2013 Challenge: One Poem a Week

[Tzara]

Hey, all.

This thread seems to be down to a dogged four poets: me, Angie (who stopped for a bit, then kind of overcompensated by getting ahead of the rest of us), greenmountaineer, and Tess.

Let me take a look at the original goals:

We've had a lot of different challenges here, ranging from monthly ones to the various n poems in x days kind of ones, to the thematic challenges on form or subject or whatever.

Here's a commitment challenge: write at least one poem every week during 2013. Number them by week number (i.e., 1-52). Post them, if at all possible, during the relevant week; in any case, write the poem during the relevant week.

This should give you some flexibility to revise and edit poems, throw away draft poems you decide you don't like, plus give you time to go on vacation, deal with life issues, etc. The one rule (which I cannot, of course, enforce) is that you actually write something each week--no stockpiling multiple poems ahead of time. The object is to think about poetry and write a poem every week of the year, regardless of whatever else is going on in your life.​

Part of the problem here is that things happen in life where you're gone a bit, or you did not start the thread in January, or you were sick, you had company, you were on vacation, etc.

All valid reasons for not posting to some stupid thread at Lit.

OK. Revised rules: Commit to writing a poem a week, starting whenever. If you miss a week, that's OK. Write a poem the next week. But try to write at least one poem each week.

Trust me, that'll be good for your writing.

You can even number your poem by the week we're currently in. (Week 37. Start there.)

After all, thirty-seven is the 12th prime number, the fifth lucky prime, the first irregular prime, the third unique prime and the third cuban prime, so who wouldn't want to start on poem 37?

Oh. Comment on Angie's interview thread, too.

Because she writes good poems and because I said so. And if you do it for the first (better) reason, I can assume you did it because of the second (inferior) reason.

It's how ego works.

 

[butters]

......

 

[HarryHill]

.....

 

[greenmountaineer]

38

The Word for Hunger Sounds Like Femme


"To others she appeared anew each dawn,
trod her widow's watch above the sea
and cast her gaze along the jagged beach.
She did not look beyond the tide for me"
~ from "Winter Harbor" by Angeline

To others she appeared each dawn
when last I played her like a song
I sang anew with harbor whores
and rum in St. Lucia ports,
but Genevieve, since I was gone,

on widow's watch above the sea
trod for an ensign from the fleet
who went to war for emperor
and promised to return to her
for whom she prayed the rosary

and cast her gaze along the beach,
but not for jagged me who pleads
that God to whom I never prayed
might change the heart I once betrayed
to homing beacon I might reach.

She did not search the tide for me
nor look beyond, nor did she grieve
while I bemoan the splinters of
a shipwreck with its treasure trove
less than the loss of Genevieve.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

38 - Pumpkins

Suddenly
in September
they flood the produce aisles
spilling sunlight
into dingy corners

Plump progeny
of yellow trumpet-flowers
and hot summer days
when drunken bees droned off
heavy with pollen

Dotting fields among the tendrils
and heart shaped leaves they shine
waiting to be collected
heaped onto trucks
that spill them into piles
of orange promise

We sift the hoard looking for
the impeccable one
to proudly grace our porch
or make the perfect pie

Inside they give up
their slippery seeds
reluctantly in webby clumps
of pumpkin posterity

They grin bravely
through candle-lit triangle-eyes
and gap-toothed mouths
as if they know the end is near
and glory will be fleeting

It saddens me
to see the forsaken ones
stillborn Jack-o-lanterns
lying in scattered piles
imploding slowly
like forlorn orange balloons

 

[Tzara]

38

Gallery Blasé

If only my accent
could lock the gallery doors,
I would snick that lock at once,
gather your body like grain
and weave you into the wind
of mutual need.

But the sun is out. There is no snow,
and you politely show me
uninteresting drawings.
As you turn over your artists’ work,
I look at your knees. I look at your skirt.

 

[greenmountaineer]

39

Dodger Blue in the Little League

Jimmy Dunda, Man, Jimmy Dunda
threw some heat, chin music too.

I was taught to bunt by my father
rhymes with runt two weeks in the summer

but Jimmy, Pillsy, sonofabitch
was as fast as Koufax was

and never lost in the Babe Ruth League
before he went to Providence College.

Lost his game though, came back home
pine tarred my old man's cummerbund

wouldn't hit fungos on Freeman Street
like we used to all last summer.

Rhode Island dead is what he said;
Rhode Island was a red head, Man.

Drove all night, slept til three,
smelled like Thunderbird dead they said.

Plucked him from the Turnpike, Pills
Jimmy Dunda who went to Providence.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

39 - Indian Summer

Leaves
limp from heat
exhaustion
summer dusty
hang motionless
not yet ready to lose
their colour
but the vibrant
early green a memory now

As even falls the crickets start
their song of
seduction
an edge of urgency
as death draws near

Grateful
for the summer extension
and mornings' dewy chill
spiders leave diamante webs
decorating nature's spread

Geese linger
tasting fall
limbering for long flights
of noisy arrows
firing north
calling all the way

 

[Tzara]

39

Apple Blossom

Yes, the bloom,
but more how the branch
arcs gracefully

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

40 - Hungry Jack

Room service, how may I help you?

Mr. Nicholson would like one
of everything on the breakfast menu.
Five pots of coffee, sweet rolls and
hot water for tea. Got that? Oh!
And fivef Mimosas

Yes Ma'am. Right away.

Panic in the kitchen, under staffed,
it's Sunday after all. We don't
expect a movie star to order
a breakfast orgy. How much
can one man eat anyway?

Eggs bennie, omelettes of several
kinds, soft boiled eggs, platters
of bacon and racks of toast.
Waffles with maple, muffins
and cinnamon buns.

Tray after tray is readied
and steadied, trundled up
to suite 107 where Jack
must be starving.

The man opens up himself;
waves us in with that famous,
wolf-grin.

Here you are ladies, breakie.

And four lithe beauties unfold
from the King sized.

You didn't think it was all for me?
I'm a man of many appetites
but that would be just greedy!

 

[corndog_]

I can pretty much guarantee I won't get 52!

Maiden Rock, Overlooking the Mississippi,
where legend holds a European explorer first learned the arduous ascent from a Native maiden. The climb remains popular with young couples today.

By morning we’re cliffside, watching waves dash deliriously
on the rocks below. The air is clear
as a dilated eye, the perfect window.
In this light there are no secrets, no knotted
angst, no coiled anger, just the gentle jostle
of legs, boots grinding on gravel to hold
our edge. The breeze strokes your cheek,
smooth as a drawn sheet. This breathless pinnacle
was achieved slowly, steadily, with traded grabs
and pulls, alternately straining
and being strained. Dawn spreads
as we crest the ledge. The space is narrow:
we cannot stay. Already our labored breaths tumble
toward the seething foam. Already our footing fails
as pink tendrils bloom across your chest.


...

 

[butters]

.....

 

[corndog_]

you might not get 52, but this one's worth many. damned good.

 

[champagne1982]

Oh now, see? This is a poetic voice I've bee missing. Wonderful to see you m'sieu le mais-chien

 

[Angeline]

40 9/30/13

Hungry Jack

It's small potatoes
mini mart off a boulevard
never mind where America is

full on nondescript pass you by
in a gritty blink bodegas
and cracked pavement plastic
bags that dance in the whoosh
of passing cars.
It's small potatoes

but Jack is hungry itch and ache.
You know the kind that drags
you down in mucky malaise
hurts behind the eyes
blinding Sun or fucking rain.

He'd rather be asleep.
He'd rather be a lizard
on a rock drinking up heat,
eyes closed dreaming
of nothing at all.

Life is hard. A gun is easy
money bam and out
like tracks follow train.
It doesn't matter one long whistle.
It doesn't matter anymore.
So what if Pops screams NO

and Mom falls red?
So what? Is Jack sated?
Hunger fed? No.

Simply over, simply shit
on shingles.

 

[greenmountaineer]

40

Dark Linoleum

Violet smoked alone at night
in the yonder of our kitchenette.

I fancied hearing a rhyme she whispered
plucking he loves me, loves me not,

perhaps because I hadn't forgotten
once she was a heart shaped flower,

but now she's merely a cigarette
pouring herself a whiskey sour.

I in my hallway out of sight
smelled the stench when the bottle broke,

heard the gurgle of stifled tears,
and burned my lungs with Camel smoke.

 

[butters]

.....

 

[corndog_]

Oh now, see? This is a poetic voice I've bee missing. Wonderful to see you m'sieu le mais-chien

I love it when you talk dirty, even if I don’t understand a single word

The way each syllable dribbles
from your pursed lips like a pearl
trailing a steamy tale over the prow
of your chin and hangs there
like a dare, like
a glistening promise formed
in the warm recess of your mouth
leaves me
breathless, baby I can’t
baby I can’t look away.


...

 

[Tzara]

40

.....

 

[champagne1982]

I love it when you talk dirty, even if I don’t understand a single word

The way each syllable dribbles
from your pursed lips like a pearl
trailing a steamy tale over the prow
of your chin and hangs there
like a dare, like
a glistening promise formed
in the warm recess of your mouth
leaves me
breathless, baby I can’t
baby I can’t look away.


...

le langue de l'amour est différent de l'acte sexuel

And so we speak in different verbs.
Now spirograph filigree around
my navel, then scribe a line
from there, down to lap,
to lick, to swirl a bubble free
of flesh and tongue; and more,
to burst and dribble down
my chin into your gasp.

 

[corndog_]

Overheard

The not-dead pig looks up, sensing
a lull in the conversation, a sea change
that spells ill. “Swill” can mean
different things to different people; the butcher
whets his pencil and pens
a missive to his mistress. “Darling,” he writes,
“a silk purse is merely one of many
things we mistook for an ear.” How hard to hear
it. The sailor hears a whistle and thinks “home
is on the horizon” and polishes
his buckles and buttons. But the not-dead pig
pricks his ears and knows
the horizon draws near, the butcher’s tongue
keen as any knife.


...

 

[greenmountaineer]

41

Having Congress


''If surrealism ever comes to adopt a particular line of moral conduct,
it has only to accept the discipline that Picasso has accepted
and will continue to accept.''

André Breton


Is Congress hollow then? Nay! I say nay!
since we know what the meaning of is is,
and it takes a brain to know how to play
Make Believe Lobbygows For Lobbyists

which reminds me we have the upper hand,
for they gave silverware just to the Senate,
and a house divided can not stand
plastic, except for the newly elected

until they're sophomoronic, Friends,
to wit, Messrs. Twiddledee, Twiddledum,
and lest we forget our earmarking wenches

I yield to Madam Twinkletoes from
the Give 'Em Hell, Mary great State of....

Florida. I think she said Florida.

 

[Angeline]

41 10/7/13

The Ghazal at Home

Music before words the primal urge
to scream into catharsis: cry precedes speech.

Night music ticking, dripping toward dawn
when the kitchen is a prison.

What prison can hope exceed? Imagination
bubbles to escape the plates, the knives.

You are unknown to me, no room to embellish,
just icy windowless hallways.

The heart of the home an abstraction,
words still as dead ants.

 

[Tzara]

41

.....

 

[corndog_]

Afterlife

Overhead blue without end, tissue paper torn
at the edges. Underfoot a rotten box,
tattered cloth and bones.
206 of them. Tattered, too, the skin
stretched at the mouth to shape
the enduring grin. Is it bliss
to be rid of the tubes that filled you
with this world? Is there joy
in silence uninterrupted,
no clicks, no hisses, no soft-shoe
maintenance in the dark? Whatever;
it’s been a year, and it’s good
to know you smile.


...