Get this: they're up to 575 participating sites over at NaPoWriMo! Today's prompt: Write a poem inspired by the song that was #1 on the day that you were born." Make a mine a "Green Tambourine"!
Onto the poems!
It must have been love
and the breezy projector
screens that made you leave.
You took the backdrop
and the car keys,
but you left me my wheels.
Take the chess board,
but leave the pieces.
It's over now.
You rocked out
at my bedside,
leaving me unsatisfied.
It must have been love,
because what else
would tell us
"Matching haircuts
are okay."
*
True Story Sonnet
Apparently when my pawpaw was a pastor
it was at a joint called Stampede Baptist Church
in a little town called Moody, Texas, a name
that fit. Then he fell in love with another woman
and left the church to get a divorce. The citizens
of Moody dropped their jaws and plenty of opinion
fell out. He never quit loving firecrackers, the kind
you blow up on the 4th of July. Maybe the other
kind too. They stayed together until he died, a failure
of his heart, and we kept visiting her until she died too,
years later, still wearing his ring. Mamaw never spoke
of her that I recall. Run over there now, he’d say,
laughing, lighting the fuses on a bunch at once.
This one’s gonna really wow you.
Posted here.
*
Symbolic Ornithology
Curious how cultures can determine
Deeper meanings for simple beings.
For instance, take the humble bird:
Biologically, they’re feathered vertebrates,
Warm-blooded, with wings, who lay eggs.
And logically, they’d be nothing more nor less.
However, such simplicity is not the case.
Because I can say, with confidence,
That seeing a blackbird or a raven
Would warrant worry, while witnessing
Bluejays and doves in free flight
Often signifies a cause for joy.
Peacocks can flaunt beautiful feathers
And mock buzzards with their timelessness.
And birds of prey personify power.
Why else would eagles and hawks
Be seen as nothing but majestic?
And clichés clench a culture for a reason,
As point-of-view is important to a story
Centered ‘round a beautiful swan
Who perceived itself as an ugly duck.
But are these seemingly arbitrary perceptions fair?
Who says you can’t find a raven gorgeous,
A buzzard pure, a duck majestic?
Why isn’t a peacock’s plumage gaudy,
Or a hawk’s flight innocent?
Can’t doves make mistakes, bluejays die?
Or maybe they’re all just fucking birds.
Posted by Chris here. "I'm the leader of the Hungarian Academy of Science and I will harden your aircraft shelter. I'm 18 and pretty damn gay....I ship a lot. I read a lot. I write a little. There's an about me now!"
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