Month: April 2018

NaPoWriMo – Day 30 (Fascinating Fact)

~ Unwrithings ~ 9 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact. 

I’m in denial that today is the last day of the NaPoWriMo challenge, so maybe tomorrow I will acknowledge that fact. For now, below is my poem about viruses. It draws from the fact that “eight percent of the human genome consists of viruses.” It’s also influenced by Gerald Callahan’s essay, Chimera.

Some of our DNA
are relics of viruses
from past infections
so scientists say.

Envelope viruses like the flu,
carry lipids, protein,
and the stuff of genes,
from the hosts they travel through.

I like to think,
this means:

After years of sharing a home,
and conceivably the flu,
I’ve collected pieces of you,
stored in my chromosomes and genome.

You are not lost, you see,
You make up parts of me, literally,
saved in my “immunological memory.”

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NaPoWriMo – Day 29 (Plath)

~ Unwrithings ~ 1 Comment

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the Plath Poetry Project’s calendar. Simply pick a poem from the calendar, and then write a poem that responds or engages with your chosen Plath poem in some way.

I chose April 2, 1962: “Little Fugue” from the calendar.

Black.
The shape
of bodies
in the
dark.

Black.
Boldness
of a
question
mark.

Black.
Fun nights
with friends
Mourning
how it
always
ends.

Black.
Creased skin
wearing
thin.

Black.
The line
counting
time.

Black.
Waiting
rooms of
empty
tombs.

Black.
Shadows
like crows
circling
life every
where.

Black.
The flame
deprived
air.

Black.
The fear,
I was
never
really
here.

Black.
The keys
I type
for release.

Black.
The words:
remember
me.

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NaPoWriMo – Day 28 (Postcard)

~ Unwrithings ~ 2 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We challenge you to draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard.

Busted out two responses for this prompt.

1.

I still feel the sting on my face where you tried to put me in my place. I lost my words against the hurt. I already knew, I’d leave you. What kind of man does all that he can to bring a woman down? I spent months crawling on your egg-shelled ground. What kind of woman loves this kind of man? I did all that I can to raise you up, with my love, but it’s not enough.

I’m stronger than you think. I’ve got a voice and I want to speak. By the time you get this letter, I will be somewhere better and the only eggs breaking are for the sunny-side up I’m making.

2.

When I get where I am going, I will say a little prayer, that you get there too.

5-6-Cockburn

 

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 27 (Tarot)

~ Unwrithings ~ 1 Comment

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We challenge you to pick a card (any card) from this online guide to the tarot, and then to write a poem inspired either by the card or by the images or ideas that are associated with it.

Running out of time today, so for this prompt, I reworked a previous piece. I do like the idea of using tarot cards as inspiration for writing so I hope to write more poems later using other cards.

If you want me to,
I will love you.
If you let me,
I will be,
the one you love too.
I would say I do. I do. I do.
If you ever asked me to.

ar06

NaPoWriMo – Day 26 (Senses)

~ Unwrithings ~ 3 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses.

Springling

I don’t want to feel the sun against my face,
offering its warm embrace.
I don’t want to hear the kids outside playing patty cake,
slapping their hands rhythmically,
rabbits purring, or birds chirping happily.

I don’t want to smell the sweet smoke of the first barbecue,
meat patties sizzling, spring’s perfume.
I don’t want to taste the soft serve ice cream,
from the neighborhood Dairy Queen.
I don’t want to see the world turn green,
or clotheslines replacing drying machines.

All that these signs of spring do,
is show that life continues without you.

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NaPoWriMo – Day 25 (Warning)

~ Unwrithings ~ 5 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a warning label . . . for yourself! 

WARNING
Be careful what you say or do,
Or my next poem may be about you.
Leave me mad, sad, or broken-hearted,
I’ll finish what you started
with a few quick key strokes,
I’ll hang you by a metaphorical rope.

easton-oliver-554228

NaPoWriMo – Day 24 (Elegy)

~ Unwrithings ~ 2 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: We’d like to challenge you to write an elegy – a poem typically written in honor or memory of someone dead. But we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy that has a hopefulness to it. 

I decided to write a mostly fictional elegy for the purpose of this prompt and to have hopefulness!

You always kissed me goodbye,
no matter how early, or late, or angry.
You didn’t only give the shirt off your back,
you opened your wallet, you home, your everything,
to everyone.
“It’s the right thing to do.”

You didn’t complicate things.
You kept your moral compass with you, always.
It guided you in every action you took,
and in every word you spoke.

You spoke numbers like words,
adding complex numbers in your head
as easily as saying, “I love you.”

I loved the way you laughed at your own jokes,
far longer than acceptable,
and yet I couldn’t help but laugh with you,
even if we looked crazy together.

And that crazy hair of yours,
how it stood straight up,
always at attention, just like you.

It didn’t matter how many years we got together,
it was never going to be enough.

I still see you though,
in her,
in the times she floods my cheeks with kisses,
in how she says hi to everyone, offering her smile,
and nothing but the truth,
in the math tests she aces without studying,
in the way her nose scrunches when she laughs,
and in her musket-brown, wild hair.

You live on still.
You bubble through her veins.
She inherited your goodness,
your life,
and sometimes that seems like enough.

photo-1518517975499-e631de402415Photo by 

NaPoWriMo – Day 22 (Impossible)

~ Unwrithings ~ 5 Comments

Today’s National Writing Poetry Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Take one of the following statements of something impossible, and then write a poem in which the impossible thing happens. 

I read this prompt first thing this morning so I could ponder it all day and brainstorm an idea by nightfall. But alas, nothing has come to my mind yet so I am winging it! I chose the “The stars cannot rearrange themselves in the sky” statement.

I always saw the stars as scrambled in the sky,
until I saw them through your keen eyes.

You pointed out Orion,
with his belt of three stars in a row,
and the Big and Little Dippers,
with their handles and bowls,
and The Twins, two stick figures,
with their arms stretched far,
and The Bull with his v-shaped face,
found first by locating the large red star.

It seems stars can rearrange themselves,
I’ve seen it so myself,
I wonder now, what else I’ve missed as remarkable,
because of what I thought impossible.

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NaPoWriMo – Day 21 (Myth)

~ Unwrithings ~ 4 Comments

I cannot believe we have hit the three-week mark of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)! Woohoo! Reading the seriously amazing responses others have to the NaPoWriMo prompts really inspires me to keep at it.

Anyway, today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is: Write a poem that plays with the myth of Narcissus in some way.

I liked the story of Echo in the myth and I originally wanted to do a longer piece for this prompt. However, time is limited so I’m going to go with what I have in my head right now and write more at a later date!

I once asked,
“Why do you love me?”
You said simply,
“Because you love me.”

Your love only an echo of mine,
And sometimes,
I don’t know if I have enough,
for the both of us.

MikeWaterfall