The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write an unusual character’s to-do list.
The PAD challenge is to write a persona poem for an inanimate object.
Over at A to Z the word is “hustle.” I’m feeling that. My Janus phrase for today is hold up which can mean to support or aid, or to hinder or impede.
Such a busy day
I’ll need to make a list a to-do list to keep everything straight to keep me on track I need to be sturdy never wobble stay grounded to hold her dishes while she stares out the window at the mountain and waves to hold up her elbows as she holds her head I need to be vast never completely covered to have space for her projects her work, and her whims constantly rotating around my head one side of the runner to the other I need to avoid banging into her knees or feet as she tends to bounce and bruise easily and I don’t feel a thing I need to avoid spills as today is too busy for mopping up or changing my cloth but the most important thing I need to do today is be supportive she needs me to be here for her standing straight in quiet patience and not hold her up in any way because today is a very busy day
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is a bit odd (but timely since I found out last night that a friend died). We are to write a monologue poem delivered by someone who is dead.
A to Z Challenge is Game. My Janus word is garnish: With food, the verb means “to add to”; with wages, it means “to take from”.
Because my friend and I got to know each other through a show I put together with Ernie K-Doe, I thought I would ruminate on some K-Doe lyrics while working on this.
Someday I’ll Wake Up and Say
You stoop in the leaves garnishing the base of this tree a long, long time I rock and roll down below are the branches dancing?
The roots are bass strings I strum all night and day I can’t tell you I can’t explain wake up and say you should have been there
wherever, wherever you are while you’re waiting, waiting a solution susurrus advice or contribution
You stoop so low one more time I rock and roll down below to me they’re about the same
My Janus word for the day is fast. Fast can mean either “to move or do quickly” or it can mean “to not move,” as in “holding fast.”
I went with the shadorma. I enjoyed the opposite’s game prompt at the dVerse Poets Pub last night so much that I wanted to use it today to make a villain shadorma. To do that, I looked back over the chapbook I created in 2017 in response to the Poem-a-Day Chapbook Challenge. The Chapbook I compiled of the poems I wrote during that challenge is titled “The Hero’s Many Voices.” I looked back through a number of those poems and used them as inspiration to write a hero poem of three shadormas. Then I did the opposites game and here is today’s poem.
Behind the too white smile
shun courage after sloth resists a lost grip invited fast and loose, he cannot hide hate held and gaining
no life lost when scandal the cost stoic in avoidance spurring destructive action
fun false facts conspire to obscure lies spreading everywhere emotional health suffers sown of poisoned earth
Today at the dVerse Poets Pub, the Poetics prompt is to write an opposite poem. Lisa offered up an amazing video called The Opposites Game from TED Ed that I highly recommend watching.
I thought it would be fun to start with one of my own old poems and create its “opposite.” I started with a NaPoWriMo poem from last year called A future voice in the dark.
Another future voice in the dark
You demand I unlearn the light leaving the past unseen stacattos played allegro under the facades of blank stares
that direct route the straight line is known weightless without speed smooth without old disadvantages
many blank surfaces, many original sounds severe, substantial discomforts close cacophonies of what will be
That was really fun. Reminded me of the poetry MadLibs I did with some of my old poems last summer. (Those this one makes a lot more sense). I think I’ll be trying this technique a lot more. This could lead to some nice two-column, reflective poems.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to choose a short line from a beloved book as the title of the poem, then once the poem is written, completely change the title. At first I had trouble deciding which book to draw from, but then my eyes rested on my beautiful copy of A Compendium of Collective Nouns from Woop Studios.
The A to Z Challenge is to write a sentence without the letter E. My Janus word is execute: to execute a person is to end their life; to execute a program is to start it.
Peering out my wine windows tinted and clouded at a swirling landscape of bitter-sweets the view skewed by tannins and cork floaters among the cloudy reveries shuttering my wine windows I delve the cellars deep for lofty thoughts and epiphanies before the heady kerplunk
This poem is a response to today’s Quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets Pub.
The prompt for NaPoWriMo is a form prompt called “The Shapes a Bright Container Can Contain.” We are to emulate a poems shape/line lengths and use the same first letter of each line.
Over at the A to Z challenge there is a dice game of challenges and rewards. I’m enjoying their theme this year. I rolled two sixes, so my challenge is to visit 6 new blogs, and my reward it to take a nap! Looking forward to that.
Today’s Janus word is downhill. When referring to difficulty, it means “progressively easier”; but when referring to status or condition, it means “progressively worse.”
The April Poem-a-Day prompt is to title the poem “First (blank).” So talking about firsts today.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt includes some arts and crafts. We are challenged to create a “Personal Universal Deck” of words, then use some in a poem. I also listened to an audio recording of Michael McClure giving a lecture explaining the deck. Sadly, it ends right before he’s going to discuss things that can be done with the deck. Some aspects of creating the deck that I found interesting are the words are to represent both your good and bad side in concrete basic grammatical units, and come from a meditative state. He describes the deck as creating an arranged derangement which echoes day one’s prompt.
Over at Blogging from A to Z C is for Card trick. After I create my Personal Universal Deck, I’ll have to teach it some tricks. My Janus word for today is critical which can mean vital to success (a critical component), or disparaging (a critical comment).
The April Poem-a-Day prompt is to write a communication poem. So I guess my card trick will be opening a dialogue with myself through the Personal Universal Deck without being too critical, or perhaps I will find the Deck a critical component of personal communication.
My Personal Universal Deck in Progress
Not trusting myself to truly choose the words from the list at random for the cards, I typed them up, printed them, cut them out and put them in a vase. I selected two out of the vase without looking, then pasted them to a card, one right-side-up at the top, and one upside-down near the bottom.
This aspect of the deck–having a word upside down–made me think of tarot cards in reverse direction. I thought about the “reverse position” of the words and what that might mean.
I’ve previously talked about Plotting with Tarot. Since there weren’t really instructions for how to use this new deck once I made it, I thought I would try applying some similar ideas. I was inspired by Michael McClure’s instructions to meditate on the past, present, and future to find the words, to use Arwen Lynch’s card draw in Mapping the Hero’s Journey With Tarot: 33 Days To Finish Your Book. The first card represents the present, the second card drawn represents what happened directly before the first, and the third is what happens directly after.
A Familiar Laugh
Her laugh, cut off when you entered the room, continued to ring in your ears. You would know that critical cackle anywhere. So many tears shed because that laugh was infectious when at your expense.
Moments before you entered the room, you had stared at your rain-soaked self in the odd, corroding mirror in the hall, and recognized not a dampened mess, but a sparkling creation.
She is but a grain of sand in your boot as you climb.
Over at A to Z they’re challenging writers to make bets with ourselves. I bet I can read and leave comments on five A to Z blogs today.
Today’s Janus word is buckle (1) To secure, tighten, hold (by fastening with a buckle); (2) to collapse after being acted upon by an external force, as in “to buckle under the strain.”
The Future Holds a Multitude of Choices
Choice swung a bat at mailboxes full of parasites during the full worm moon of Regret
While Regret visited the ghost zoo to stare through the glass of Free Will’s enclosure
While Free Will stalked the boundary, Destiny twisted in an office chair at an enormous oak desk, waiting for Will to buckle
While Destiny swiveled, Choice dropped the bat and snatched a ruler from Education to measure the distance to Yes.
The NaPoWriMo prompt inspired me to grab my “tracks” bokeh filter that I created during OctPoWriMo last year and head outside. Since it is a cloudy morning, I took a selection of light strings and some extension cords along. Yesterday was the first time I strung my lights from the curtain rod to hang in front of the window and today is the first time I’ve taken them to shoot outside. I don’t know why it took me so long to try these things, but it looks like this NaPoWriMo is expanding my world of bokeh photography. Woohoo!
A Future Golden Trail – by Maria L. Berg 2021
I love how this path looks like it’s inside a crystal ball.
As I mentioned in another post from OctPoWriMo, Change of Perspectives, my camera has a cool built-in art feature that lets me filter for a primary color, leaving everything else grey scale. I mentioned playing with it yesterday, but it didn’t work with those pictures, so I gave it a try today and had some great results.
A Perilous Path – Maria L. Berg 2021
And this photograph made me think of the Lil Nas X vs. Nike controversy–Who the heck wants human blood in their shoes?
Experience Writing 