Adventures in 27/30

i have always hated the way a lie feels
scraping across the roof of my mouth
its hardened edges like sour candy
pulling at the crease in my jawbone
i do not remember
when this hollow feeling
became easier to stomach
than telling the truth
but i know
pulling off a deception
can be as easy as writing a poem

Adventures in 26/30

we are both perfectionists
working on goodbye
neither satisfied
to simply walk away
i swear
there is no heart here left to break
you may
have just gotten it right

Adventures in 25/30

So.

Today's po-em is none of your business.

It is the official final version of Lynsita's po-em, which means that she gets to be the first person to see it. And since she doesn't get to see/hear it until tomorrow (maybe)...you don't get to either.

To get your poetic fix for the day, check out Daniel Carpenter over at Winter Hill. Once you go there, you might want to check out the NaPoWriMo site for some good prompts and po-e-try.

Peace Be

---
ok. i know you were waiting...holding your breath for it even...a po-em for Lynsita...who is reading "over my shoulder" as we speak. enjoy.

there is more than one way to hold a broken heart so the pieces don't hurt your fingers
i don't think she knows this
she carries her childhood like a magic someone should apologize for
we are on opposite ends of anything that needs comparing
we are as close to fantastic as any good story should get
when i call her perfect
i do not mean to say that she is flawless
only a just-in-time answer to a long forgotten prayer
for someone to come with no strings attached
who wasn't so touch and go
not so desperate around the edges
not so well taught to run away
these days i wonder when i will break her
gentle heart into stone
like precious metal ground to dust from the weight of knowing
someone who don't come easy
whose heart is like shards of glass
i cannot imagine we had each other in mind
when we pictured a future best friend
but i love her
enough to hold her hand when it hurts to need someone
and she
wrote me a poem
reminded me who i was
like a one-on-one tutorial on how to hold a broken heart

Adventures in 23/30

when i wrote the poem
i used these words
because there was no other choice
days later
i cannot trust that this will still be true
i am no expert
on language
or even myself
please
do not expect me to know what this means

Adventures in the Final Push

So.

Here we are - April 23rd - and only a week's worth of po-ems to go. I will admit that I have not been doing a good job of following the work of my fellow NaPoets...but I'm going to try to give energy to reading at some point before the month is over.

Also, this Tuesday I'm featuring at the library reading...which meas I've got to write a po-em on the theme I chose (does anyone remember what that was?), and I've got to edit some of my NaPo-ems for reading.

Much to do. Much to do.

Peace Be

Adventures in 22/30

baby brothers are their own brand of magic
it comes from the holes in their jeans
the same ones your big brother wore
before you
and finally him
like a marathon race to adulthood

Adventures in 20/30 (b)

the moon steals all her
shine from the sun and is not
ever called "hater"

Adventures in 20/30

So.

Yesterday I took my first official day off. And although I don't owe an explanation - I'll tell you that most of my brain power went to trying to find comfortable ways to sit/lay down so that my body wouldn't hurt quite so bad.

I don't, however, want to leave you poem-less...because you need 30 po-ems this month - even if they don't all come from me.

To that end, I'll send you to indiefeed and the po-e-try of Jon Sands. This po-em, entitled On the Bus in Queens, made me laugh out loud on several occasions. While you're there, you should check out the poets index on the channel; it's a great way to get to know the work of some pretty amazing po-ets that you might not otherwise get a chance to hear.

Alright. I'm off to work on #21

Peace Be

Adventures in 17/30

if the goal of every living thing is to die
then i am making great progress

it's calculated risk anyway
vegetables for the salad
aspirin for the headache
another good time
and you're there
like a flash of light inside your sternum
cracking you open to the fingertips
good morning

every day is one day less

Adventures in 16/30

So.

Number 16 comes to us courtesy of the GFDC Women's Day Program. The COGICs asked me a week or so ago to compose something for the theme "women of the most high, walking by faith"....so of course i started it last night around 10. I intended to write an additional po-em to be number 16...but my brain hurts, and I need to rest it so I can write today's piece.

So. Here is what the good people of Greater Faith heard this morn.

---
so here's what we know
we know faith is the substance of things hoped for
the evidence of things not seen
we know that it cones by hearing
and hearing by the word
that without it
it's impossible to please Him
we know that all it takes to move a mountain
is faith as a grain of mustard seed
we've heard name it and claim it
believe it and receive it
as the 2-step method to ensure a blessing
but i wonder
when push is pressed against shove
is to act in faith our first response
or do we falter at the call to put faith in action
because our faith walk is out of practice
let's examine
Hebrews 11:6 says the first act of faith is to trust who God is
i mean
you cannot walk with someone
until you know who you're walking with
so what [do] you know
about a God who sustains the world
on the exhaled breath of his spoken word
a God who hastens to perform
miracles on behalf of those called his own
the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful one
the great I am and Lord of Lords
and we know
all this is not enough
to get at the fullness of his attributes
you know what they say about 10000 tongues
but i know
if we can understand
even a glimpse of the size of his stature
it will quickly put in perspective
the truth about our circumstance
what seems impossible in our own hands
is a light affliction when carried by his
so we walk by faith
and not by sight
which doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to what's real about what we're going through
we just understand there's nothing more real than the promise of God which is always sure
the same faith
by which we are saved and justified
in times of trouble we don't falter
we take that faith and live by it

Adventures in 14/30

these days
it's hard not to count down the minutes
until space and time finally collide
like a big bang happening in present space
on a far more personal scale
do you still believe in miracles?
did you know they grow tired too?
fireflies and shooting stars all change trajectory
we may never know the man in the moon
but i am not afraid now
the seconds fell like sand
sifting through my fingers
and i am poised to brush off my palms
it's all dust now anyway
in a large hourglass
ticking the moments away

Adventures in 13/30

washington d.c
is a beautiful nightmare
curse eighth grade field trips

Adventures in 11/30

this is a poem for the way i would hold you now when i know that i cannot
like a redwood box filled with tokens
each to stand as memory
your arms
and shoulders
and delicate smell
marked with the first time i called you my own
all tucked away like a time capsule
that will never be rendered up

Adventures in NaPoWriMo

So.
We're nine days in, and I thought I'd pause for a minute and reflect on the goings on of the month, poetic and otherwise.

To begin, I must - in the spirit of honesty - tell you that my 1/30 piece was actually started somewhere around the 30th of March. Other unfair additions to the NaPoWriMo challenge include 4/30, which is a really bad spin off a a po-em I heard Ken Arkind do at NPS 2010; 6/30 begins with a line from an old po-em i'd started and given up on; and 7/30, which came for a convo I had with a poet-friend G awhile ago....and I think I'm the one who said something about the whole failure being beautiful thing...but it could have been him. We'll chat, and if it was him, I'll come up with a replacement haiku for the day. Kay?

In other news:

• had a friend that tried to kill herself, at home, while her kids were there...immediately after being kicked around a bit by her husband
• sick again, but secretly i don't think i got up to 100% after i was sick in februrary, and
• in general over myself in a lot of ways.

So far...my fave po-em of the month is the piece that Taylor Mali put out yesterday, which you can check out here. My own personal goal, to add the list I gave you at the end of March, is to write a po-em that Casper does not deem as sad. I'll let you guys know when she thinks I have achieved this.

Peace Be

Adventures in 9/30

here is the activity:
find a friend with an affinity for Tetris
and a need to procrastinate
make her call out a list of words:
marigold
pillows
royalty
caboose
whatever trinkets come to mind
make of those words something like magic
to pour out of the tip of your pen
a test to see how quickly you can think on your feet
better a still
a game of chicken when your car is out of brakes
or staring down the barrel of an angry lover's gun
any test
that will obliterate reason
and sear you bones to milk with fear
send a firestorm rumble to the pit of your belly
will it spew up something like alter reason
to illuminate the path to get you out alive
or will this be the thing that does it

here is the game:
make of each breath an orchestral sound in the base of your throat
make an arsenal of friends that will trust you with their words
make a music of not knowing what may happen next
make amends with Fate
and she will make up the rest

Adventures in 7/30

if you've attempted
suicide you know failure
can be beautiful

Adventures in 5/30

if my life is a palindrome
the hard part is nearly over
a slow walk now to cradle in the quiet womb of death
mark this as the center
spark a flame in your time machine
travel back and forth on the pendulum
birth to the death
the life between like flashes of light
to illuminate once
once again
and then no more
like a mirror that shatters under the burden
of bearing it's own reflection

Adventures in 4/30

See the baby
The baby is made up of wishes
The wishes belong to the parents
The baby is filled to th teeth with wishes
The wishes poke out at the joints
The baby has too many corners
The parents don't know how to hold him
The parents drop the baby
The baby crawls away
The baby crawls into a box
The the box is sent to the parents' parents in a city too far from home
The baby loves the city
The baby forgets home
The baby grows up
The baby is a man now
The man has too many corners
The city cannot sand them down
The man walks away from the city
The man meets a girl who is empty
Her parents did not have enough wishes
She has space for his corners
The man and the girl make a baby
The baby reminds him of boxes
The man hates boxes
The man hates the baby
The baby is a girl with holes
The man stuffs hatred into the holes
The holes feel like wishes
The girl makes a wish on her razor blade when she slices the hatred down
She does not know why she does this
She scrapes her corners away

Adventures in 2/30

If you love something let it go

That smoking habit
An abusive father
Three near angels
A bottle of Valium
Every city I've ever called home

If it comes back, it is yours forever

The sunset on the Savannah River like a battle hymn in 3/4 time
The welcome home hug of a little brother
A first kiss in the rain

If it does not come, it wasn't meant to be

You, always you