uliginous: adjective – growing in wet or swampy ground; slimy, swampy, waterlogged
Uliginous Elegy
The words fall upon
the page like tears
they smear bleeding
ink to uneven edges
The uliginous page
mourns the reader
Desperate for good news
that will not come
threnody: noun – a lament sung for the dead.
taradiddle: noun – pretentious nonsense
tantara: noun the blare of a trumpet or horn
quiescent: adjective – 1. marked by inactivity or repose: tranquilly at rest; dormancy 2. causing no trouble or symptoms (as in gallstones).
Today is not a letter day for the A to Z Challenge (tomorrow is T). I added an extra Q because I just finished reading Requiem, Mass.: A Novel
Rising In The West
Emerging to a collective gasp
Surrounded by a held breath
Frisson holds me in awkward stasis
Each saccade assiduous and susurrus
Eldritch shadows creep across the lawn
An augur of a world off its axis
I ponder this celestial whim
A quondam certainty of Eastern rise
The halcyon yesterdays when the tall firs
Blocked the blinding glare
Now a day is but a panoply of daylight
Scattered to disarray
My view a palimpsest shocked
By hypotyposis
Do not importune the sun
To mend its path to comfort
Do not offer opprobrium
To shame a ball of fire to your convenience
But observe quiescent each degree of light
And embrace the elysian mystery
Continuing with the NaPoWriMo theme of facing the impossible you may want to look at:
Poetry & Translation: The Art of the Impossible (Liverpool University Press – Poetry and . . .)
Impossible Individuality: Romanticism, Revolution, and the Origins of Modern Selfhood, 1787-1802
sudorific: adjective – causing or inducing sweat; noun – a drug that induces sweating
sudoriferous: adjective – producing or conveying sweat (like a gland or duct)
Flawed Reflection
He looks at you and sees himself
You look at him and do the same
The love of self blooms into
A giddy mirror
He reflects upon himself in your work
You proudly do the same
The self-serving compliments
Bounce frantically hour after hour
With him movement eases
Sudorific fears abate
Or intertwined lose their odor
You recognize your unmasked scent
He guides you to your own will
You congratulate his greatness
For capturing your art in action
In a warped carnival
His words halt my thoughts
Are too powerful; I pause
Your words, weak and shallow
Steal the fresh smell of spring
A wilted and soured narcissus
So quick to rejoin the dirt
I hear the wrenching and cleaving
The mirror cracks
This poem was inspired by the NaPoWriMo theme of the Narcissus myth and by learning that Frank Bidart won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry then finding videos of his readings with James Franco.
On a happier note – I read this article that has nothing to do with either man: Art and Poetry Collide.
It inspired me. I’m thinking of finding a poem to inspire a series of textile art pieces. I’m also going to see if there are any events in my area that create collaborations between poets and artists and if not, I may create one.
In the spirit of collaboration between poets and artists, you may want to look at:
The Art of Collaboration: Poets, Artists, Books
A Different Image: The Legacy of Broadside Press
Words with friends: Artist-Poet Pairings from ArtNews April 2013
rutilant: adjective – having a redish glow
Forbidden Spaces
In my nightgown in the sun and bare feet in the grass, so the air flows right on up, but they would have to have binoculars to see my skin blush rutilant
In my nightgown in the lake and bare feet on the sharp stones, so the cotton clings to goose flesh and if the fishermen come too close like they do, the fabric will be see-through
In my nightgown on the dock, my arms rutilant and steaming, I meditate on unspoken rules while the breeze whispers truth across my arm hair enticing it to stand erect and alight my nerve endings causing my body to sizzle, but not into action or re-action, but to elated attention or micro-percipience so I am prepared to
Watch that sentence run
To further explore the NaPoWriMo theme of breaking rules you may want to read:
Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules
Break Your Own Rules: How to Change the Patterns of Thinking that Block Women’s Paths to Power
The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World (Perigee Book.)
10 Poetry Classics That Break All The Rules
querl: transitive verb – To twirl; to turn or wind round; to coil; as, to querl a cord, thread, or rope.
Inattentional Blindness
Seeing you especially violent, one witness
Elsewhere, the querling stimulus is only concern
Processed stress narrowing focus due
The physical weapons drawn
A state of attention blinding
Can occur during high events
Cognitively inattentional, blind witness
Inattentional blindness is a state of seeing but not seeing. The physical stimulus is visually processed, but due to attention drawn elsewhere, you are cognitively blind. Attention narrowing, like querling cord, can occur due to periods of high stress, especially during violent events that cause weapons focus. Inattentional blindness is only one area of concern in witness testimony.
*This poem was written in response to today’s Na/GloPoWriMo prompt. I didn’t follow Dan Brady’s form, exactly, but enjoyed the practice of finding my poem by pulling the words from the prose paragraph I wrote. The prose paragraph was inspired by the Forensic Psychology course I’m taking through Open University at futurelearn.com.
pasquinade: noun – 1. a lampoon posted in a public place 2. satirical writing: satire: pasquinade – transitive verb
The statue Pasquino in Rome is a place where people post pasquinades. Image from atlanteditorino.it
The Next Pasquinade
While he pillages the public square,
She looks deeply into the pirate’s murky eyes
Called to action by pasquinade
Cleaned from view by the corrupt
The statue still glistening damp
Plump fruits abandoned, their vendors joining
The stampede over the trampled
Creating new satire between the fear
The attack litters bodies, looted to skeletons
Nothing left to tell their tales
Who will dress Pasquino,
And laugh at the undressing of powers?
Terrorists along a fine line to define
Where the cobbles were once flat
They crack and rise to trip the unfortunate fleeing
The coming dusk smells of blood and ejecta
An accumulated concentration of defeat
Splattered upon the gray armless torso, the first to talk
Spreading from the Palazzo Brashi,
The conquerors whoop victory and begin their play
The joke-revealing slant-light of sunset their audience.
This poem was inspired by “Roman Outposts” from The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013
I posted this to Open Link Night #218 on dVerse Poets Pub
obtund: verb (transitive) – to reduce the edge or violence of; to blunt; dull; deaden
Peanut Butter Prank
His brother hated
The taste of peanut butter
He liked spiced mustard
He would play a trick
Spread the peanut butter thick
Hidden in middle
Mustard ringed the edge
His brother took the kind gift
He smiled and waited
He took a big bite
Spit to obtund the flavor
Hucked into the street
The Lingering, Long Spring Day
Each second, like a drip from a faucet–like the faucet he took apart, so I could clean it while he waited for the silicone to dry around the new sink–drops into the abyss. The sink leaked, then he fixed the leak, but came back and took it all apart because he didn’t like the plumbing, but it wouldn’t be mended because the old sink had corroded. A small drip now a three week project.
The seconds pool to minutes like the rain never stopping fills the lake and the river pouring over its banks. The chopping, angry waves threaten. The rain is incessant. Sheets of streams cut the gray at diagonals and meet the windows like acrylic nails impatiently waiting at the bar. I imagine them tapping on the porcelain of the new sink.
The minutes accumulate–drip by drip, converging pools to rising lake–into an hour. This hour is heavy with rain and the cleaner faucet lords over the new sink unused awaiting more hours to dry and your unexpected call brings a glimmer of cheer, but quickly whirlpools into uninvited conspiratorial nonsense and the seconds stand still until you will stop.
Fat droplets linger
At the bottom of streaked panes
Then fall to the earth
I wrote this in response to the Monday Haibun prompt at dVerse Poets Pub
noosphere: noun – the sphere of human consciousness and mental activity especially in regard to its influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution
An Apple Is An Apple
Would you like to play a game?
All you need’s an active brain.
It starts upon the physical plane
But is played in the noosphere.
As Vladimir Vernadsky said
There is power in your head
To change material processes
A new riddle risen before us
You won’t need to leave your room
We’ll start looking at a blot and boom
Association levels bloom
Some meanings and duration shared
It can be played in any season
Just use the force of human reason
To control the will of legion
With consequence beyond the surface
We’ll meet beyond the horizon of
The imaginable and then think above
A heart symbolic of to love
To a higher dimension of meaning
If a match, a vision shared
Was there energy when we paired
Measurable, material aired
In the realm of the unimaginable?
No? Let’s play again.
Would you like to learn more about the noosphere? You may want to check out:
150 Years of Vernadsky: The Noösphere (Volume 2)
Cosmic Humanism;: A Theory of the Eight-Dimensional Cosmos Based on Integrative Principles from Science, Religion, and Art
A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance
The Global Brain Awakens: Our Next Evolutionary Leap
Manifesto for the Noosphere: The Next Stage in the Evolution of Human Consciousness (Manifesto Series)
The Economics of The Noösphere: Why Lyndon LaRouche Is The World’s Most Successful Economic Forecaster Of the Past Four Decades
