Synecdochic Stuff

napowrimo # 30, thanks for all the prompts and goodbye!

2010-04-30T19:50:00.000+02:00

Free write today. After 29 prompts, I was actually stymied. Whatever shall I write about?

Lessons Learned from NaPoWriMo

Procrastination is futile.

Also learned
I don’t need to be in my favorite place
using my favorite pen and journal
my favorite music in the background
with a glass of my favorite merlot,
I can write without a comfy setting,
under the strangest of conditions.

Spontaneity often counts more
than relentless effort .

Though poetry darts by on gauzy wings,
often missed in so much noise,
I learned the silence needed
comes from within.

Thank you ReadWritePoem
for the challenges,
for the good community of poets,
and for much, much more.
It's been extraordinary.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 29

2010-04-29T18:53:00.001+02:00

The prompt - take several headlines from today's newspapers, select words from them and make a new headline. Write your poem about that.

Asteroid Poisoned Earth’s Origin

It’s clear a mistake has been made
the learned scientists said.
When the earth was forming
a huge poisoned glob
of an exploded planet
fell into our mix and altered
our nucleotide chaining.
To make the story shorter,
we are shorter
than we are supposed to be
in the Universe scale of things.
Of course we built our houses,
machine guns, tanks, accordingly.
Stephen Hawking says
stop advertising our presence
we only have to look at ourselves
to know what we should fear
from aliens, and he’s right, except
for one factor -
they are also much, much larger.
All of them.
Have a pleasant day!

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 28

2010-04-28T17:02:00.001+02:00

The prompt calls for another "aha" moment. This really happened to me, I'm not making it up. I changed the personna of the narrator, so that it would be more feasible. But this happened to me - I have no TV, in my defense.

Golden Sex

For an old gal I’m pretty hep
not fazed by terms like transvestite,
transgender, genderqueer, two spirit
or any androgyne. I keep in step.
Live and let live I always say.
Nope, genders don’t bother me
grammatical , sexual, or third,
neutered nouns, or splat pronouns,
if you get my meaning.
But driving to work the other day
I heard a new one on the radio.
What in the heck is golden sex?
They were really negative, angry.
The Senate put golden sex on display
(mercy me!) and the government
banned the practice, media’s bashing it.
How dirty can it be?
My imagination gets the best of me.
Glad I didn’t work up the courage to ask
before I saw that article this morning
– about Goldman Sachs.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 27

2010-04-27T20:38:00.002+02:00

Carolee proposed an acrostic for this prompt - a word that relates to oneself. Fun!

Acrostic Me

Pondering palpable pulchritude, preternatural palaver, posing prestidigitation, possibly
Opposing obstreperous obloquies, obvious oxymoron, obnoxious ordinariness, otherwise
Enthusiastic, even ebullient every enjambment, evocative elision, elegantly eviscerated elegy,
Tantalizing tercet, timbered tone, trochee true to theme, terribly tempting tall tale tellingly told.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 26

2010-04-26T18:18:00.005+02:00

The 26th prompt is to take an abandoned poem, and rework it. For some reason unknown to me, I'm compelled to keep coming back to this poem. This gives me a chance to look at at again. After today's revision, is it now a finished poem? Maybe, or maybe not - there's still something about it...

Goodbye to Elephants

Down the road in single file,
dust blurring our sorrow,
slow plodding round feet on planks
into a boxcar leaving forever,
and the band plays on unaware.

Drum, calliope, creak of cage,
stubby parade and lift of tents
defined spring. Then, offhand,
they weren’t coming back;
how could it ever be summer again?

We’d connected with elephants,
with their still eyes following us,
with surprises of sloshed water,
with musk, straw, slow litanies
of rumbles, trumpets, snorts,
huge swaying to ancient rhythms -
(we thought they were pleased to
be in the circus)

perhaps we knew even then
we’d look for elephants
the rest of our lives.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 25

2010-04-25T19:30:00.001+02:00

The 25th prompt is to write a poem inspired by the first word or phrase one hears after reading the prompt. After I read the prompt, I drove to Heidelberg to watch the annual half-marathon . In Starbucks, waiting for the lead runners, a guy at the next table was telling his friends he dreamed he ran in the marathon today. One apparently asked if he crossed the finish line. The dreamer said he didn’t know – he woke up. The conversation was in German of course, and I wasn’t paying attention, but tuned in on his statement about not knowing if he passed the finish line. And I wondered...

To Sleep, perchance

to drive a cliff-hugging road
with aplomb or to fly by
willing my body to rise –
a simple process I’ve always known,
or to lecture with uncanny
wisdom to all applause. But
what was that remedy – and
what was the cause?

I’ve other skills morning disavows
or memory artfully denies.

So, where does it all go –
those actions abruptly cut short
by waking? The precious words,
the clever deeds, the ideas that will
save us – abruptly snuffed
by something circadian.

Perhaps
they sit around our hippocampus,
weaving puzzles to perplex us,
or screwing with our memories,
or creating metaphors
for our poems.

Wanda Mccollar

napowrimo # 24

2010-04-24T20:12:00.004+02:00

For April 24 - select a phrase from Shakespeare, the Bible, or other sources and let it inspire a poem. I chose "We have seen better times" from Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare. The form I used is an Elizabethan sonnet, which seemed appropriate.

We Have Seen Better Times

This growing old would get the best of you,
if you didn’t know it’s nature’s cunning play
for each body part in turn to bid adieu.
Could be your hearing’s first to sneak away,
poor fool, you’ll miss the gist but never know.
Your eyesight’s maybe next to go astray,
what’s written BIG is rarely apropos.
Joints’ cries then quite naughtily surprise
for pain, with knee, or neck it’s quid pro quo,
and muscles, well – fallen dough doesn’t rise
but no harm, you’re too pooped to miss the fun.
If you’re lucky your mind is the last that flies,
if not, these problems’ll bother you none.
So, watch it go, and laugh it up until it’s done.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 23

2010-04-23T17:16:00.005+02:00

Today's prompt: place your narrator in a situation she/ he would not normally encounter.

The Flower Child Who Became a Flower

I’m back! Peace, brothers!
So what am I? A marigold?
Outtasight! Don’t need bread ,
don’t need a crash pad.
I dig that. But, if I’m a marigold
I’m a better looking one than anyone here -
good stem, fine leaves
great petals. I feel my essence.
So, what happened to you guys,
you look terrible, all chewed up.
You gotta mellow out.
The pigs do that to you?
You fought back, right? That don’t work.
Passive resistance – that’s the ticket.
Peace and love. I see we’re
in the front row here, right where
the fuzz can get at us.
What is this –the People’s Park?
I’ll show you how to go with the flow.
I’ll have you all lookin as good as me
in no time. So who’re these
big slow snail dudes moving in?
Groovy! Peace and love, brothers!

Wanda McCollar

note: In many countries marigolds are planted solely to lure snails away from the rest of the garden.

napowrimo # 22

2010-04-22T21:35:00.006+02:00

Prompt is for a Wordle. Use one, some, or all of the folllowing words: reverberate, dizzy, squall, tomorrow, emporium, flinch, fierce, rust, saffron, pepper, tendril, crow. I got all but 2.

Tide’s Turned

First, tendrils of smoke crept under the door,
then, the fierce pungent squall of
grandpa’s medical marijuana burst forth
as we entered his bedroom, reverberations
of his laughter peppered with colorful invectives
greeting us in the laden air, making us even dizzier.
Propped by pillows, sitting on top of his covers
wearing red pajamas, worn slippers and his saffron
smoking jacket - “No rust on me,” he crowed.
He was happier than I’d seen him in a decade.
Not Mary’s doing, Apple’s. He had an iPad
and could read again, write again. “Tomorrow,”
chuckled our nonagenarian, “ I start writing my memoirs.”

Wanda McCollar

(This inspired by a news item in tonight's CNN about a 99 year old gal overjoyed she can see to read and write again by using her new iPad. Hooray for technology!)

napowrimo # 21

2010-04-21T17:04:00.000+02:00

The 21st prompt deals with flaws as opposed to perfection, or perhaps both.

Some People Just Don’t Understand Parenting

She accepted the act of giving birth
as an agony of course but
she had hopes it’d
be worth it. Then she fussed, and
pampered, coaxed, and pondered,
couldn’t leave well enough
alone, but finally, with some small pride,
and no doubt overlooking what flaws
they might have, she let them go forth
and BAM one was stamped
ordinary, another flat, another
strange, even (horrors!)
predictable.

She put them all away.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 20

2010-04-20T20:58:00.001+02:00

Write a poem about a hero.

Ode to the Caped Crusader

You know, Batman, you made more sense to me
than that other guy in the blue tights, after all –
how could he fight crime on a reporter’s pay
even if he didn’t have to buy plane tickets,
better to be a rich philanthropist and have a batmobile, batplane
and all those cool gadgets stashed away in your bat cave.
I understand the utility belt
and the boots and bat cape and the need to fight crime
but I was disappointed you chose Robin
it should’ve been Batman and Wanda,
lord knows my skinned knees proved I practiced.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 19

2010-04-19T18:50:00.002+02:00

Today's prompt - write about a moment of sudden understanding.

Knowledge Often Arrives Ungraciously

In Japan where we lived
it dishonored neighbors
to lock one's front door.

A neighbor would never knock
but open the door and call
Anata wa koko desu ka?
If receiving no answer,
honored neighbor was free
to remove shoes at the threshold
and wait inside.

My shower room adjoined
the living room. Need I go on?
It was a good warm shower
I enjoyed that day until
I spied a very large spider
on the opposite wall who then
jumped across that safe space
to within inches of my face.

I ran shrieking into my living room
and there sat my landlord
most formally attired,
most formally posed,
in contrast to my nudity, of course.

Without a twitch of eye
he said in his impeccable English,
I wish to invite you and your family
to dinner next week but I see
there is a problem with the plumbing.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 18

2010-04-18T13:34:00.002+02:00

Today's prompt is to write about a feline creature - tiger, panther, or a bit more domesticated.

Interruption

Seeing me busy,
with a swift silent leap
she’s on my desk,
pausing to lick her paws
nonchalantly
before she curls herself
on my keybemop
                          aa
                            fd x
                                lll
                                  ll
                                  ll
                                  l

             Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 17

2010-04-17T22:27:00.001+02:00

The prompt is to write about one of the essentials: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth. This took me a long time - found myself going on at great length. Taught me to cut to the quick!

Earth
“In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.” King Richard II, IV i

Where worms poop
and bacteria flourish
in wet muddy bubbles,
telluric bowels
of clay and silt,
in darkest silence of
mold and fungus,
our dead regenerate
into fertile soil, a
cycle that’s worked
for a very long time.
This much we know.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 16

2010-04-16T22:10:00.002+02:00

The prompt is to let smell help you remember, and guide your writing. A stau is the unexpected slowing of high speed autobahn traffic, eventually bringing all vehicles to a stop. Although there can be many reasons, what causes a stau is often never known.

Stau

We’re stopped,
a wobbled double line of us,
bad pop art caught
while trying to escape,
suspended
between earth and moon.

We turn off our engines,
morning heat fills our small spaces.
I lower my window -
a surprise rush of pine tar,
dried grass, something fecal, and
a bird’s song.

What – birds on the autobahn?
Are they always here to intrude,
if only we could hear them?
But we are the intruders, for they
have a tree and a grainy field,
and there’s a farm house,
a woman working in her garden.
She stands and shields her eyes
peering at the phenomenon of us.

Leave your car, she calls to me.
Step over the barrier,
walk through the field,
feel the rough ground under your thin soles,
kneel beside me and work with marigolds, yellow
and soft in the black soil, a pungency of flower
and earth on your fingers. Let the soil’s soul
sift into yours, dark and living.
Your mother kept a bed of marigolds;
she needed them, but you forgot that.

The cars ahead
start their engines,
windows slide shut,
AC kicks in,
radios resume their noise,
we pick up speed.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 15

2010-04-15T20:29:00.002+02:00

The prompt is to take a failed poem, select a part of it, and find its tune by singing it. Keep the part of the poem that matches a tune, throw away the rest of it, and write two more stanzas. Excellent prompt. I have many failed poems - tried singing parts of them all day. Finally became "stuck" with this one. Though I could find no tune to match it - I really tried. Did everything the prompt asked - found a sort of rythmn - threw the rest away, wrote a refrain and two new stanzas based on that rythmn. But there's no song here.

A Dream After Six Months of Chemo

I’m flat on a silver platter
I too was silver but now I’m flatter
left eye pressed down wetly dark
right eye up in dry bright light
hey nonny nonny, up the falls we go.

My inner liquid’s gone, dry, dry
left side of me in this odd pond
doesn’t help, my gills don’t move
and it doesn’t seem to matter
hey nonny nonny, up the falls we go

Green and white vegetables circle me
they don’t care but our two kinds
are to be ingested by another species
and it doesn’t matter anymore.
hey nonny nonny, up the falls we go.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 14

2010-04-14T22:17:00.001+02:00

This is like the Cleave prompt in only one way. It's something I've been fooling with - a new form of my own, perhaps. My intention is to weave, like tapestry. Thus there is a relation, symbiotic or otherwise, between the third line and the first two of the next triplet in every stanza - a weaving. That relationship is not metric, not rhyme - but something intrinsically related - a texture, a sound, a motion, an intention. I was going to go up to the town of Speyer today to take a picture of the Rhein to go with this - but ran out of time.

Rhein Tapestry

Over rocks, slippery grass
where strawberries run wild
we walk the riverside

ripples of pigeons
in quick formations
home to their whistle

salutes from barges
pass each other
moving smoothly

low gray clouds sail over
storks’ nests settled
above chimney walls

crossed with dark beams
the town’s old white houses
lean together

umbrellas touching
we do not hurry
this last talk

once woven will
never unravel.

Wanda. McCollar

napowrimo # 13

2010-04-13T19:00:00.006+02:00

Smoke a Dubie. The prompt is to use a line from a Norman Dubie poem as the first line.

A Poem with a First Line from Norman Dubie

Worlds are being told like beads
smoothly slipping
between forefinger and thumb
Hail Mary full of grace
Allahu akhbar, lulling litanies,
Shiva's 108 names
moving between finger and thumb
om mani padme hum,
humans begging before God,
their worlds safely strung
as beggar beads
counting perpetual petitions
have mercy on us
and on the whole world
moving between finger and thumb.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 12

2010-04-12T19:39:00.003+02:00

Write a a poem which includes a code. When is a code not a code?

Roughly 440–490 nm.

I'm cat's fur or codfish scale,
shark or whale ablowin’,
jay, or tiny-winged
butterfly, mold busy at
cheese, a berry to eat,
lapiz lazuli or
a missing moon rising,

I’m sapphire or diamond,
I’m wild sky,
maybe cerulean, or
Prussian. I'm flora
lactarius indigo –
I’m mood become rhythm.
I’m water,
by depth darker.

I’m soul uplifted,
the tekhelet in tzitzit,
I'm very Catholic, too,
or a Vishnu Avatar.
I’m horse,
I’m hippo.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 11

2010-04-11T21:18:00.007+02:00

Prompt is to write about a choice you should have made in life, but didn't. Or to dig deeper, and write about a person you disconnected with along the way. A very difficult prompt.

To A Dear Friend I Misplaced

Yesterday on the beach near Cannery Row

under an incredibly blue sky, our baby daughters

patted the sand with tiny flat red shovels,

and we prattled of possible drooping

breasts and butts, giggled about what
sex had become, and other ironies.
We thought we heard the rumbling laughter
of John Steinbeck join us in the soft briny air.

But I flew that ocean, live half a world away.
Now we’re old gals and I bet you’re amazed we are.
Little else surprises us, everything droops.
Oh, we have some pity for our daughters,
their children now teenagers.
We should have consoled each other
while all that was going on.

I still see us watching our babies play,
as we tempered our troubles with laughter.
Not giving up our expectation of miracles,
someday we’ll sit on that white sand again,
look out over the sparkling waters and tell
the good stories to sustain us.

Wanda McCollar

photograph by Aurelie Young

napowrimo #10

2010-04-10T19:29:00.000+02:00

The prompt was to write a poem about a celebration. Well, this turns out not to be a celebration, per se, like a birthday party, but a celebration of a ritual begun before the couple is married and carried on throughout the family's existence.

Our Scary Family Album

Here’s my mother
just graduated, looking
into the lens suspiciously,
her starched nurse’s cap
impossibly perched.

This is my father astride
his Harley, booted right foot
asserted on the dirt road,
goggles posed in his wild hair,
his grin naughty.
A gorgeous man before he had us.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 9

2010-04-09T16:30:00.009+02:00

The prompt is - complicated.
Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker. Mention something that tastes terrible, a sound that is pleasant, and include some lines from one of your failed poems. Oh my!

Stopping By

A blustery evening.
Chimney smoke
of burnt wood
acrid on my tongue.
I'm a lonely walker
at the fringe of town,
startled by wing's flap
and talon's click
in the graveyard.
Rather than flee, I enter.

Other than a pail
and a pottery jug
not stowed away,
all is in order.
The wind strums in
winter’s thin branches.
I'm walking to your
grave marker.
In lurches of moonlight
as swift black curtains
blow aside, I see mound
after mound, neat beds
with grass rugs tucked tight
and stone headboards.

These dead
once watched the same moon
shining now on graves empty
of souls passed from here.
Are you there beyond those
swift black clouds, there among
the winking specks I see
in patches of night sky?

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 8

2010-04-08T20:25:00.002+02:00

The prompt for April 8 is another love poem - this time using metaphors to tell the love story. It seems I used allusions more than metaphors.

Miss Muffet

Her mother referred to him as Pinocchio
but she was naive, her beau’s nose was normal
and his pants were not burned away.

Her father warned he was a Shylock,
his purse strings tighter than an anal sphincter
but she was naive and blushed, “Oh, Dad!”

“He’s a Lothario, Sis, he’ll break your heart,”
and she cried and stopped speaking to her brother.
Naive she was, he’d never betray her.

She loved loving him, her mind was blind
and so they married, which worked
until the day she lost her naivety.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 7

2010-04-07T20:29:00.001+02:00

Prompt # 7 calls for a Tanka - five lines with the turning point at line 3. It must be about love, and humorous.

Love Unrequited

He wondered if chocolates would be appropriate.
He pictured the surprise, the adoration, in her soft brown eyes.
Bravely he placed three chocolates from his pocket on her desk.
And she was surprised by the much-handled linty candy.
He had made his move. About time, he was almost eight.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 6

2010-04-06T18:38:00.008+02:00

"Select a picture and speak to it" is prompt # 6. I chose a Picasso painting and a formal poetic form - the Triolet. I've never written a triolet before and I've never really understood what Picasso was all about. As I looked through some his paintings in a Google Image search, I understood, for the first time, just a little of what Picasso is about - and decided to try the triolet. napowrimo is a challenge, right?

You need to know the form of the Triolet. 8 lines, only two rhymes. Five of the 8 lines are repeated, or refrain lines. The form is:
                                        A
                                        B
                                        A - rhymes with first line
                                        A - identical to first line
                                        A - Rhymes with first line
                                        B - Rhymes with second line
                                        A - identical to first line
                                        B - identical to second line

Pablo Picasso's "Weeping"

We women have a way of knowing when we see one who’s abused.
Hide your tears, dress your best, yet we know you know you’re betrayed.
The more guilty his betrayal the louder he brays and you’re emotionally bruised.
We women have a way of knowing when we see one who’s abused
It’s your care to look normal though disconnected, angry, and confused
Your denial, your hidden tears, your refusal to admit you’re afraid.
We women have a way of knowing when we see one who’s misused.
Hide your tears, dress your best, yet we know you know you’re afraid

                                                            Wanda McCollar

napowrimo # 5

2010-04-05T19:47:00.003+02:00

For the fifth prompt - we are to make poetry personal. Personify poetry - give it a name.

Come Out, Erato!

When I was a child,
you chose me.
You woke me in the darkest nights
to listen; in storms you led me to watch
trees dance and waves toil; you
pulled me from bed in the silence
before daybreak for birds’ greetings.
But what have you made me do
lately? Slacker!

Erato, Eratus, Eratum!
There, I’ve conjugated you,
deconstructed you.
Eratalgia – you’re a pain,
Eratosis – you’re a neurosis,
ad feminan Eratorium – you make
illogical excuses based on,
based on ...

Where was I?
Oh yes - what’s up with you?
Your whispers are ineffective
your demands common,
you’re easily deterred.
You've stopped wheedling me just because
I’m older. Coward!

What? How can you be tired?
You say you’re getting older, too?
Impossible. You’re immortal.
You say it’s all relative?
Well, Sister, get off your duff,
we’re going to lie down in a meadow
where bees buzz and flowers wink,
and watch clouds gather.
We’ll be young again.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo #4

2010-04-04T20:32:00.004+02:00

The prompt today is to write a poem from the inside out, or from the ouside in. Hmmm - I see my effort below as needing work.

From the Inside Out

Over time
watching became her daily duty.
To get out of bed, to wash and dress,
to find something edible from the
groceries brought her,
to clean the dish or two, straighten that
which needed no straightening,
Right Hip burning pain,
Left Leg shocking stabs from patella to
toe with every step.
Her chair, positioned by the window,
was her dry oasis, her confessional,
the window’s gauze curtain, her veil.
She would sit through the days, regretting
her life’s foolishness, watching traffic, neighbors,
and the children in the playground,
thanking God she could still watch,
still hear the screams of the swings,
the children’s shrieks and laughter, a
beloved cacophony.

“Come out and play,” they called to her.
And she did. She heard the slap of her
Buster Browns on the asphalt, saw
her bare knees lifting one after the other
below her short playdress as she ran,
felt her pig tails flying, felt the familiar
wooden swing seat under her rump
the ropes in her hands –
pumping her legs upward
lifting herself to the bluest of skies,
then as the swing fell backwards, tucking
her legs under, hard – and, free, crazy, light
as the air she was flashing through,
no thought of breath or bone or balance
“Watch me, see how high I can go!”

But, the streetlights were coming on
the playground was emptying. With a sigh
and a great agony of effort
she rose from her chair to prepare
for the night.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo - april 3

2010-04-03T15:03:00.006+02:00

Today's prompt is simply, "Write about something that scares you." I have written two poems - only after they began to emerge did I realize they're related.

Gone

I wasn’t watching –
and he was gone.
I push past laughing faces,
legs, shoes walking,
but can’t find him.
Sometimes he’d pull away,
fearless, laughing,
following other people,
or butterflies.
How often had I told him,
“Stay by me.”
I call his name
again, again, again.
It’s impossible to believe

he’s gone, but he is.

I have lost him.
I awake wet-faced
remembering my child
is a man, long safe.
In the darkness, only
a ticking clock
watches me.

Wanda McCollar

This is Just to Say Goodby

My spine is shrinking
My shoulders rounding
My flesh is becoming seawater
My bones show through, black and jagged,
I have split in two
Even the most insensitive can see
I'll soon be gone.

Only a few even care.

I am Chacaltaya, Malospina,
Katiah, Perito-Moreno,
Perteze, names sliding over your tongue
as you did over ours. We’re gray smudges
from satellites too far
to sense the loss of our leaving
what we marked pre-history,
too far to understand
rivers must cease reliable flows,
lakes must become basins
to brim over, seas must rise.
We’ll all be gone soon.

Ours are voices you can’t hear,
it's not your concern.

Not your generation,
not your children’s
not your nations'
not your concern.

Wanda McCollar

napowrimo - april 2

2010-04-02T21:57:00.003+02:00

My Problem

Is a poem I have to write
about RWP, not the Site
but only the letters RWP
and whatever that can be -

Regular White Paper might do
or Rain Water Pipe, too,
but Random Weird Person
is certainly the intriguing one

if t’were a thing possible to know
but of course that's not so
what‘s weird after all these days
and random is really how it plays.

Is Mr. Bean an RWP,
or me?

napowrimo - April 1

2010-04-01T19:23:00.003+02:00

OK - I have pledged to write a poem to a given prompt every day for the month of April. The first prompt this morning was to "shuffle" one's iPod and use the first five titles intact in the poem, no matter what comes up.

Rather than a shuffle (I have an iPod Touch) I touched a spot blindly in the index and asked for a Genius Playlist. These were the first five titles: Oh Deed I Do, On an Island, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Fisherman’s Blues, Pale Blue Eyes

Got the Blues Tonight

The night is cold,
a pale blue moon
hangs in the bare branches
of the elm tree
outside my back door,
and here comes the ghost
of Tom Joad sitting
on an island of blue mist
drifting over my snowy
field of stubbled corn stalks.
He’s strummin’ his guitar
and singin’ fisherman’s blues
about whales ablowin’,
specks of cold blue sea spray
glisten in his pale blue eyes
and I think that’s pretty odd
for a man from Oklahoma,
Oh, deed I do.

Wanda McCollar

April is for Poetry

2010-03-26T18:39:00.015+01:00

April is National Poetry Month. NaPoWriMo is an incentive to advance appreciation of poetry. You appreciate by doing. I have pledged to write one poem every day in the month of April. ReadWritePoem is sponsoring napowrimo, and offers a new poetry prompt for each day in April.

ReadWritePoem Book Tour

2010-03-15T18:44:00.124+01:00

“Anatomy for the Artist”, by Molly Gaudry http://www.blossombones.com/current.html

Welcome to the last stop on this book tour.

We don't see our bones - we understand they are there, of course, but we take them for granted. They'll always be there, won't they? Like the assumptions we make about our love relationship, or our solid, lasting marriage.

The poet, Molly Gaudry, puts us through a physical dissection of her body, bone and muscle, as we experience deception and loss in a very visceral way. Her bones and muscles are separated, layer after layer, and we see our bones as she sees hers. This detailed disembodiment intensifies from objective watching to one's subjective experience by her refrain "We take me apart." She names the parts, the actions. By naming them, does she conquer them? I think not. It is a substantial list - and this, and this, and this as well is sliced away. The tone gradually shifts from sensual to angry with each casting of the refrain "We take me apart." Her body, and ours, is rent asunder by loss and deception in a manner that says it is imposssible to understand, except by watching oneself disintegrate.

The gritty juxtapositions of words and sounds hurt. Good - they're supposed to hurt. Gaudry plays with words' meanings and sounds, scraping them against each other. Consider the masterful laying down of words at the very beginning - "not like proximal that but distal this so soft superior so inferior clean superficial warm deep light fragile bulb between my radial two your ulnar two our four palmar hands plantar feet volar roaming dorsal so..." both erotic, and subtly foreshadowing a twist with repeated "s" sounds and unexpected medical terms performing unexpected actions.

The refrain "we take me apart --" is wielded more as a surgeon's knife as the story unfolds, the areas dissected moving up the body, "by muscles of the breast" to "by muscles of the head" "the eye" as reality is encountered, "by the osseous and muscular systems of the human body-- and I should slice you spherical"... turning the dissection to the offender's body.

I was physically drained by this poem. I understood it on my terms. If a poet's innovative craftsmanship with form, word, sound, imagery, metaphor, can show me my own bones, then I want to read more of that poet's work. I see that "Anatomy for the Artist" was Gaudry's early exploration for a novella in verse. That novella is now published and I ordered a copy of "We Take Me Apart." I hope this poet will continue to write as bravely as she has so far.

Purging Poetic Presention

2010-02-12T19:46:00.001+01:00

I rarely use First Person. I never consciously use Form. I never Allude to Classic Literature. I don't use Apostrophe. I never employ Rhetorical Questions.

The assignment for ReadWritePoem was to take one's poetry writing to the SPA and detox old habits. This is a busy time for me - snow, travel, double duties - and I wasn't going to participate this week. Then I remembered - several years ago I wrote this poem because I wanted to purge my poetry technique. There is a synchronicity in creative endeavor - what I did on my own, was exactly what this week's prompt asks us to do. Please consider this poem, tucked away as an exploration, as my contribution this week.

Mad Mooness

I awake to find the moon
sitting on my window sill
glorifying the perfect
roundness of himself.

Aren’t you the fat fellow
preening there! Have you
stopped running to hide
behind my thumb?

Is it safe to lie here under
your cool gaze, knowing
your reputation for rascality,
your devious charms?

Or your jealousy? But surely
even Artemis wouldn’t covet
my plump body and its
lost virginity.

Maybe you’re a bodiless head,
flung into the void by your avenging
mom, a family thing.
If so, I need no coaching.

Though your shining’s turned
me blue, an unfamiliar corpse,
I won’t succumb to your
mad mooness. . .

but wait, where’d you go?
You’ve slipped from my sill
to hide behind a tree.
You are being chased after all.

Wanda McCollar

Before Alpha Realizes It's Omega

2010-02-04T19:52:00.008+01:00

Dark. Lying flat on sand
still warm from day, watching
the night sky narrate the past
one hundred million years
or more,
consumed by thoughts so numerous
impossible to separate
except as awe.

Dark. Above the bed
passing car lights' rippled shapes
hover, stretch, flicker out,
return, rush past, fade away.
No awe,
curious, accepted patterns,
ceiling narrations
of the future.

Wanda McCollar

not possible to gift-wrap oddly shaped objects

2010-01-28T20:18:00.005+01:00

the journey’s a maze –
tilted corridors, stairs climbing,
descending in blatant
perspective, a puzzle cube
twisted this way and that
- difficult to see
no passage is alike.

In my Father’s house

a Turk in a surplus US Army
jacket sells pieces of the true cross
near the Duomo. Here’s one,
its grainy whorl a thumb print,
buy it, later lose it in
a drawer with dead batteries.

In my Father’s house

we keep doing our work –
sperm, maggots – passion
and consumption, motion,
footprints fill in, there’s gleaning
and scorching, sorrows appear
and vanish,

love prevails though
corpses become rich black soil
and overnight, mushrooms
come out as unexpected stars
in those dark fields,

there are many mansions

Wanda McCollar

M. Escher

Christmas Passed

2009-12-25T18:42:00.011+01:00

Now tell me no more about Christmas,
I have survived it once again
busy, short-shrift no less
than usual.

It’s the tinsel, the politics, the hype.
I have survived it once again
hungry, bereft no less
than usual.

Someday I’ll pass it all by
the tinsel, the petty politics, the hype,
and celebrate the astonishing love meant
to be usual.

Wanda McCollar

Into Every Life a Frog Must Fall

2009-12-23T18:23:00.009+01:00

I wanted a frog
in my garden,
I wanted his voice,
his splashing around,
when one appeared
I scorned him.

Was it my aversion to
nictitating membranes
slipping over
blinkless eyeballs,
or webby-toed
sticky suctions, his
unforgivable froginess?

There are other things
that look like frogs –
flowers in green paper,
rumpled blankets,
a crumpled letter,
tear-soaked Kleenex
looks like a frog,
his pond-green Peugeot
leaping away.

Wanda McCollar

ReadWritePoem post # 104

2009-12-09T22:21:00.004+01:00

                     Sexual Selection

                    A nematode glides,
                    aimless, undulant, until he spies
                    a female opportunity,
                    then, excited, accurate, quick,
                    hot-wired for it.

                    On a broad leaf
                    fruit flies assemble,
                    displaying their greatest intentions,
                    she inspects these
                    contenders (for a week!)
                    One mating is all she gets
                    ever, but no shortage of
                    healthy progeny --
                    good choice.

                    Echoing trills, moonlit
                    dances, aerial acrobatics,
                    erect feathers and
                    splendid blue faces,
                    peafowl, pheasant, penguin
                    all know what to look for,
                    warbler, wolf, fox
                    better make good choices –
                    it's a mate for life.

                   Enlargement pills, trading,
                   selling, buying, cheating,
                   beating, addiction, abandonment,
                   pedophilia, murder –
                   you know the rest.
                   The species that exercises free will.

                                         Wanda McCollar

In Defense of Apples

2009-12-06T12:02:00.003+01:00

               Suppose an Apple

               of Queen Elizabeth I
               who lifted her spirits
               by its smell,
               and a boy tipping
               one after another into
               the pounder, of cider,
               of calvados,
               of Pliny who told
               about those who ate naught
               and lived by
               this smell alone. Suppose
               from a filigree of
               raggedy rows,
               from windfalls pillowed
               beneath
               laden branches,
               one --
               perfect in the palm
               round, firm
               smelling of morning,
               of crispin, ginger gold,
                jonathan, winesap from
               the Shenandoah Valley,
               of gravenstein,
               paula red and ruby jon,
               of peelings yellow, green, red
               and nearly black,
               of firm white flesh
               sweet and tart.
               Crunch.

                            Wanda McCollar

ReadWritePoem post # 103

2009-12-02T18:32:00.011+01:00

                    A Pomegranate, of Course

                    A splendid scrotum of
                    juicy ruby seeds
                    caught Eve’s eye
                    and sin
                    is our penalty.

                   Persephone succumbed
                   to sucking seven juicy rubies
                   in Hades, and
                   Winter
                   is our burden.

                   About a nightingale
                   singing in a pomegranate tree
                   Juliet lied, and
                   lost love
                   is our sorrow.

                   Surely, there was never danger
                   in apples.

                                  Wanda McCollar

NaNoWriMo

2009-12-02T17:35:00.004+01:00

November was National Novel Writing Month. Write a novel during the month's 30 days - 50,000 words required to "win." I managed it - 50,000 words. It became easier as I went along. My characters took up their own lives and trotted off in their own directions. Amazing process.

Of course - it's a jumble of twisted threads - rather like a knitting basket the cat's been paying in. It's going to take patient effort to untangle/edit. And many more words. Tentative title is "Walking Backwards." Could change. -

Monday Memo to Forests Department Chief

2009-08-27T18:42:00.012+02:00

This morning the sun rose
a fraction north
of its normal spot.
You must shift the moss
a bit south on all barks,
reposition those leaves
tending to flip in morning breeze,
you know - aspen, birch.
Redirect the bees,
turn flower faces two degrees-
you can leave the dew alone,
I suppose, it'll be gone soon,
but you'll have to do something
about those birds.

I expect a report by noon.

------------------------------
Headline: Psychologists find Mondays really are tougher at the work place because of demands of the bosses.

Two Tweets and a Twitt from very long ago

2009-08-15T23:40:00.013+02:00

Tweet Tweet Twitt

Yonder she sits at table spoon poised over her hot broth's froth
listening to church bells knoll. Serenity amidst bustle. I think I love her.

Now a knave hitches his sagging hose and approaches his features
coarse his smile salacious. I fling myself at the brazen-faced varlet.

Willie, if you slack your duties I'll clip your tweeter. O woe is me to
have a son who takes up time to rant such foolishness.

Wanda McCollar

The prompt is found here http://readwritepoem.org/blog/2009/08/14/read-write-prompt88-fresh-from-the-wordle-word-bank/

ReadWritePoem prompt # 87

2009-08-13T12:39:00.006+02:00

Wind is a Poet Tonight

rising over the house percussion,
swashing rain against the window,
a snare drum above the bed,
whooshing down spouts,
and in the darkness of that din,
we snuggle tighter, loving
the perfect safety of each other …

No, wait.
Those last two lines
darted in on poetry’s gauzy wings
seeking shelter, but
there’s no truth in them.

... and in the darkness of that din
I raise my voice and
sing an off-key duet with the wind
and its erratic band:
sssssssssshhhhhh under the eaves,
aaaaaaaahhhhh in door cracks,
oooooooooooooooooooo

Wanda McCollar

Read Write Poem, Prompt # 86

2009-08-06T21:03:00.020+02:00

Survival

Grown without roots,

still stalwart in my old age,

I'll fall swiftly.

Good!

That's the advantage for rootless things,

not to be regretted.

The back seat of a blue '36 Buick

was all mine, their tall backs

topped by heads looking forward,

talking forward, were

my parents. We travelled.

Lights racing by as I tucked in

for the night, or shadows scurrying

across hotel ceilings, traffic still passing,

are fondest memories. The murmur

of their voices.

Words were my soil, books

rocks I wrapped around. Friends

blossomed in my mind.

Rootless things do not exist long,

But I do.

Wanda McCollar

Buying Words

2008-06-01T17:34:00.011+02:00

I just bought a word. In the English language, feisty, adj., is now my word. I paid $6.00 for it. After much soul-searching, it was the only word I wanted to own. I wanted it because once a supervisor called me it, and I liked that he did. Of all the 5 million words in the English language, I like best the one my boss called me. Which shows the importance of language in the work ethic, and the surprising weight of semantics in our perception of self. That idea could be explored.

Beyond that is the fact that I could be enticed to actually buy a word. And that I would ponder what word I wanted to buy, would search my soul looking for exactly the word I want for my own, and, delighted to see no one else had taken it, would go through Pay Pal to buy it as quickly as I could set up the purchase. I applaud Paddy Donnelly and Lee Munroe, who are becoming millionaires selling words. They have sold 5,485 words so far at one dollar for each letter. Can you believe this? Visit their site at http://thebigwordproject.com/ But remember, feisty is mine.

Clicking on that word on their website, takes you to my website http://wandamccollar.com/. That's it. That's all it does. But what a magnificent idea. Way to go, guys! However, wherever I encounter feisty in my reading from now on, I'm bound to think, "Hey, where's my royalties?"

Feisty…

my boss called me feisty

spirited, plucky, spunky,

I remember a teacher
we secretly called feisty –
feisty bitch,
and a mettlesome librarian
we named feisty old bat,
but not without modicums
of awe

for both.

Comes from fizzle:
To break wind.

Feisty I am then,
and proud.

I am at the
fizzle stage of my life,
dragging bitch and old bat
along with me for texture.
In time one will bow to the other,
but for now they
laugh together.

I’ll try to keep

farting silently.

Wanda Mccollar

So What's a Birthday Anyway?

2007-09-06T20:06:00.000+02:00

Last entry I talked about my mother's 101st birthday not met. It was a concept comfortably remote. But today was my 76th birthday, and the whole idea of Birthday changed for me today.

I woke this morning expecting e-cards from two children (both over forty, but always my children), and a phone call from the third child - which is their usual recognition of Mom's B-day. And I'm grateful. But, arriving early at my office, I found colleagues dashing mysteriously in and out of the copy machine area, and acting in a most peculiar way. Of course - suddenly, out from the copy area and from the hall they came with a fantastic breakfast of egg and bacon casserole, freshly baked bread, cheeses and cold cuts, a plethora of German fruit-stuffed pastries, fresh fruits and juices, and a cake, light, chocolate-lathered, with not a single intimidating candle on it. There was a regal potted plant of hundreds of purple buds ready to burst into action, and a magnificent purple and pink bouquet of flowers. Cards and gifts. I was speechless. A state I do not often find myself in.

The bountiful remains of that feastly spread invited others to my office all day. They came and pieced at the cake, the cheeses, the ham slices, the fruit - and they stayed to chat. Perhaps a fourth of the faculty came to nibble, and visit. I got very little course work done. Telephone calls: "Happy Birthday, Gramma. In thirteen days we're going to get two hamsters." Another call: "Happy Birthday, Gramma. Do you have a CD of the Phoenix Harry Potter, please, please?" I loved the whole extraordinary day, cherished my grandchildren's greetings. But my surprise was not over yet.

I slipped away from school just before lunch to visit my German doctor's office to pick up a printout of my routine lab results. The receptionist, looking at the CBC on her screen said, "This is your birthday today?" Yes. She came over and shook my hand, wished me a happy birthday. Everyone in the doctor's office (maybe 14 people) stopped what they were doing and came to shake my hand and heartily give me birthday wishes. The doctor himself, obviously summoned, left his patient, came out of his office to shake my hand and wish me a happy birthday and continuing good health. Extraordinary. But my surprise was not over yet.

At home I opened my personal e-mail and was astonished to see birthday greeting after greeting, over one hundred of them, from members of my Catholic parish, from priests across the US, from the local university faculty and staff, and from poets and writers all over the world. I am overwhelmed. Some Good Soul obviously set this e-mail greeting thing in motion, and I'm sure I know who that is. Bless him, and the other Good Soul who planned my birthday surprise at school; they have made me inexpressibly happy.

What's changed? My concept of Birthday. The ritual of one's birth date celebration is more significant than I ever realized. For the recipient, of course, but also for the greatest to the least of the gift-givers, the hand-shakers, the cake-bakers, the message-senders, the energy and time-spenders, and the ones who call grandmother - it's an important brief counter-balance, weighing against an enormity of guff that happens to us the rest of the time. I shall pay more attention to Birthdays from now on.

The Stories We Tell

2007-07-10T05:31:00.000+02:00

Mother would have been 101 today. She died a few years ago, falling a little short of her goal to reach one hundred. The youngest girl and second youngest child in a family of three girls and eight boys, she transformed the playful teasing of seven older brothers into family stories she told us. Like all storytellers, she remembered only the funny, the good, the ironic, and skillfully layered the telling with suspense and dialog. Over the years those stories became well-honed instruments of humor, instruction, tradition.

She knew all about characterization, and so we learned the foibles, quirks, and yes, even virtues, of all our uncles, and our two aunts. She knew the importance of setting: farm life with cows, pigs, horses, an outhouse, and shenanigans became the envy of our city-dwelling childhood. She understood plot and climax - indeed - her tales told were better than bedtime stories read and reread because sometimes a familiar ending already anticipated with glee would have an even more delightful twist. Something she had "just remembered." She was a craftsman. I miss her.

As a storyteller, I don't think I've done as well for my children - but my daughter's children (once again small farm dwellers and world travelers) will have many tales to tell their children.

Happy Birthday, Mother!

Parts Imply There's a Whole

2007-07-09T11:30:00.000+02:00

Synecdoche is a term describing our poetic tendency to allow a part to stand for the whole: "hands were clapping" we say, and assume bodies were attached. Likewise with "There's a hundred head of cattle down by the river." We all understand, although, if you think about it - it's an amusing image.

Synecdoche - a useful device. We sometimes name people for their body parts, or even an entire group of people by a city, "Washington thinks ...", "Hollywood believes ...", and you can think of many more. Synecdoche can border on generalization, humorous or cruel.

But this blog is not about synecdoche, really. No one would read it. It's just a Blog Name not taken by anyone else which implies I'll be talking about little pieces I see that might make up some sort of whole I assume exists. But, perhaps the small part of the pattern we see is all that exists. No whole!

I could have easily named this blog "Slouching Toward Senility," or "Tottering Toward Totality" or some such - but I figured those titles would be even more off-putting. The point is to be read by someone.