by the Read Write Poem Staff
Look at you! Writing past the half-way mark! Today, Neil Reid invites us to keep going by writing about the elements:
Let’s be elemental. Fire, earth, water, wind. They touch our lives every day. Choose one that interests you, then take a point of view that is not so much your usual. Observe what interaction you’ve known, or not known, with this element.
You might make it personal or take the element’s point of view (how might humans appear to you from that stance?) or wander where you may. Tell us something about your element that we don’t know.
You’re welcome to make your own rules, and as always, the most important point is simply to write and share, however it comes your way! Have fun! 
Reminders for everyone
Read the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge Kickoff post for details on how the challenge works — and how you can engage with Read Write Poem this month, no matter what your personal writing challenge is for the month of April.
Please read this page to find out how Read Write Poem’s prompt posts work. Remember that work linked from any post this month is shared in precisely that spirit: sharing, as opposed to critiquing. If you haven’t done so already, please read all the pages under About in the navigation bar.
It’s been a fiery kind of week, so it worked to choose that element for today’s effort: Consumed by Fire Daily
Here is my try at the prompt:
Elemental
I was going to not write about fire because fire was what I was first drawn to. However, I failed to do this….
http://www.shicho.net/words/?p=1096
azha irving replied:
April 18th, 2010 at 1:05 am
love this piece brief but poignant!
Off-prompt again. One of these days I’ll get with the program!
http://avniously.blogspot.com/2010/04/brats.html
Water Sign
http://bygraceandfaith.tumblr.com/
with each ebb and flow
swimming in opposite streams
I float in with each given tide
living amongst the bluest dreams
The cold salt quenches thirst
fertilizing the dryest lands
flow on each tide first
the next ebb tide demands
swimming amongst opposite streams
I float on with the given tide
living amongst the whitest dreams
Yikes– my posts keep getting later and later as the challenge progresses. Tomorrow, I think I’ll turn over a new leaf.
Here is “April in Oregon”:
http://caraholman.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/2010-napowrimo-17/
Poem for 17th April at:
http://timkeeton.wordpress.com/
Tim Keeton
Poet/Wizard/Teller-of-tales
Today’s attempt is maybe halfway to a decent draft form. In case it isn’t coming through yet, a wind (not the wind, but one of an infinite number) is trying to reach out to humans through an interpreter:
Eleven Thoughts I’d Like to Relay to Humanity
#17 Something elemental….Morning Fire
http://waynepitchko.blogspot.com
Here’s something: http://disorder1313.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/three-skeleton-poems/
Burn baby burn!
http://paperdreams-jgc.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-17-im-fire-sign.html
A bit under the weather today, but I did okay, I think
http://poetry.disorderedcosmos.com/2010/04/napowrimo-17-home/
Here’s today’s effort:
http://memali.posterous.com/1730-3
my poem, Day’s Night, can be read at musetomyeyes.blogspot.com
“Elementally” is about the eleven teenagers in my house tonight–
http://theresebroderick,wordpress.com
Therese L. Broderick replied:
April 17th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Woops — see, I’m so tired I typed a comma instead of a period. Here’s the correct site–
http://theresebroderick.wordpress.com
Hehe, this one was rather fun. X3
http://wintermintfruit.blogspot.com/2010/04/pchoo.html ~
I didn’t write about fire or water, but I did trigger off the prompt. You can find my poem Teresina’s Trunk Show here:
http://word-painting.blogspot.com/2010/04/teresinas-trunk-show.html
Mine’s full of wind.
http://cosmicmermaid.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/winds-night-out/
A few days behind…but determined to catch up
http://ingeborgsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-april-17th-elemental.html
“Stray Dogs”
http://eveningpoems.blogspot.com/
I did something different and fun (for me) with this. There are hidden messages in the poem: A bride is flushed in the ocean. Happiness departs with Mystery. The children have taken the health. The world magnified floods and water died while our histories vanished into air. (I realize telling everyone about the hidden messages defeats their purpose, but I don’t think anyone would have gotten my ungettable get if I hadn’t.) Enough. Here it is.
http://mylineofwords.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-17-water.html
Here’s mine for today. It’s short, but it felt right.
Exhaling Ardor
I wish
The sky would broil
Churn with the winds
Of a thousand decades
Raining fire
So I could burn
In the passion I try
To encompass
My inspiration today was my fiery family and the gorgeous moon.
elemental meeting
we greet – we talk
then laugh and eat
we argue – we shout
then cry and hug
we fill the night
with each other
even the immensity of
the crescent moon
can not hold the
swirl of reunion
with family
we hug – we laugh
we love
Our New Soul
Angeliad of Surazeus
2010 04 17
http://open.salon.com/blog/surazeus/2010/04/17/our_new_soul
I left my broken heart in your hand
but you gave it back healed and whole
so I walk with you in snow or sand
sharing light and rain in our new soul.
Will ginger root of my morning sun
turn river water to shimmering gold
if kiss of our hearts transforms as one
two beating hearts in our new soul.
I lost you somewhere on road of life
then I search for you as my only goal
till I find you struggling to just survive
so now we hold hands in our new soul.
You leave your broken heart in my hand
so I give it back healed and whole
and pledge my love with a golden band
sharing body and heart in our new soul.
Sparkle Pixies
Angeliad of Surazeus
2010 04 17
http://open.salon.com/blog/surazeus/2010/04/17/sparkle_pixies
Little girl in a violet sun dress
walks three circles around her father
who draws birds in a sketch book
and meows soft like a furry kitten.
She touches leaves on a small tree
explaining pixies live in this tree
and they sleep in leaves at night
and leaves fold over like a blanket.
These pixies are smaller than ladybugs
for they are small like a bright dot
and I call them dear sparkle pixies
and they are like stars with wings.
This tree is galaxy where they live
and most galaxies of stars never die
but when two big galaxies collide
then they die and form a new galaxy.
Little girl holds a plastic cup of water
as she walks back slow on dry grass
and pours water in a small clay pot
where she planted black-eyed peas.
When did we stop making violins out of cats?
Read and listen to “Strings” here:
http://jasoncrane.org/2010/04/17/poem-strings/
p.s. — Today I held a copy of my new book in my hands for the first time. My first one. An amazing day.
http://rosettathurman.posterous.com/napowrimo-poem-17-i-want-to-know-how-to-cook
A late day, three hours out of my home time zone and without internet access… here’s Airstream.
http://rustbloommansions.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-seventeen-poem-17-airstream.html
I just got back from a poetry conference, where I wrote several poems but nothing elemental… I posted one on my website that fits the prompt, http://www.cathymcguire.com/poetry.htm
but to fit the “poem written today” guideline, here is a short poem written in a Matthew Dickman workshop, that had to use the words “Auckland, mango, comuter, finger, Honda” and had to have the title “Love Me Tender”;
I don’t give a mango for your singing
and your Honda underwhelms
if I’m wrapped around your finger
why do I feel so free? My computer
shreds your email at my commmand.
Don’t go to Hell — just go to Auckland.
OK, here’s my RWP birthday poem (no, just kidding).
NaPoWriMo #17 sacred bloody thumbs
Loved this prompt!
http://web.me.com/susansonnen/Susan_Sonnens_musings/Blog/Entries/2010/4/17_NaPoWriMo%2C_Day_17.html
Sable replied:
April 18th, 2010 at 2:15 am
Like it! Simple and powerful…
Hamburger Ode
Angeliad of Surazeus
2010 04 17
http://open.salon.com/blog/surazeus/2010/04/17/hamburger_ode
http://stores.lulu.com/angeliad
When hunger pangs gnaw my heart
I grill a beef patty over hot flames
then place it on a bun of wheat
with mayo and pickles and tomato
and onions and lettuce and ketchup
to eat my hamburger with a grin.
Mithras flaps a long scarlet cape
and crowd gasps with bull charges
and cheers when he leaps on its back
gripping sharp horns and riding tall
so his cape flutters in a sea wind
then he strikes spear into its heart.
Anahita sits on high pyramid throne
while Eloh grills beef on an altar
and Ishtar sings enchanting tales
and Mithras accepts nuggets and gems
from worshippers in her temple hall
who gather to feast in sunset glow.
Ceres harvests baskets of wheat
that Saturnus loads on wood wagon
and Autumnus sells at warehouse
bringing home coins with wheat stalks
while Friga bakes bread in clay oven
for feast of friends in temple of pools.
Hat and Seti sail from Akhet Aton
pyramid of Aton abandoned to wind
across Middle Earth Sea north to Sidon
bringing milk cows and seeds of wheat
to establish farm on Litani River shore
where they feast in glow of moonlight.
Seti hitches plough to strong cows
and plows large field in seven days
performing work of a hundred men
then sows wheat that sprouts tall
shimmering gold in fresh dawn breeze
then plays lyre chanting at sunset.
When hunger pangs gnaw my heart
I grill a beef patty over hot flames
then place it on a bun of wheat
to eat my hamburger with a grin
and celebrate great rise of civilization
at feast of friends in temple of song.
here is mine: http://teapartiesonneptune.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/a-mad-dervishs-hot-meditation/
line of my equator
This one was fun, http://scriptophobe.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-17-punctured-sky.html
I kind of tried to combine as many elements as possible in mine…here it is!
http://mayaganesan.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-17.html
elementary and elemental
http://lanijo.com/poetry/girl-class
Fire
I stick an orange tongue
out of my searing mouth
and flicker it at you.
Wind makes me do it
with its constant caress.
Smothered by codependent earth
I smolder, and bathed in water
turn to smoke, masquerading
as steam just long enough
to sneak into a cloud.
I’m used to keeping company
with ashes, embers glowing
like wisdom teeth; from up here
everything looks smaller
until I’ve never felt more
like a match, brief and longing
for a wick. You can never have
too much light or heat.
Day 17 at http://alienfireworks.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-pier.html
http://seashelllz.livejournal.com/116446.html
I haven’t felt like writing much these last few days.
Here is a short one about love and stars and stuff.
http://self-intoxication.deviantart.com/art/Plastic-Stargazer-161120913
My poem can be read here:
http://ragbone.wordpress.com
catching up after no internet- so gutted to have missed the prompts because id work in my area!
The Wind
It works its breath to remind us
of all we’ve forgot, any night
it can comes down our chimney
to croon discordant tunes.
The wind finds a gap and squeezes in,
we feel it scour our skin to find their pink,
we think of a mother with a rough tissue
in her pocket, cleaning our faces with her spit.
Any day sheets find their steel on the line,
the clothes fight for their lives
bluster, shirts puffed up
like indignant pigeons, as swift
the wind unstuffs them. We are left.
We never knew the wind, though it warned us,
In nibbles it took from the corners of our eyes
as we turned corners, the tears torn from us,
laid in strings on our cheeks,
before we even knew what they were for.
Older, we thought we knew better,
wore shades, like glass houses
around our softest part of our natures,
the wind came and threw stones.
When we least expect it, we remember,
air finds hollows and plays our bones,
cheap instruments to the wind’s whim.
In it breezes, into an ear we don’t know how to close, a tattered dress trails each tiny hair
in our chamber as it walk downs a spiral staircase, right into us,
take us back to beaches, rooms we locked in houses
we thought had long been knocked down.
Inspired from the CityLit event I attended yesterday, I create a cento based on Underlife by January G. O’Neil: http://goo.gl/fb/RU0oC
Um, this one features a Flood. Which is water, right? Right.
Back on my game today.
http://thebooklife.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/4-17/
Late because I have been home again: http://kagerrr.tumblr.com/post/531964255/april17thpoem
I couldn’t post this last night due to connection problems but better late than ever. In this haiku I tried to use all the elements:
Icelandic brimstone
firing smoke in vapor clouds
Keep Europe grounded
also at http://1965footprints.blogspot.com
Marie replied:
April 18th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Sorry, its supposed to be:
Icelandic brimstone
firing smoke in vapor clouds
keep Europe grounded
http://verbality.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/the-sea/
I’m not necessarily writing this prompts on the intended days.
Katie teaches me to play with fire
Crap, wrong link:
Katie teaches me to play with fire. For real.
http://shannons-words.livejournal.com/157459.html
Something belated and only one quarter elemental: La Salsa
http://poetry-life-distilled.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-day-17.html