NaPoWriMo: #35 Plumbing rules my existence anymore....

Not brilliant or hilarious, but a little bit lighter. This gal has a lot to work on tonight besides doing this, so this will have to be my last poem this month. (This probably really comes from spending most of my days around middle school boys!)

I’m tempted to keep writing tonight, but I must pour that effort into my grad school studies and otherwise. (Only 15 more days till I take the dreaded math test again!) Goodnight all. Be good to each other. Check back from time to time as I do post poetry and prose up here from time to time. But for now….

It’s All about the Plumbing

Pipes full of suspect wipes

Everything going down the drain

My brain included!

I have eluded to otherwise, but no,

I am not a pro at poo

It is such a stew

To not know how to grow up

Making all breakdowns a big issue

When much is clogged

A bog in my head,

Such a fog,

Then I lie down in bed

And my insides start to rumba

I won’t get no slumber

Over this sticky issue

It is all in my head

Makes me see red

There is a flash in my lumbar

Looking to spar with me

Nope, gotta pee!

I get there feeling relief

And good grief! What is that?

I hit to flush and there is no rush

I have to take off the top

Get a mop and pray

Why can’t this happen in the day?

To bed I toddle after this waddle

Where I sleep the fitful fain

Getting up in pain

My middle is squashed by a chain

Pulled tight

It isn’t the main concern

It doesn’t burn---just heavy

A bevy of suspects I detect

And think I might spend my day in the privy

A chance at not being the resident skivvy

I stretch it out with grumble and pout

Moving despite the internal shout

Uh, gotta run! Something has started to come

Flushed out clean

Ah, serene!

And the toilet went too---yahoo!

Now if the coffee will just help me start

Today, I might sound smart

Caffeine highway, here we come!

Making sure everything is plumb!

NaPoWriMo: #34 For Marty and Kelly

(I promise I’ll try to post something more on the humorous side if I can, tomorrow. I can’t believe the month is over! This is the first April I’ve skipped so many times—sorry.)

For those that only read my blog, I didn’t write last night because I found out yesterday that a dear college buddy of mine died in a car accident. I wrote a tribute to her on my Facebook page and posted pictures, but no poetry.

Last night I did look at a poem I wrote about her in college, but it isn’t very flattering to her at the time, so I won’t post it. It isn’t fair to her. So that one will stay in my journal.

I tried to rough out other poems, but the well is quite dry. I tried to write about my recent friend that died, but then I kept thinking how I found out in January of another college friend that also died---a couple of years ago----but to me it feels recent. And the phrase,”They haven’t died, they’ve gone on…” from some movie popped into my head and I thought what a funny notion. So, here is my attempt at a poem tonight.

Gone On

Two friends have gone on

Unrehearsed

I didn’t know

Both a violent rip

Not a planned trip

One closer to me than other

Pinpoints of time

Hand cut jewels that were mine

Many ideas discussed

And a trust

That was there

Things we shared

Despite how much had gone on

I knew them in the dawn

Of me discovering real

Such appeal to walk

And talk over nothing and everything

They left sudden

I am bereft

Deaf in one ear

Wanting to be near

Now, I cannot

It must stop! Please just stop?

And wait for that train or plane

The trip sounds good

But as I understood

Our reservations are to be so much later

To cross that sea

How can it be?

Two women so strong

Have gone on

And I didn’t know

I was slow to notice

My vote would have been for them to stay

Not go away

A vacation I could stand

I’d hire a band

to welcome them back

Now I’m slack

Here crying in my beer

I should celebrate, right?

Go on all night

Talking about how good they’d been

It’s the trend

I have

But in the quiet

There is no riot

Clamoring for more

Just pictures that don’t speak

And how I seek to know who they were

It is like a burr

Stuck to my pants

Pricking me

in a spot

I can’t quite reach

I know they’ve gone on

And I can’t respond

Like a rock thrown

Deep into a pond

I meant to skip

It makes that sick

Lack of bounce sound

A deep high hitting the ground plink

That stinks and I feel cheated

I want that perfect-in-my-hand rock

To fling and go on zinging

Across to the other side

To go on

Okay, I let you go

And show that I know

Not when but where

You’ve gone on

NaPoWriMo: #33 Stuff, things, and more uh...stuff....

Banged this out in literally less than 10 minutes as I don’t have time tonight to think a lot through writing poems---no thesaurus or rhyming dictionary tonight---nope, just my gut. I’m in the middle of writing a paper and have to get back to it as I’m highly distractible right now. I’m not sure what all of this poem means, but maybe some of you can read it and tell me.

Accumulation of the Heart

The urge to purge surrounds me

It astounds me how much I’ve accumulated

I feel dated by this stuff

And yet I go on

somewhere says it isn’t enough

To bathe in things

That ring round and cause me to dizzy

How to get rid of it

Before it is too late

And someone else at my gate

Sighs saying they don’t know what to do

With my stuff!

Still here I sit

Dripping wet with wiggly wonders

That wanders all over my house

It is surprising we haven’t been

Torn asunder by the weight

Of our collective junk pile

Of what is in and out of style

And is hot and not

It is maddening to think about

When it throws a doubt

About what matters

We are scattered

Inside and out

Still,  I see something with glee

When given to me

And I love to gift things to my friends too

A map, a picture, a pen, a shoe

To pick up the blue

I give with much intended

As I befriended this thing

I bestow on you

And hope that you love it too

I’ve given experiences

But it doesn’t reverse

My pattern of giving something

To someone for that bling

Of enthusiasm

Such sparkle and glee

Pointed towards me

Or away from how deeply

I feel and cannot deal

With the daily dose

Of how to say more

As I’m verbose

On paper

But I’m an escaper

Who would rather give

A token

That might get broken

But with great care

I place it within your reach

So we can bare

What to keep

NaPoWriMo: #32 Middle School Lunchtime

Can you tell I monitor students during lunch? It is fun for human observations.

Second Lunch Watering Hole

Bright, white sun reflecting

Off the blacktop play space

That is overrun by students

Each studying the other

Without saying so

They glow, bow, and imitate

Grown up gesture

Gauged in middle school vernacular

Grouping by the watering hole

After lunch ritual

The packs roaming

Some hogging the shallows

Staking out the best places

They are callow

Growling to strike fear

And no one come near

As they chat

Or hash out the latest spat

They look like the ones

That could eat you alive

But not really

The ones that strive

To stay hidden

Or doing what is forbidden quietly

Those are the ones to flee

They are the wolf pack

Waiting for the weak

This is who they seek

To grab them and drag them under

To drown in the muddy water

Where they plunder

The moral center

Of the innocent

To blacken or slacken

Their convictions

In shouting loud about restrictions

When they can

Or under breath

Like a grain of sand

Working its way

To irritate those that do obey

They try to flay the strays

These calves are the ones that seek the sun

But have so little fun

As they don’t have friends

Well it depends,

If one or two choose

To look their way or move

Then they are in a group

That is searching for a hook

To latch onto

Another person that is more certain,

Who will lead them like they read in books

As they are the ones that stay in the shade

Away from the watering hole

They hide and wait till everyone trades

Glances to say “we’re done”

And go on

Bell rings, the alarm sounds,

And from the middle

One bird flies through in missile flight solo

A clever rook, scattering them all

The last saunter, throwing one more basketball

Taking one more long drink

Before they have to think

Under the placid sun of the watering hole

NaPoWriMo: #31 Birth

I don’t want all of you to think I’m such a sad sack that obsesses on my past miscarriages every time I see one of my friends is having a baby or adding to their children. I think when the miscarriages were the recent past, I was raw and it was very hard. But that is now firmly in my rear-view mirror.

Now, it crops up at the strangest times like when I am most elated for a friend, I get a little sick to my stomach knowing the choices we made after those times of struggling to have another child. It felt like personal failure and several things do---a very hard reoccurring theme to shake in my life.

We could have adopted and nearly did, but it was again, just overwhelming with all of what we were doing. Many of you know my life and I can’t imagine in some ways having another child with us on this journey and in other ways, on the good days, I feel guilty for not having another child here with him, perhaps helping him or us along. 

So, I think that is where this poem popped out last night as I couldn’t sleep---so I wrote it down. I thin k it is also because I had a disappointment this week so, I’m feeling fragile at other people’s  joy, so yeah… here it is….

Birth Notice

Deeply jealous

No trellis

To scaffold my feeling

Of being left

In dust

Past steeped in mistrust

My body betrayed me

Inside formed

Little hands and feet

Even some toes

That is far as it goes

Or went…

Never again

And yet friend after friend

Had full formed babes

Added to brood after brood

I chew

On the celebration of others

Not a good food

As there is now nothing I can do

I look away

To a new day

When sorrow turns to song

When nothing is wrong

Green drains away

The monster dead

Quiet in my head

For the babes that will never be

As they have crossed over the deep dark sea

NaPoWriMo: #30 Boy at bedtime again

This is the boy and my about every other night routine. My office door opens to face his room and he always closes his door, but I keep mine open.

How l think of him when he calls (age 7)

After Bedtime 911 Call

“Mama!” you bellow down the hall

I come to your call

Even though I know this time it isn’t urgent

I can tell from your tone it is convergent

Of need, a question, and a seed,

The need being how you feed

Our bond of parent child

I have to smile

I come to help

When you utter a yelp

“What is it my lamb?”

As calm as I am

A million things pull at my sides

This holding me firm as I’d just hit my stride

“I need you in here!”

Your panicked wail trimmed in fear

I throw off the weights

Ignoring my plate

And enter your room

Dark as a tomb

I make out your familiar outline

You on your bed, a shrine

That is covered in soft mountains

Of blankets, now exploded like fountains

I see how you need aid

For this I should get paid

That thought is brief

As I help and you get relief

I know this  need swiftly turns to question

Someday you are destined

To discover the cure to cancer

From all the quislings you get answered

The questions come in a flood

My head now stuck in deep mud

As I try to be coherent

And you endeavor to bear it

As there is so much I don’t know!

This is him  Nov. 2017 taking a computer apart!

I am not a computer pro!

You move on to plant

Knowledge that I can’t

Even begin to understand

I pick apart the strand

You take your Mama’s hand

This part I like, it’s grand

I know you’re settled in

The real goodnight begins

Whatever I wanted to get done

This is a better prize I’ve won

NaPoWriMo: #29 the yearly sonnet attempt

Shakespeare’s birthday and Martin and my anniversary of our first kiss----poetic, eh? I think so! Here is my yearly attempt at a sonnet. I confess to have a huge headache right now and I am only giving myself 30 minutes to rough one out, but hopefully it will work out.

And I have always liked some of Shakespeare’s lesser known sonnets one is posted below that everyone skips over. I think because it contains a word that looks like a racial slur, but it isn’t. It is a word that dates back to Middle English meaning miserly.

I just finished at the 30 mark and I like it, but I don’t think it exactly scans. Oh well, it just proves I’m not Shakespeare!

 

Song of Sweetest Smells

Thy lips they fell upon a rose

To taste the bloom and not the thorn

Rose high your song in lover’s silver mist

Your heart blew hard on my bright ember

The tune traced our friendship twain

A kindship brought from deepest pain

Met in joys we could reclaim

Out of the fog of uncertain loom

Weaving thoughts that began our bloom

Where we could dispel our creed

Your kiss from love’s hunger Godspeed

Sonnet 1

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

---William Shakespeare 1609