I'm trying to revive my blog a bit and I thought this was a good way to start.
So my inspiration this month is poetry, and I'm going to take a line from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and create a poem based on that line. It's challenging, and I hope I'll make it all the way through. Hopefully at the end of this month I'll have enough here for a chapbook, because that's the goal.
So here's the first four:
A to Z Poetry Challenge April 2015
A) April
is the cruelest month
1.
April stands for spring
And spring equals hope
And hope
Well, we know.
2.
There’s a map on my jeans
So I wouldn’t lose
Myself
I forget things easily.
That by something as
Simple as
Breathing or walking
I might disappear.
What did I come in here for?
I want to be
On the floor
I like it there
Inside myself
I can’t see myself with you
Is this what I wanted?
3.
Wearing me with your eyes wanting
Could my emptiness be you-shaped?
So the pain is really
New, bright and shiny as a
Rodeo belt buckle
He still visits though
Still
That’s how I know he cares he
Still
Seeks out the terrain.
Earlier I came across another flash
Someone else in my memory
The other one runs
Like a loop
Up (and down) my thighs
It would be nice to see one
That
Maybe one that
Runs to instead of
Away
B) Belladonna,
Lady of the Rocks
Lady of the pavement, and of birth
Thinking you know how
To solve everything
Left praying, left kicking
And screaming,
Please Don’t.
Belladonna, do you
Wonder how whores live
Glass shards fills you up till you
stop
Them getting their
Needs getting met.
When Belladonna makes people
She cracks them open
Inside the head
From the inside out
Didn’t even pretend
To care.
Where those glass shards
Shred.
Because it will.
Several hundred tiny needles
From every direction
Stabbing you until the day you die.
They come from
From
Living and loving too much
Or not enough
They come from
Puddles from spring mud
and
From the roof
Dripping down
And other people too.
The place where I always head to
Is the swirl
Like the pavement and the wall
All blending together.
Because time stops
Thinking it will stop
I want to be noble, like her
Like that Belladonna chick
I wanna be.
And I would even take the
swirl
Talking from life
Because life is a swirl,
you know
Like a spiral or a
sleeping snake.
I fight myself a lot.
Bottom falling out onto the street
Shredding my palms
And holding myself up just
like I lived before.
C) O
City, City
Evil and sensuous
beneath the fog
Yes there is fog here.
Have you ever seen
Vegas in the fog?
Fog not smog.
So let’s go to Valley
of Fire and be
This.
You know they filmed a
bunch of movies here
Like L.A.’s trashier
cousin
Like the cousin who
wears daisy dukes and
Smokes and Does Things
With Boys.
What is it, like Star
Trek. Some
Western movies.
Twilight Zone, too.
I brought lunch, and
now we are
We are fragments drifting
about the sky
The sin has vanished
The sin has vanished
Everything gets
bleached clean
Pure, bone white and
smooth.
All blue near the land
All blue near the land
Beneath the atomic air
The darkness has fled
before the clouds.
before the clouds.
They’re so fluffy and
chunky like
Japanese pets.
I converse with old
ghosts
beside the water.
(You have to know where to look
In hidden places.)
Before I know what to say, the thought will vanish
opaque and hopeful
over the horizon.
A trace of sadness
Running back or
Before I know what to say, the thought will vanish
opaque and hopeful
over the horizon.
A trace of sadness
Running back or
Down what streets.
I still see
I still see
your face in my mirror
for days after you left
And as I look for familiar
landmarks
I miss him turning away,
I miss him turning away,
And now there’s nothing
in the mirror
At all.
D) Death
By Water
Today I dreamed of houses underground
People lived there
Just living their lives
So focused on the
dream.
I ‘d like to live like that in the land
I ‘d like to live like that in the land
Under the water
beyond your reach
and underneath the ground.
The day was hard
And what was I trying to avoid?
Sometimes I can only see through other people
And what was I trying to avoid?
Sometimes I can only see through other people
Grabbing thoughts
out of the water.
It’s a stream,
see?
It’s not that hard when you
Become transparent.
Become transparent.
Become clear.
The day was hard
Behind the light
Behind the light
Under the water
Invisible hands
reaching through
the stream to get
me
The day will come
again
scared I’ll start
walking out of the world
no words left
In whose heart
the refugee will
take another road
before help could come.
scared I’ll start
walking out of the world
no words left
In whose heart
the refugee will
take another road
before help could come.
No comments:
Post a Comment