/@_sriggs
Not-so Little Wonder

He came into the world
with ink stains on his fingers—
an artist with ancient visions,
reborn and reconnected—
a hero, a maker, a sage.

He sees the world
as a blank canvas
his pen and paper
the mode and medium
for his wisdom.

He seems to know the end
is different from the beginning—
that transformation
is a journey of sky and earth,
of water and fire. His
fingers find the framework

for setting things right,
for sensing the needs,
for seeing peace to fruition.
Joy keeps him grounded;
compassion owns his soul.

Many have tried to claim him, but you cannot tame tenderness.
He does not dally
in the dimness of dusk
but delights in the dawn.

Sometimes I catch myself staring
at his ink stained fingers
and remembering the sugar sand
of Emerald Coast beaches,
the shape of shells carved

by the singular focus of the sea.
He pays attention to all of it—
the dazzle of daffodil,
the modulation of melody,
the whisper of willows in wind.

What right have I
to lay claim
on any part of his spirit?
What right have I
to harness the wind?

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 14

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Photo Credit: Nic Y-C
https://unsplash.com/@themcny

The daily prompt today was to write a parody or satire based on a famous poem. I chose a small selection from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.


fall from grace

all due respect to the poet,
september is the cruelest month,
our children and our harvest whisking away;
silence and dying leaves,
singing melancholy in their place.
my sorrow complete by empty playgrounds
reminiscent of joy,
but stark and barren like my arms.

so i rode my bike to town,
to the library, to the gym,
and took myself out to breakfast.
i listened as george from the diner
sing the blues about
the breakfast club dwindling down
to a few elderly patrons chewing—
a symphony of gums
smacking against dentures.

i looked into the dismal gray sky,
taunting clouds covering
seductive sunshine; too much
history here to overlook.
my bags are packed, reservations are made,
it’s time to head south
for the winter.

—carla jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 13

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Photo Credit: Tony Stoddard

Today’s prompt didn’t spark joy, so I simply wrote. All day long the phrase “I sat for years like an elephant in the garden…” stayed with me as I pondered where the words might take a poem.

Well, read on, my friend, and you will see… the journey is always worth it, even when it is hard and long.

Garden View

I sat for years
like an elephant in the garden waiting to become a feather.

White quilts warmed
on winter afternoons;
windows opened in the spring—

the subtle scent of daisies
wafting on the breeze.
I grew slowly into my skin—

five decades of painstaking
transformation; my narrative
unfurling slowly

as a fern frond
in the first light of dawn—
a singular dance of joy.

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 8

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Photo Credit: Mana Nabavian
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Well then.

Today’s prompt was a doozy and a good one for Saturday. After running around all day, I wrote in snippets here and there, so if things seem disjointed, you’ll at least understand the reason why.

The prompt was another oldie-but-goodie. It really pushes you to use specific details, and to work on “conducting” the poem as it grows, instead of trying to force the poem to be one thing or another in particular. The prompt is called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. Here is the list of the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem. Whew! And I’m here to tell you it’s not nothing to attempt this particular prompt.

Here are the instructions:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

Below is my attempt at following this prompt. Enjoy!

Windows

Wisdom is a window
that opens a crack
only to shatters into shards—
the sound like bells
calling me to rise.

My hand reaches
to brush away the mess
only to feel the sharp bits pierce my skin. Thinking back,
I realize the beauty of wonder

lived in her smile,
and Virginia was her name
but her singing, oh yes,
her singing! Her singing
was the color of sunshine.

I remember how she looked
like the moon and drank water
from her hands. Every morning she woke with a headache
caused by her flat feet and smize

But her speech,(yes,her speech!)
tasted like spicy honey,
especially when she leaned
out the window and hollered,
“Flaming emmets!”

The sudden shifting of love
caused her to hate them on sight,
but it was her lips that bellowed
bright with the dull ache
felt deep in her gut.

The bird escaped mere moments
before the clouds collapsed
and Miss J made her escape.
Some day, yes some day,
some day she will be free

to follow the fertile flight
of her futile fancy. Until then.
“Sånt är livet när kjolen
är randig”—that’s life
when the skirt is striped.

The window of wisdom
opens with ignorance
while the monkey whispers lies
about how freedom and fear
walk arm in arm.

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 5

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Photo Credit
https://unsplash.com/@cadop

The prompt for Day 5 was to begin by reading Charles Simic’s poem “The Melon.” It would be easy to call the poem dark, but as they say, if you didn’t have darkness, you wouldn’t know what light is. Or vice versa. The poem illuminates the juxtaposition between grief and joy, sorrow and reprieve.

For today’s challenge, I was to write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.

So here you go….

Starlings 

In the garden sits
my favorite blue chair—
where I bask
in the sun
bathing
my bones

cradling
cold
grief.

The silence startled
with a sudden cacophony—
of starlings
laughing
from the leaves.

Clarity came on
hard and fast
as I turned
toward the sun,
closed my eyes
and smiled.

—Carla Jeanne

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 1

A book cover by F.A Pouchet. The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Little. 13th edition. London: Blackie & Son, ca. 1896.

The prompt for the first day of Na/GloPoWriMo was challenging for me. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but they never said you can’t try to write a poem based on a book cover — and that was exactly our challenge for today! We had to take a look through Public Domain Review’s article on “The Art of Book Covers” and be inspired.

I chose a cover by F.A Pouchet. The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Little. 13th edition. London: Blackie & Son, ca. 1896.

Infinity and Beyond

Segacious, strong
standing alone
Spring seed
Taken root.

Infinity rises
Rests releases
Renewed resolve
Budding life.

Furious frothy
Foaming free
Tide pulling
Releasing me.

cjpjordan

Rising

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Last day of seventh grade.

What a ride it’s been!

Self-discovery.

Maturity.

So much growth.

Rising

The wind picks up
swirling bits of cut grass,
blowing dew-laden petals,
calling out for all things living

to lift their heads
toward the sun.
Listen to the warmth
and growth and new life.

The earth tilts on its axis,
shifting the seasons,
reveling in the dance
of summer solstice.

All is change.
All is cyclical.
All is growth.
All is good.

Even the dying
decomposes into
nutritious soil—
sufficient and alive.

Beauty rising up
like my Phoenix,
my bright and brilliant star,
my rising eighth grader.

—cjpjordan