NaHaiWriMo 2012 Week Four

Feb. 22: vent

cool morning air
through the open door
magpies calling


February 23: Today's writing prompt is to write mischievously about a cross-eyed paleontologist studying a one-legged rhinoceros beetle nibbling an Egyptian mummy’s shoulder blade during the summer solstice on Mars, and be sure to refer to a mega-hard Sudoku puzzle, torn Monopoly money, and a vampire, plus a Mongolian-speaking Nobel prize-winner who dances polkas whenever he hears “Moves Like Jagger” on bagpipes or the Macarena song performed on an out-of-tune Northumbrian squeezebox underwater. And be sure to type in your poem with your nose while singing a Broadway show tune, since you should now have plenty of practice at doing exactly that. Anything less and I shall be supremely disappointed. Just kidding. Again. Instead, write about . . . a wig.

on Mars
summer solstice
red-hot

cross, I
watch rhino beetles
unwrap Mummy

crosswords please
not Sudoko numbers
too cryptic

blood money
vampires tear into
Monopoly

Obama now
moves like Jagger
dancing underwater

peace prize winner
out of tune with the people
faces new battles

the squeeze is felt
in Outer Mongolia
Pandora’s box

bagpipes
or Macarena ...
let’s just polka

nobody knows
the trouble I’ve seen
typing practice

haiku prompts
after 23 days
I flip my wig


Feb. 24: [the letter] x

exhausted
we cuddle in sleep
the cats purr


Feb. 25: yellow (must use the word)

yellow rose
golden in my poem
I was eight


Feb. 26: zip

humid evening
at the end of summer
I’ve lost my zip


Feb. 27: bad haiku


His Eyes

his diamond-bright eyes
are giving me gorgeous goose-
bumps when I see them


Love

love is the greatest
power in the universe
it will cure all ills


An Encounter

her dress was yellow
the autumn day was mellow
his eyes smiled hello


Feb. 28: make a ‘generated’ haiku ( from http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/default.htm ) more literary

original:

dreaming plum giggling
tugging bronze unbroken bride
palpitates softly

mine:

plum blossoms
cover her in white ...
soft laughter

**********

asleep
by the bronze statue
her soft breathing


Feb. 29: leap

stray duck in traffic
I pray
for a flying leap

NaHaiWriMo 2012 Week Three

Feb. 15: opera

never heard
that performance we missed
I don’t forgive


Feb 16: pool

new acquaintance
neighbour with swimming-pool
instant best friend


Feb. 17: queue

crossing our legs
too few cubicles
penis envy


Feb.18: rattle

in my Melbourne
the old red rattlers
went the distance


Feb. 19: sandal

a lone sandal shuffles in the tide


Feb. 20: talus

the hill
in the big rain
falls downhill



Feb. 21: umbrella

useless
my umbrella
in the wind

Cobwebs and flames: American Sentences Feb. 2012

Cobwebs and flames tattooed on his legs belie the calm look on his face.  15/2/12

My heart always lifts when I hit sea air; I grew up on an island.  17/2/12


Submitted Nov. 2013 for dVerse Meeting the Bar: American Sentences

On Riverview Road

(just round from the High School)

The smell of sweet sap

grows stronger daily as I drive past

where council workers 

are clearing toppled trees

that came down with half the hillside

after the last big rains.

It used to be a quarry.

Boulders fell down too.

When the clear-up began,

orange earth movers crawling about

half way up the hill 

looked like matchbox toys.

Today it was all smooth.

By late afternoon

even the sap smell had gone.

Now this patch of hillside 

has no trees at all, not one. It looks as if

it will collapse even easier next time.


Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #87

NaHaiWriMo 2012 Week Two

Feb. 8: hat

my sun-hat

hangs on the doorknob

summer rain

Feb. 9: ice

except in drinks

I don’t see ice any more

I’m glad to say

Feb. 10: jam

jam tomorrow

adds extra flavour

to pie in the sky

Feb. 11: kitchen

noisy cats

prowling the kitchen

plead starvation

Feb. 12: laundry

rain again

chairs and door handles

dripping cloth

Feb. 13: mountain(s)

on my wall Roland

painted by my late father

my old favourite

I walk out my gate

turn and greet our guardian

friendly Warning

Feb. 14: nachos

ah! Tex-Mex

the flavour of Austin

remembered

Generational Adolescence

I was just fifteen

when everything changed –

when freer children,

who were allowed to go

to movies like that,

leaped up and jived in the aisles

to Rock Around the Clock,

even – or especially –

in staid country towns

around regional Australia.

I was still fifteen

when Elvis arrived.

Handsome as the devil;

voice of an angel.

The mothers and fathers hated

his slim gyrating hips.

We loved the tilt of his lips,

the wicked light

in his laughing eyes,

and the singing, the songs, the beat.

At seventeen

I moved to Melbourne.

Every Saturday night

there was a Town Hall dance.

Hawthorn, Caulfield, Albert Park, Box Hill.

Diane Rosewall and I went to them all.

We wore circle skirts, wide belts,

flat ballerina slippers,

and white flouncy petticoats

hemmed with ropes.

We were good middle-class girls.

One night two real-live bodgies

claimed us for a dance.

Oh how those wild boys moved!

swinging us through their legs

and up on their hips.

Oh how we twirled and swirled.

But we must have seemed tame to them.

They thanked us very politely

and went hunting faster girls.

Tall lads they were,

in the extreme of fashion:

skinny black pants, long jackets

with shoulder pads and shiny lapels,

their hair slicked back

into lovely ducktails.

Oh how our careful parents

would have disapproved!

That makes anything

more exciting.

Or anyone.

I ended up choosing men

who worked with their bodies,

rode motorbikes,

knew how to use their fists;

men who swore.

Later I preferred

beards and flowing hair.

I wore long robes. We sat and smoked

in dark coffee lounges, listening to Folk.

But that was after the era ended;

the wild boys and girls and the rest

all sang "That'll Be the Day,"

and cried when Buddy died.

And it doesn't matter where I am,

every time the band

plays Rock Around the Clock,

I'm up and dancing

and shouting the words

till I drop. Till the broad daylight.

Written 14-15/3/07; posted now to accompany previous post, Face to Face, 
and submitted along with that to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #86 
(not #87, sorry for posting wrong  link there; try the next).

Face to Face

for Diane

It’s raining again. The clouds

cover the full moon’s face.

But I can’t be cast down tonight —

my friend, fifty years gone,

found me tonight on facebook.

Her face, so long unseen,

looks very much the same

as that girl’s whom I remember.

Only five years ago

I wrote her into a poem

of her and me as young things,

going dancing. She tells me now

I haven’t changed much either,

the years have been kind. (We put

our best photos on facebook.)

But yes, the years have been kind. 

The face of the Lady Moon

will not stay hidden long. In any case,

tonight my heart is dancing

like a young thing, like a girl.

For I know that faces return

and are recognised. 

How lovely the face of my friend — 

my friend who is named for the moon.




Submitted to dVerse OpenLink Night #30

and to Open Link Monday at imaginary gardens with real toads 
and also to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #86

NaHaiWriMo 2012 Week One

February is National Haiku Writing Month — except it's international — hosted on facebook, with prompts, by Michael Dylan Welch.

Feb. 1: apple

one bite
out of the apple
squirts juice


Feb. 2: boat

moored
three masts
moonlit


Feb 3: catfish

I cannot catch
the unseen catfish
in verse


Feb. 4: any kind of dog.

small timberwolf
self-possessed as a cat
I still miss you


Feb. 5: egg

eating the unborn
I prefer brown skins
in eggs as in men


Feb. 6: frame

only at the joints
of this expansive structure
we see the fine bones


Feb 7: grief

reports of her death
greatly exaggerated
grief instantly cured