24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Born in Toronto Canada, Living in japan I need to feel the anxiety of a deadline to push me... at least I think I do. So I joined this year. I have a short story I'm working on currently and I've been delving into some themes in my reading - ideally, myth making and archetypes, and am really interested in developing a personal arsenal of theme and content to build in some weighty signposts in my writing. I feel we all have these already, somewhere, but I want to see, under pressure, how they surface in my writing. Will they be predictable, or change and twist and fold. I'm curious to find out.
Fleshy
Wet
Meat
Curling
The plumpness of the lips–the vocal orifice
Creation of meaningful sound is not only knowing the word, but feeling the weight of it.
A push of the air dependent on the pull of the mouth.
Sometimes perverse, always personal — like kissing the air in creation.
She get’s distracted by it, and has trouble paying attention to the real news.
The manifesto from the screens, dissolving resolutions
Entertainment breaking the then news
Jostling, packing, and filling the spaces — pop-up ads for the mind
As they all are.
Click here, here, here, here, and here.
Thank you for your ethos . . . . . . . .
the dotted line, signed away
every morning with a swipe.
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this was Prompt #4 – Grab a book from your shelf. Read the last line in it. You have to use that line as the first or last line of your poem (with credit).
The first line of this poem was borrowed from Margaret Attwood’s short story, “Hack Wednesday”. It ends the short story collection Wilderness Tips.
You are a pair of legs pegged beneath gunwales up ahead in the forest. You with your canoe-head where forward is easy.
Did we bring the right things? Paddles, fishing-rods, and something to light the fire.
Did we remember everything? Cans of deviled ham, musk oil, and rope.
Was it a useful checklist or a collection doomed? Fuzzy-peach gummy candies and the worn out tarp that was “better than nothing”.
So the canoe sank heavy into the surface, tipping left and right, with our leans and dips, and our paddle strokes.
Pulling us, by hand, and arm, and bodily forward.
Gliding, softly above the black.
I know where I want to go. At least I think I do.
These conversations with the page. But it’s out of my control.
You see, these words are not my own, and they tend to be unruly. Pulled and twisted as they are from the silence, where they want to be. left alone, in the dark. I think.
They like it where the potential is. Out here, I don’t think they like the abuse.
It’s not their fault, of course. They’ve been weighted in other peoples mouths. Someone else’s lip curling phoneme memories. Sneering and sliding the significance of histories.
So, they’ve learned to play tricks. Some bulging heavy and bursting out bloated, spilling upon on the page. Others gracefully elusive, as if lifting with dust motes before imperceptibly landing with precision where they want to be.
Dictionaries help. So does spelling. Yet don’t get bogged down by the rules. They won’t. You’re in their territory now.
There’s no travel-guide or how-to-book. Just the yarn and the weaving, and the sticks.
Here, use these.
They are useful