It’s Here!
National Poetry Writing Month
Fun for the whole family! My sister intends to match me, poem for poem, in the comments section of each of my posts. Mind you, this is NOT a competition. I have to be very clear about that and remind myself that this is about playing with words, creative collaboration, cleaning my windshield of mud and fear and stuff that gets in the way of my recognition of the wonderful ideas that I, even I, have shining on the horizon. I remind myself of this several times a day because my older sister is brilliant and has always been better than me at everything. Of course, that’s entirely my own hangup. I admit it, and I’m old enough now to face it head on. Right? Right!
I am using a very inclusive definition of “poetry” here. In other words, I’ve never been a student of poetry, I don’t know form and rules, but as a singer, I like words and rhythm. As a visual person, I like icons and imagery. Any formation of symbols that produce an experience can be called poetry in my definition. Also, it’s understood that any poetry posted here is copyrighted. If it’s not original, I will site the source.
I am tickled that this event is starting on a Sunday. Such creative connotations! And on April Fool’s Day, just so that we don’t take our creativity too seriously. I self-published a book of Poems and Parables back in 1997. This was the first one:
God is a poem
Infinite in meaning
Economical in expression
Clothed in symbol and harmony
A breathing Word
Engaging all perception
Today’s prompt is “Carpe Diem”, with a reference to Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress. I have to admit that my brain first translated that Latin phrase as something like “Fish Gods”. You know, Carp Deities. ‘Fish gods’ sounds like ‘fish guts’. I was going down that path for a while. But then, I remembered a conversation I had at breakfast with Steve about childhood development. We have often referred to ourselves as 3 and 4 year olds. He’s 3, and I’m 4. I got a chart of early childhood characteristics at my last teacher training session, and we talked about how the descriptions fit us. I often feel like we’re trying to get back to those authentic ideas of ourselves and that maybe, eventually, we’ll become infants again and live as though we were not separate at all from the environment.
So all that musing is background. I began composing my first lines in the bathtub. Here’s what I penciled in my notebook when I dried off:
My three-year-old comes out to play
With ne’er a thought about the day,
For what is ‘think’ or ‘time’ or ‘how’?
The only thing is ‘this right now’.
My three-year-old, with eye and ear
Stays open’d wide to what is here.
Experience is all, you see.
That three-year-old’s inside of me.
Sniffing a Ponderosa pine in New Mexico. Steve told me it smells like vanilla. I had to find out. I agreed. (photo credit: Steve)
scillagrace 
Scilla sniffs and sniffs,
sniffs some more and stretches
Scilla eats and eats,
eats some more and retches.
A 3-year-old just doesn’t know
enough’s enough.
Scilla needs
to
go
slow.
Take time to eat and drink
and even more
to think!
Oh, Brava, Helen!!! I’m so delighted you came out to play! And you hit the nail on the head. “Slow down” is what I continually tell my 3-yr-old!
don’t expect it every time !!
it just flowed out of me ( as you can tell cus it ain’t pretty poetry !) took me all of 5 minutes!
Fair enough. I know the feeling of “shotgun poetry” taking over.
What a fun start…..and you nailed the prompt, which I passed on. Cause deep down I’m chicken when it comes to all this and thats in thirty days. Nice going.
Regards,
Thanks, Doug. I hear you passing up “this and that”; I read your stuff and I think “Charles Bukowski”. Is that more like you?
Haiku A Day:
Carpe: “seize, pluck, cull,
gather.” I’d rather gather
days that I can keep.
And which days would those be??…. (what else would I expect from a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a tortilla? 😀 )
The ones I remember, I suppose?
Ah. “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce (Alice & Mike’s song) comes to mind. Tomorrow it’ll be triolets. Join me?
For sure. I like the repeating forms– triolets, villanelles, etc. Challenge— be a rockstar and bang out a sestina!
I had to look that one up…very complex, but it comes with a road map, so it’s not impossible. Maybe that’ll be one of the prompts this month!
Carpe diem
Seize the day
Latch on and tear the truth out
from each single moment in case it is the last
until you’ve lived hard
died young
and left a beautiful corpse,
which, in fact I haven’t
and my teeth don’t need to lock so hard
anymore
as the wrinkles fold in onto themselves
and it doesn’t matter so much if I take this day
for there will be another
as there have been so many others
and I can let a crappy diem go by
without a single rueful sigh
for what I coulda woulda shoulda had to do
I just breathe once more
and in my slow exhale let go
this day unseized
then sip it slow
across my tongue to slide against my palate
pressing clear up to my brain
each little whiff of scent
on a trail of where I’ve been and where I might go
not beagle streak but bloodhound sure
that each day will lead into a grave
which I will lay in gratefully
having learned my resquiscat in pace
over the many days and hours
I’ve lived and died in the here
not in the hereafter.
*requiescat (damn spellcheck didn’t catch that one)
Favorite bits:
“crappy diem” … taking into account the suffering seized along the way, exhaled.
“I’ve lived and died in the here, not in the hereafter.” Yes. Oh, yes.
Brilliant, as I expected. 😉
I take it DKK is beloved sister??
Excellent poem whoever it is.. 🙂
( not a five minute job methinks!)
Oh, yes!
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Thanks for letting me camp out in your blog today and read your poetry. I had a great time and hope I left my campsite clean enough for your next visitor.
Oh, campers are extremely welcome, especially the conscientious kind! Thanks for appreciating the surroundings!