As of today, I have finished National Poetry Writing Month. YAYYYYYYYY! And I didn't miss a single day! For those who don't know, NaPoWriMo is celebrated by writing one poem a day for the whole month of April. Poet Maureen Thorson started it in 2003 (because poetry is cool, too!), based off the idea of National Novel Writing Month, during which authors write 50,000 words of a novel in July...or whatever month it is.
Doing this was definitely a challenge, but in a good way. Forcing myself to write on a daily basis really helped get the creative juices flowing, and it let me see patterns in the way I write. It's helped me develop a sense of style :)
Below, I have posted what I think are some of my favorite poems I've written over the course of the month. They're short, I promise! Most of these have been written via prompts I've found on the NaPoWriMo blog, and elsewhere around the internet.
Here goes!
"Scratch, Crackle, and Thunder"
A very still static
whispers through the snowfall:
only minutes left, only moments to go.
A pencil quietly scratches a sonata.
See our puppets dance
in our cardboard theater.
On October the seventh, 1926,
a hush fell over the crowd,
and a little boy rustled his mother's skirt -
so cold, Momma, so cold -
and an old man in his bed
woke with a murmur -
God is dead.
The horses are thunder
in our cardboard theater.
A flock of birds crackles like wildfire,
like fresh paper -
like lightning along power lines.
Momma, listen -
the gods are speaking.
Our puppets dance a dance
of storms and pounding chaos.
The final race begins
with no sound but a heartbeat -
echo of stone on mountain stone,
smallest splash on the surface of the ocean.
Our little cutout people
run themselves ragged with screeching.
We become silent alabaster beings.
Momma, I am frozen -
hear me crackle.
Breathe in the rustle
of snowflake on snowflake.
"Cotton"
That eye freezes you.
"Chile', I see you," without words
the great goddess says.
Rough cotton dress robes
noble woman of the fields.
Pipe puffs in silence.
"What do you know, chile'?"
Ain't seen her Momma in years.
I don't know nothin'.
"Crossroads"
What a swiftness burns tonight
in my dancin' Hermes-feet,
I dream myself lucidly 'round the globe
feathered Midgard serpent of earth and air -
my feathers glitter blue and green
yet I am they that walk unseen.
Papa Legba waits for me in his rocking chair
with his cane between his knees
breathin' in the spiced bayou air
"off with your top hat now, let's hit the road -"
Granddaddy Morpheus kickin' up dirt
arms and legs flyin' every which-way
blues trumpets ringin' in my bones -
let my dreams whisk me away.
"Legion"
And he asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many.
They are only one.
Screaming in their ears -
black hole, black hole.
Wind tearing at their
hair and clothes,
so Egyptian -
a funeral procession
in peach.
Strange hurricane Buddha -
wild, whirling dancer,
but stillness -
stillness of mind.
Demon-child,
gnashing, gnashing
their teeth.
