I Suck at Poetry Month (is it May yet?)

There have been times in my life where the muses drop inspiration bombs so frequently I have to stop my day to take dictation. Where everything flows effortlessly and all I do is download and transcribe.

Then there are times like the past few weeks, where all is sludge and my brain boots are stuck. Where I crawl to the page and whinge like I’m doing math homework. (did I pile on enough metaphors for you?)

What I usually tell my students is to WRITE ANYWAY because you never know what’s going to happen if you do. Write when you don’t feel like it, when the good times are gone. So, I’m taking my own advice. Today, I come kicking and screaming to the keyboard. My solace? That I know I’m not the only writer who experiences this. My writer friend Jackie used to say, “Why do I procrastinate doing the thing I profess to love to do the most?”

Ah, writers. We’re funny like that.

Yesterday on READ WRITE POEM the assignment was to find an old poem that you started or abandoned and pick lines or phrases that please you (or don’t please you) and finish the poem or use the parts to create a brand new piece.

So, I picked out a 12 year old poetry journal and found this silly poem called DOG DAYS OF SUMMER and rewrote it a bit.

Be the first person to figure out the method/pattern I used to write it I will send you a poetry package in the mail!

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Do ordinary gatherings differently!
Anchor yanking submissiveness
or fleece someone’s uninvited misanthrope
motivate evermore ridiculousness.

Don’t organize gargantuan dishtowels,
attack your soup over four
Southern Unitarian mystics.
Masticate every rutabaga.

Distance overly garrulous diatribes
and yodel sinfully onto
Finnish sauerkraut. Undulate
mammaries. Manipulate erect rhinos.

Diddle o’er green dewy avons
your saucy offerings.
Flout soliloquies under manifold
moonbeams. Eventfully
regurgitate.

(it almost sounds like something out of Rob Brezny’s Pronoia manual)

4 of 8 of 30 – Catching Up on April’s Poetry Challenge

It’s been so windy in Vancouver lately that the birds have been having trouble flying.

grounded

the crow birds are walking today
on nubbly feet knowing nothing of
the intelligence of water only how
it splashes on their weathered feathers
interrupting their commute

the crows wander the graveyard
this is not a metaphor
I live by a graveyard
and birds often stop to consider the stones
under the wolf-shaped tree
they walk and click thoughts letting
the less solemn swallows audition the air
tossed and dizzy in the april wind

what to do when you’re a grounded bird
and the sky is slouching its good-night
can crows sigh at the moon-rise
constellate against the odds
do they know the meaning
of tempting fate?

April 8, 2010

~  ~ ~

And for the second poem today . . .  since Bryan Borland wrote in yesterday, I’m going to send you over to his site because his work is lovely bite-sized morsels.

here is PILLOW BITER – which has much bang for the buck and made me laugh.