Monday, April 11, 2011

Announcement

Due to the overwhelming activities in my life: finding a church, work, finding more work, training for more work, and other things I will be discontinuing my posts of NaPoWriMo's Poem a Day on this blog and all the other social media networks I use. I will continue to write in my dirty green notebook and in time will post the results on my livejournal. Happy writing to everyone else who is participating. Good luck!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Alison's Garden

NaPoWriMo Day 7#


Alison’s Garden

In Alison’s Garden a young boy lies.
His hands are pressed tightly against his eyes.
He counts aloud as seconds pass (one…two…),
his stocking absorbing the grass’s hue.

Alison waits behind a tree nearby.
Her light grey eyes reflect the cloudy sky.
She focuses her mind upon her plan
to try and catch a cricket in her hand.

She concentrates to keep questions at bay
such like those that plagued her nurse every day.
Once Nurse had had enough she bade her, “Go
to the garden and watch the flowers grow.

Some silent meditation will do you good.
Just do not wander off into the wood.”
(three…four…) Alison ceased becoming bored
once she’d unearthed the garden’s treasured store.

Here she could speak freely amongst the birds
and not fear if she had been overheard.
The rocks never minded her queries like,
“What is love?” and “How does the sun alight?”

She thought she heard her mother’s chiming voice
calling to her upon the wind, “Rejoice
my love for every single dawn.
And do not believe those who say you’re wrong.”

Alison oft retold tales from the past
whispered by her ill mother to the last.
By her bedside Alison listened rapt
as her mother unspun yarns so long trapped.

“There was a girl called Alice the Mighty
who lived with your grandparents by the sea.
She loved to sit in her garden and read
And dream of different worlds inside her head.

One day her cat, Dinah, saw a rabbit
and this one had a very nasty habit.
He could never keep time so he was late.
She followed him to the wood (seven…eight…)

She fell down a hidden hole, long and dark.
She grasped for purchase but only felt bark.
She stopped, unlocking a door in the tree.
Oh, my daughter, what worlds there were to see.”

Her mother’s tales comforted Alison
when nights were long after her Mum had gone.
The girl had always thought that she would find
her mother past the world she’d left behind.

A place filled with wonders:  red and white queens,
the most mad tea party you had ever seen,
hatters, mice, Cheshire cats, croquet, glass vials,
singing flowers, changing sizes, and trials.

(nine…ten…) “Here I come!” the white-haired boy cried.
Alison, snapped from her daydreams, replied,
“Cabbot, I’m late!” through the trees she’s running.
The woods were calling and rain was coming.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Library Meeting

My fifth entry for NaPoWriMo was the haikus I posted earlier this week. Here is #6

Library Meeting/Allegro

646 Sewing, clothing, personal living 

Surrounded by women adorned in this year's 
most fashionable glasses, the meeting begins.
You can separate the Adults from the Young Adults
by the elders' preferences for lumberjack flannel and black cardigans.
The young favor argyle and band t-shirts (bravely worn by the
only man in the group). He does not wear glasses.

973 General history of North America; United States

The only article to distinguish the founding matron, 
the fearless leader, of the pages is not what you might think.
No royal purple, no carriage nor demeanor separates her from 
the rest of us, except her Delilah long hair
which she does not cut, to give her strength.
She leads the discussion during this gathering, this mock tea party.

In my opinion, meetings should be conducted only once everyone
has donned a silly hat.
Instead there are colorful lanyards, necklaces, earrings, 
and oversized watches to distract the eye while laboring 
over library standards.
Throughout the suggestions and mandates 
the founding matron listens to all 
with an impartial ear and a patient face.
No hushed tones nor whispers, "Shhhhhh", are heard.

530 Physics

As the meeting continues the pages are separated, for a time,
from the law of the library, entropy.
The library thrives only when patrons come to discover and destroy
the ordered world that we have built for them.
They are agents of chaos in their pursuit of knowledge.
The library mages and pages are the Lords and Ladies of Order,
finding space for the treasured knowledge amidst the cramped shelves
so that it may be perused, purchased or pilfered.

The tallest towers made from books are built every day
and knocked down again by the smallest pairs of hands.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

NaPoWriMo Day #3 and #4

Day #3 - I based this poem around a boy I was dating at the time. Our relationship was complicated and felt off in many things, but our passion for alcohol and the sexual tension was not among these things. This is an acrostic for those of you keeping track with poetic form.

In your company (with a bottle of wine)

Whether you tower or kneel before me, with such yearning upon your face, all
I can do is fasten my hand to the banister to prolong the inevitable paralysis. Alas, no
natural remedy exists for lack of equilibrium except the pillars of your arms. Such, div-
ersions cause dizzying divisibility between rationality and desire; circling ever close.
Stricken of sobrietal sense I breathlessly await our collision against the weight of the door.
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Day #4 - This sonnet was inspired after watching an episode of Heroes and thinking more about the idea of folding 1,000 paper cranes, about what one might wish for, and if a person's faith in this ritual could change overtime.

1,000 paper cranes

I dreamed I made a thousand paper cranes
Wishing that at the end I would find you.
They sat in lines along my windowpane
as vigilant and patient sentries do.
I almost stopped after I folded two,
the appropriate number in my mind.
“Better to have too many than too few,”
I thought, laying them aside intertwined.
At five hundred my floor became confined.
So from the ceiling they hung, swinging low.
The more I made the more they were refined.
My hopes rose as high as the piles could grow.
I woke and swore my faith would not diminish,
but it’s been months since the last crane was finished.

NaPoWriMo Day #1 and #2

I'll try to hammer these out now since I have to sleep eventually. I might be restricted to only writing these poems on a dirty green notebook I've been carrying around with me since grad school. A lot of drafts get lost in there.

Day 1# - This poem is taken from my sting at committing to Laurie Halse Anderson's promotion of "WFMAD" (Writing Fifteen Minutes a Day) challenge in August of 2010. You can find her website and her list of prompts at her livejournal, Mad Woman in the Forest. You may also remember her as the author of such books as Speak, Catalyst, Prom, Fever, 1776, Wintergirls and Chains  and Forge. She is not only an author whom I admire very much through her edgy writing for teens but also for her historical fiction for younger readers. I had the pleasure of meeting her at last August's American Library Association conference in DC.This poem was also inspired by imagining how assistants would audition for musicians in the days of Harry Houdini and also taken from watching, "The Prestige".



The Turn

Magician’s assistant, just an average pink haired girl, looking for work.

Heard your name recommended through the networks of stage presence.

I do not know your real name but I have heard of your style

And of how you never smile

Unless you can pull the audience in with the use of your teeth and lips. Promises. Practice, Panache. Performance.

I was drawn in by your confidence and your ability to recognize a confident girl, who knows what she wants and goes after it.

My greatest want is you, in so many words, and in so many ways.

I am eager to learn your ways, to work with you, to figure out how one makes magic possible with trust and implied deceit. I know I am not the only one auditioning for this role, but armed with my references and dressed in my best pressed blue crinoline with my best submissive smile I can show you that I can match you on every level of performance.

I will show you tricks you have never seen nor thought possible. This is what my smile is saying. As I prepare for my audition, drawing you in with my grand gestures and willingness to trust you throughout your tests: sawing me in half, drowning me

Instead of sitting, waiting for you to make your decision I will give you a turn. For two can play the part of the magician.

If I can pierce through your smile, your façade, I won’t show my surprise or my efforts to care whether or not in fact I become your lovely lady, your assistant, your partner.

There are many of us out there, but none quite like me. But only if you can part the gossamer curtains of illusion will you be able to see for yourself.

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Day #2

I believe this poem fits well with the themes of this blog, having to do with books. It's inspired by a story that was eventually turned into a film. My goal was to cast the villain in a more sympathetic light while remaining true to his character's instincts. I also have a huge crush for the actor who played this role in the film adaptation of the book. I've asked a lot of people which literary piece they think the poem is based on and I've heard a few good answers including the correct one.


The Vigil
 

The Princess turns her gaze to look upon the tumultuous sea,
Praying to westerly winds to speed her missing love home.
Each night she wears the path from the castle to the cliffs a little deeper,
Believing every night, that this night will deliver a signal from his ship.

The waves, like her faith, ebb and flow every beacon-less night she endures.
Her only companion the wind and her memories of being enveloped in his love.
Though some believe him lost, she believes his homecoming is merely detained.
She has hope, blind as the night, of one day seeing a beam of light shine across the sea.

Miles away, while the Princess loyally maintains her vigil,
A man keeps his own, awaiting her eventual return.
Winds speedily beckon winter’s chill onward, seeping into his skin as it passes through
Penetrating his meditations within the empty castle’s walls.

In his chamber, he lights candles against the dark.
Meant to serve as a comfort to her, more than him,
should she make her way back before dawn.
This signals, as it always does, that her absence was not missed as much as she.

As a Prince, if only in name, he believes that he too is deserving and capable of love.
But beneath his royally robed exterior, drawing from his most base instinct,
The hunter within indicates not to spend himself in pursuit, but to be still,
and the quarry will approach him in time.

In time, he believes she will care for him as he does for her.
But as more of his nights pass alone, he is aware of his undergrown heart withering
with fear that she will always spurn the hunter’s heart for the love of a dread pirate and
never accept the affections that flesh and blood can offer and a whispering wind cannot.

Despite this fear, and the Prince’s right to be angry and devious, he is not cruel to her.
He knows he cannot, nor does he try to impede her pacing pilgrimage to the cliffs.
Instead, he sends his four fastest ships from port to port to pursue and eradicate her past.
But his faith, as his patient body, grows thin with unfulfilled wanting.

Still he has hope, blind as his foresight that his faith will be assured when
the radiant light from her eyes and the sunlit warmth of her skin entwines with him.
At their corners of the kingdom they conjure their respective fairy tales and pine:
            “If only (s)he would come to me,
            Then we would be truly happy.”






Haikus

I only just head of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) a few minutes ago and I'm very psyched about doing it. I think it will help me get back on the wagon for writing poetry. So, for the sake of this month's artistic expression my normally bookish and library related website is being hijacked to publish entries fro NaPoWriMo. I know I'm a few days behind so I'll post four (hopefully) short poems to catch up. I did actually write a few poems today, though they were haikus. So it's a start...right? Write!

For more information check out the NaPoWriMo website!

Today's poems were haikus. I'll try to incorporate a wider variety of poetic form thanks to the Wikipedia page.


Children grow like lightning.
Is magic or science, then,
why we age slowly?

A uniformed man
walks by. His boots and smile make
the ground and me quake.

Reading “The Room” makes
me feel claustrophobic. The
World waits outside.

I fear I will wear
my second hand wedding dress
just for steampunk walks.