Day 30. Praise - Cento

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting 

To feel that waking is another sleep  

Blind go the days, but joy will see

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out.  

We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,       

Won't you celebrate with me?   

Lift every voice and sing                  

Praise for the height and depth

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Here, poem meets prayer.

Poets:

William Wordsworth

Jorge Luis Borges

Muriel Rukeyser

James Weldon Johnson

Alfred Noyes

Rainer Maria Rilke

Dane Gabriele Rosetti

Lucille Clifton

James Weldon Johnson

Marge Piercy

Sara Teasdale Nikki Grimes

Prompt:  Write a cento - a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems.

Day 29. Fairies Flew about My Bed.

When I was pink and very new Wee fairies flew about my bed to sing their songs of mist and dew and weave their spells around my head They sprinkled love and tenderness within my safe and sheltered walls. Bestowing ease and playfulness and years of joy within those halls They showered me with gifts of heart, I‘m loyal, bold, and resolute I’m hopeful, brave and sometimes smart, and the love I share is absolute But the gift of words, I treasure best to share and teach, to play and read, I may be just a bit obsessed, but the fairies knew just what I’d need For I am cursed as well as blessed with a frightful nose, hair like string, I caterwaul instead of sing my back is bent, and, I confess I’m much too pleased with my stubbornness.

Prompt: Muse on gifts and curses of birth

Day 28. Raindrops

                 Prompt: Write a concrete poem.

Day 27. When I Was Five

Sunday morning, Dad would take me flying Just the two of us, in his tiny plane

His plane was just right for the two us
Tilting in the wind, we flew over green fields

The fields slid green and ripe beneath us As we skimmed the grass and landed fast

We landed near a hangar, open to the gass
filled with long tables and the smell of pancakes

Tables groaned under mounds of pancakes In the hangar where pilots flew in to swap stories

Hangar-flying - pilots swapping stories-
tied us together, strangers meeting to share

We shared breakfast together, strangers no more, because Sunday morning, Dad would take me flying.

Prompt: Write a "duplex"poem - a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown.

Day 26. Prey

She stalked me around the library like a skittish cat,

Twitchy, wary, full of hiss and spit.

Sitting fat, all tucked-up in her chair, 

ears pricked, her eyes cool slits of suspicion        

Watching, waiting, perched.

She’d slink behind me in the stacks

soft-pawed, stealthy, silent.

I’d imagine her fishy breath on my neck

when I stooped to shelve a book, or sat to read a review

My every movement consumed her, 

teased her like a flicker of laser on the wall,

a slippery shadow that looms and fades.

Irresistible prey.

She finally gathered herself up one day,

squared her old-lady haunches,

arched her bony back, 

and pounced.

But I was vapor in her claws,

She may embody cat, but I am nothing like a mouse.

Prompt: Write a poem that contains an "epic simile" - I went for an "extended" simile.

Day 25. Genevieve

First came her argent song,
a delicate tintinnabulation.
Her crystalline chimes a revelation pervading my slumber,
silvering my sleep.
She arose before me in my dream,
Kindly, divinely,
pine needles twined her elegant arms, agleam,
dewy, delicate like the finest lace,
She reached upward, in invocation, offering grace.

Genevieve, protectress of the twin pines that shade my rooms.
Madonna to woodland beings that thrive within her blooms.
Her eyes, the jade of hummingbirds’ wings,
Her cheeks the blush of a robin’s breast.
And her lips, trembling with the weight of being.
“Be still,” she sings.
“Lift grateful eyes.”
“Listen,” she croons.
“Lay bare your ears.”
“Cherish.”
She vanishes in a rush of invisible wings,
and yet, still, I hear her sing.

Prompt: In honor of the "aisling," an Irish poetic form, write a poem that recounts a dream or vision, and in which a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which you live.

Day 24. Soft-Boiled Similes (featured on NaPoWriMo website)

She was a conundrum.

Confusing as snow in July

and as inscrutable as a course in theoretical topology. 

One minute, 

as mean as a rat defending a hunk of roquefort cheese,

and acting as tough as pot roast cooked within an inch of its life.

Then the next instant, 

her smile would slide by as sweet and smooth

as sipping dark chocolate mousse.

I was completely intimidated.

I felt as inadequate as a bikini in a blizzard

and as useless as a cheeseburger at a vegan dinner. 

I’d smile as stupidly as a mule eating briars

every time she’d glance my way, 

with her eyes as cool and blue as a glacial lake.

What could I do when she asked me to be her baby’s godmother?

How could I say no?

But now I’m as anxious as balloon at a porcupine ranch.

Prompt: Channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile.

Day 23. Windows

Windows seek us, 

sending inscrutable messages -

in flashes of sun code 

Lashes and dashes, 

blazes of light,

hazing our sight.

The window 

across the way

winks at me 

blinks at me

like an eyebrow,

Flirting, luring,

inviting me in to play.

So shiny, so reassuring 

But today I think I’ll pass.

Remember Alice’s looking glass?

Prompt: Write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay.

Day 22. Reminiscence

Hush.

Listen to the wind

as it sighs into the silence

of the sun-soaked sky

Don’t ask why.

Hush.

Listen to the laughter 

we tossed like froth into the sea

Before our glee ran dry

Don’t ask why.

Hush

Listen to the lilt

of sea and sky 

that filled us, stilled us

until we slid away, astray

Don’t ask why.

Hush.

Listen  more closely

And you may hear

how we shimmered

amidst spindrift glimmer

before we let it all wash away

Why couldn’t our friendship stay?

Prompt: Write a poem that uses repetition. 

Day 21. Memories

Threads, gossamer, elastic, looped,

stitch together fragments of memory

into whole cloth.

They pull memory taut.

Cotton memories,

soft, faded images of 

Lisa with the long elegant legs

and straight blond hair

doing calculus in her head, 

Soft-voiced, precise in her grammar,

We’d walk and talk about boys, flying, The Little Prince.

She celebrated birthdays backwards

bestowing little gifts on each of us.

Pure Lisa style.

Seersucker memories,

rumpled, cozy.

Swaths of candy pink rosy-ing toddler cheeks

Warm with laughter

Stretched into song and squeals

Preschool circle-time.

We’d celebrate valentines sideways,

drawing names to make bag lunches to order.

Lisa style.

Silken memories, hand-dyed 

saturated with nature’s palette

that sings summer ease.

“Where go the Boats?” illustrated

With lazy blues, hazy yellows, breathing greens.

A child sits in a tree above a curve of river

I become that child

Climbing the willow tree above our creek

To dream, imagination afloat.

I celebrate summer inward

Pure Lisa style.  Where goes the time?

Prompt: Write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.

Day 20. A Snappy Apple Verse (it could be worse)

Apple butter,  apple jelly

apple tart will fill your belly!

I’m crispy, crunchy, juicy, sweet

Smell me, try me, I’m a treat

I admit, I’m ripe with pride

Show me off, don’t make me hide

Polish, shine my crimson peel,

So I may garnish your next meal.

I reign supreme, a queenly fare

so I require the best of care

Respect my flesh, so sweet and white

And I will please with every bite.

I am fragile, so please don’t bruise

If you squash me, I tend to ooze

Should you forget and make me wait 

I’ll turn to mush and slime your plate.

I’m a gem with special appeal 

I hide deliciousness beneath my peel

I am a prize you may adore

Or I may be rotten to the core

Prompt: Write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food.

Day 19. Go Forth and Play (a Sottish Habbie)

Go forth and play away your woes

Shed your shoes, forget your clothes

Squish some mud between your toes

Inhale ripe smell 

of air and earth and sky and rose.

Breathe in the spell.

Make airplane arms and skip and spin

Feel the breeze caress your skin

Open your mouth, let sun slide  in

Taste sweet sky blue 

Laugh aloud, jiggle, giggle, grin

Please, you’re  overdue.

Prompt: Write a poem that starts with a command.

Day 18. Just this: bliss

I

Morning light glazes the window,

honeying the floor molten gold.

Steam, coffee-laced, hazes still air    

Licking the air like an eager tongue 

Sweet anticipation

II

A slip of sun, a splash of water, 

a mere puddle of a pond,

I splash my toe into the aching chill

and send an explosion of sparkling droplets skyward 

slow sweet light pours over me

Delighted participation

III

Lazy, dazed, eyes glazed

I count the raindrops, 

those desultory, aimless drips dimming window panes

I yawn, I stretch, sigh, want to cry

My phone lights up 

My anam cara - my soul friend - phones.

Somehow, she always knows

Connection  

IV

It’s the first time I see him like this,

Unfurling like a flower

As he stands on stage,

shoulder to shoulder, elbow to skinny elbow

in the midst of the teeming kindergarten throng. 

for one brief breath, 

I see the blossom he will become.

Love 

V 

We sprawl, sated, relaxed amid the 

crumbs and clutter of discarded dishes.

Turkey and rosemary scent the air,

the clutter of candles, coats, dog chewies

cozy this family scene

And everything - 

the starlit windows, smiling faces, strewn shoes

Seems to dance in the sound of shared laughter .

Fulfillment 

Prompt: Write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.