NaNoWriMo Post 6

They say I need to talk to a picture for this exercise.


Like Richard Corey, you were the envy of your generation.
You had it all - the women, the booze, the drugs, money,
success. You even had a child and the beginnings of a family.
Like Richard Corey, you threw it away. Was it a momentary impulse?
What did you feel and think when the first pellets broke flesh. Was it
a fast death? Did you find the relief you looked for?

Now a generation weeps and worships you.
The cult of the dead has found something of worth there.
Are you out there with Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin? Have
you joined the pantheon of dead poets, made immortal because
their poetry never reached maturity?

Nanpwrimo Post 5

Magdalena

Magdalena hurts. She pains me. The memory nags at me like an unturned screw, like a jacket with a closed sleeve.
How long has it been now? Decades! We walked together a long way, matching our paces. There was a point of
convergence when it seemed we two were one.

Magdalena hurts. In her heart, she aches for times now lost. She looks at her children with love, but thinks
often of what they cost her. She dreamed the big dream - career, money, fame. She laid the framework for
it all. Then he came, and everything was abandoned. And now, she looks at her children with love but thinks
ever of what they cost her.

Magdalena remembers the flags waving in the wind, and a kiss that made her laugh. Sunrise by Lake Michigan,
bittercold mornings with glasses iced over, being lead like a blind woman home. And she misses, as do I, the old
navy blue pea coat that warmed us both on many afternoons.

Magdalena goes to church and does penance for her longings.
Hail Mary, full of grapes, blessed is the fruit of the loom, Jesus!
Was she real? Was she ever real? Or did I dream her?

Magdalena 2

I was writing letters to you yesterday, in my journal.
I no longer know your address, or where you've gone in your
life, but eve now, now that decades have passed, now that I
am old and carry a potbelly, now that my voice is broken and
my vision blurs, and each morning becomes a tired ritual, fueled
by pills and remedies, I still talk to you in my book.
In my dream, you were chasing a spark. You caught it in a tiny box,
full of dry wood shavings and you blew on it to fan it into flame.
"This," you said, "Is faith. I will keep it close and fan it every chance
I get." Then you walked away without a backward glance.

Magdalena 3

I was washing clothes in the basement with Tony. We heard sounds on the
stairs. I looked up to see Magdalena dressed in a loose Marquette sweatshirt
with a crucifix around her neck. She also wore a headband in imitation of
Olivia Newton John. She stormed into the laundry room, stalked past us to
a dryer, swiftly took her things then stormed back out again. I asked Tony
"What was that all about?" He just shrugged. Then I said "She's cute isn't she?"
Tony grimaced and said, "No she isn't!"

Outside/Inside

Outside/Inside
I was walking on the outside. The perimeter was warm and breezy.
The fence went on for miles, past the old watchtower, down into the
canyon. On the inside of the fence, there were cattle grazing. I stepped
in close to the fence, and held my hand out, and one of the calves walked
over to me. I grabbed a handful of grass, and fed her before walking on.

I was walking on the outside. All around me, desert, mountains. I was
dreaming on the inside, remembering beloved city streets in a snowstorm.
Looking up on the outside, I saw an eagle riding thermals. Looking up on
the inside, and identical eagle. In a memory as clear as present vision, I watched
their paths converge. How is it that and eagle here and and eagle there would follow
the identical trajectory?

In the vestibule I had to wait for someone to come and get me.
The building wasn't mine, you see. Alone I had no access.
The woman in the snow white blouse handed me a clip-on
visitor's pass. The hallways were long and spotless, and it was so
quiet you could hear a fairy scream. In the office, they had already
reviewed my resume. As we began my throat became dry. Soon I was
croaking out words with inarticulate gasps for breath. And in my mind
I saw doors slamming shut. On the face of the interviewer I saw a shift
from keen interest to first puzzlement and then disdain. Everything turned
then to small talk. When I left, they said they'd call me. They said they would
but I know from experience that they will not and that my own calls will go
unanswered. When I got home that day, I immediately got out a pen and
wrote for hours because here and here alone my voice is still strong.

Acronym RWP

They say that the world will end if
global warming isn't stemmed.
Everyone seems to have forgotten the
Roman Warm Period
When winters were mild
and the temperature of the planet
was 12 degrees hotter than it is now
Yesterday I read that there are olive groves
in Great Britain.
Yesterday I read that the tempest in
my teacup was due to global warming
And a so called scientist saying that
the Roman Warm Period
need not be referred to when studying
the current crisis.

iPod Poem

I remember once we said the moss would never grow on us.
And yet, for a time we took the yoke.
Well I was bound but now I'm Free, by my own choice
although She Said It Was Destiny.
And You and I can still walk
that ancient road, with the Gin Soaked Boy who never settles down
but Like a Rolling Stone keeps his feet on the path and never
diverts.
And has our captivity changed our chemistry?
Are you still the only catnip for me?
Is your soul as pure as it was in youth?
And have youthful diversions ripened into truth?


(todays challenge was to put my iPod on "shuffle" then incorporate the first five song titles, unchanged, into a poem. )