Drawing a Line in the Sand (NaPoWriMo)

Well, tomorrow begins National Poetry Writing Month, and I’ve decided at the last minute to take part.  As those of you who stop by from time to time no doubt have noticed, my posting frequency has taken a nosedive recently.  I’ve been overloaded. Overworked.  Overstressed.  Too many things all at once - one VERY good thing coming up, one very sad thing, two relatively neutral but high-intensity disruptions, two anxiety-inducing but ultimately out of my control stressors, and one big thing that’s both good and bad.  This is the first time I’ve ever had to juggle so many emotionally charged things at once, and I must admit that I don’t think I’m managing it all so very well.  And my writing has suffered.  It’s been hard to get started.  The words have been hard to find.  I don’t want to write about the BIG things, because they’re too raw still, or feel overly melodramatic when written down, or perhaps I’m just so exhausted by thinking about them all the time already that I don’t feel the urge to write about them too.  But on the other hand, my mind is so overfull with those things that I can’t concentrate on anything else, either.  What’s a girl to do?

 Well, I know the answer.  Just write anyway.  Do it, no matter what comes out.  Some of it will be swill.  Some of it won’t.  It doesn’t matter.  I just need to find the discipline somewhere in me to get it started, and I know that once I do, it will help me.  So, here goes.  Thought I’d better make a big freakin’ deal of announcing it or I’d almost certainly never get the oomph going to actually do it.  So…

For the month of April I will write one poem a day. 

I may not post every day - in fact, I almost certainly will not, because of one of the obliquely mentioned things above will take me out of town and away from the computer sometime this month.  But I will write every day.  I will.  I know I will, and now you do too.

That is all.  Carry on.

Real Love (I)

Sometimes we argue.
Sometimes I get mad and yell
At you in my frustration and
Sometimes you shout back but
Before long there’s a subtle shift -
I can tell those damned smile lines
Are gathering in the corners of your eyes
And then I know I’d better keep
My own averted while I muster up
Another volley or I’ll surely
Succumb to your good humor,
Betrayed by traitorous lips that
Turn upward of their own accord,
And I’m not ready for that yet.

How Many Miles have you Flown to Rest Here in my Hand?

On Satisfaction

She got tangled up in her dreams, sometimes.
It wasn’t because of money (or the lack of it).
It wasn’t about the time that dreaming took or the
Thousand other things that drew her gaze away.
She didn’t know quite what it was about,
To tell the honest truth,
But she understood this much –
Sometimes the life you want to live can drag you down.
And perhaps tomorrow wishes would come true,
But for today, this life was enough.

-~-~-~-~

Three Word Wednesday prompt: money, tangled, understood

She was Born with It

I can see her there astride the pony,
Sullen fingers entwined in its coarse mane,
Her scowl a hint of stubbornness to come
Into full blossom in her later years,
As her triumphant ride around the lot
Was ruined by the smooth refusal of
The thin-lipped brunette handler to let go
Of the reins and let her ride unfettered
By the strictures of the grownups’ fears that
Clearly failed to take into account the
Strength of her belief that she could do it
Solo as a big girl of almost two.

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For Sunday Scribblings

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This week we were invited to choose from among all of the previous weeks’ prompts at Sunday Scribblings, and I immediately gravitated toward “earliest memory.” The above is mine. While some of my early “memories” are probably not truly memories of my own, but rather constructed from the stories I’ve been told about my childhood, this one is definitely real – I remember my mother being surprised when I asked her about it, and having to think hard to remember enough about it to verify that, yes, it had happened. It was a pony ride at a McDonald’s when we lived in New Jersey, an unusual occurence that was also easy to pinpoint in time, as we moved out of state not long after I turned two.  My second real memory is from the day of my brother’s birth when I was barely three, but that’s a story for another time!

Sometimes Things End

It began with that,
A sullen mantra that chased her
Home through darkened streets,
Slipping catlike past her feet
And into her apartment where it
Joined her as she lay in her small bed
And stared for endless hours at the ceiling.

Sometimes things end.
Sometimes they change,
And realistically she knew
That changes can be good
But not this change,
Not this one,
Not right now.

Perhaps tomorrow she would wake
Refreshed and ready to confront
The strange new patterns of
An irrevocably altered world.
But who could blame her if tonight
It was all that she could do
To keep on breathing, keep on
Pressing her numb fingers to her chest,
Searching for the comfort of
At least one constant, after all,
At least one rhythm that would carry on.

-~-~-~-~

Three Word Wednesday prompt: apartment, began, numb

A Flower of a Different Sort (Color Inversion)

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Photohunters prompt: different

On Chemistry

I don’t recall the particular mix
Of chemicals I poured that day.

You lit the burner to add some heat
While I stirred and stirred and stirred,

The rhythmic clink of glass on glass
Punctuating the silence as we peered

Anxiously into the simmering brew
And hoped we’d got the solution right.

I don’t remember how long it took
For us to produce the desired result,

Whether we wore our goggles or
Who else was in the lab that day,

But I do remember the feel of
Your fingers brushing my neck

As you gathered my hair in your hands
And held it away from the flame.

I always loved you a little for that.

-~-~-~-~

Sunday Scribblings prompt: The Experiment

How Many Seasons’ Turnings Have Our Silent Elders Seen?

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Lensday prompt: wood

Broken Sofa

I think of them sometimes, two boys just this side of cynical
Enjoying the stares from passersby as they recline on their prize -
A garish green vinyl couch with pumpkin-colored cushions -
Right there on the sidewalk where they’ve stopped to rest
For a few minutes before shouldering their load again,
Stopping once or twice more on their slow way home.

Once there they’ll install the beast in the basement with pride,
Extolling its colorful assault on the senses as its most pleasing quality,
At least until a couple of weeks later when its front legs give out,
Splaying forward like poor Bambi on the frozen pond,
Lending it a bewildered air that strikes the boys as endlessly hilarious.

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Three Word Wednesday prompt: twice, rest, sidewalk

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P.S. - The laptop is back as of this afternoon, yippee!! So I’m back, though probably not as prolific as usual for a while as I catch up on work that was delayed by the computer’s absence. I’ve missed blogging - it’s good to be here again.