by the Read Write Poem Staff
Read Write Poem member Sage Cohen has a terrific suggestion for today’s poems: Write a poem in which you combine a speaker and an event that normally don’t go together (such as sports broadcasters and poetry writing), as Jay Leeming does in his poem, “Man Writes Poem.” 
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.
For today, I present my effort at mixing things up:
Roger Rabbit takes Requests
I chose to read this prompt with a twist, rather than straight on.
http://healingforthehealthy.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-23-unlikely-couples.html
A very old farmer on a motorcycle.
http://daily-yawp.blogspot.com/
Where do these ideas come from?
http://pamelavillars.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/april-23-10-how-it-began/
I’m cracking under the RWP pressure
http://herwordsbloomed.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-23-unlikely-couples.html
http://wintermintfruit.blogspot.com/2010/04/so-says-i.html
Bluh, this prompt seems so interesting, but I’m too sick to think of anything. Off-topic day. |U
http://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2010/04/fork.html
I started to think about writing in the voice of a fork at a lunch meeting, which led me to this poem.
Odysseus 2010: http://poetry.disorderedcosmos.com/2010/04/napowrimo-23-odysseus-2010/
Okay, mine was inspired by the sample poem – sort of the opposite situation: Color Man for the Blazers
http://www.cathymcguire.com/poetry.htm
http://disorder1313.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/transliteration-of-catullus-xxx-part-one/
One more Unlikely Couples poem. This one is called:
“Last Night I Took the ‘R’ Out.”
http://babblingoninbabylon.com/blog
Offering for 4/23/2010
http://timkeeton.wordpress.com
With apologies to Walt Whitman, I offer here my “Song of a Stretch Limo Driver” –
http://theresebroderick.wordpress.com
Another late post. Darn!
a href=”http://lindaspoetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-24-unlikely-couples.html”>The Fisherman and the Poet
Let’s try that again! No more wine for me!
The Fisherman and the Poet
“Football Coach Snaps Peas”
http://eveningpoems.blogspot.com/
This poem barely wanted to be known, but it’s here. The poem focuses on a character from a novel by Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye) so you may need to know a bit about the story in order for the poem to make sense: http://goo.gl/fb/Wyz6O
the wild echoing stops
off prompt tonight glad I saved them up for times like this when I just couldn’t think of a single prompted thing to put on the page.
http://web.me.com/susansonnen/Susan_Sonnens_musings/Blog/Entries/2010/4/23_NaPoWriMo%2C_Day_23.html
I used a different prompt today.
White Moon Of Mateena
Angeliad of Surazeus
2010 04 23
http://open.salon.com/blog/surazeus/2010/04/23/white_moon_of_mateena
http://stores.lulu.com/angeliad
I will never forget last look in her eyes
staring at me from a million miles away
wordless hope fading from black eyes
and empty bottle of beer clanks loud
as hand scrapes bleeding on brick wall
if he remembers bright blue butterfly
that landed on her shoulder at Easter
sweet Marie Zalina will you marry me
but wipes blood and pebbles and dirt
from palm on fatigues and sharp crack
of bullets pock soft yellow mud homes
because white dress flutters in wind
though features of her face obscured
by curtain after telephone never rang
then he pauses under gold lamp light
to ask young lawyer with a cell phone
help a veteran with a dollar for dinner
but my breath does not stink alcohol
you greedy stock broker ripping us off
you robbed us all with phony money
and I went to war to defend your right
to steal from us all with booking tricks
so I will soldier on though I feel tired
but I must not sleep while on watch
looking through infrared goggles at night
where I see red ghosts clutching rifles
darting from innocent houses to bury
improvised explosive devices under sand
where Adam and Eve planted apple seeds
and he raises rifle to shoot red ghosts
then pushes open wood door of church
tattered gloves half covering fingers
frozen from ice winds of mountains
and stares at photograph of a butterfly
with blue wings while young woman
fills plate with mash potatoes and corn
and two slices of bread with butter
and green beans that taste like grass
and small carton of chocolate milk
and she smiles with kind empty eyes
and he eats alone at a round table
with homeless men and women in rags
because I am descended from kings
who gripped swords in towers of stone
then he follows troop leader in gloom
of midnight following red ghosts of death
and kicks open door aiming rifle at heads
shouting raise your hands but someone
reaches under a blank so he shoots fast
spitting bullets of blasting fire to kill
before he gets a chance to kill me first
and someone shouts stop so I shoot more
and I take off night-vision goggles to see
young girl bleeding with trembling hands
and eyes staring at me in shocked pain
because nothing else matters any more
so I will soldier on though I am tired
then he wipes his mouth with napkin
and drops styrofoam plate into trash
but plastic fork falls clattering on cement
so he picks it up gripping old trash can
and falls over knocking trash on floor
then minister and his wife lend a hand
helping him lean dizzy against brick wall
so he wipes hand on his green fatigues
and watches pretty wife of a preacher
with blond hair picking up trash he spilled
but she took everything without telling him
and moved away leaving their house
empty but it took nine months to sell
and I lost every last penny I had saved
but no one offered to help me keep home
because I am not a pretty celebrity girl
and she watches me without a real name
though I stared at a small glass globe
on desk of platoon colonel as he told me
her name was Rana Mateena that you killed
graceful as a gazelle leaping among hills
in Mateena Mountains but I am no Jonah
sitting outside gates of a great empire
so someone else will have to be a prophet
condemning war then he lies down in a park
trying to hide behind a small flower bush
as darkness shimmers over city of towers
under sweet white moon that guides me
lost forever somewhere in Garden of Eden
naked in shame and snarling like a wolf
and a ladybug crawls over his knuckle
but he will not sleep without seeing eyes
of Rana because I told my wife Marie
we should name our next daughter Rana
but he would never explain to her why
so maybe she thought Rana was a lover
he had in Mosul and he whispers to a star
I would have loved her and yet why he sighs
just another reason why Marie left last year
if I never see her again since I forgot how
she smiled at our wedding and her face
is a blur but I see her face in white moon
my white moon that never lets me forget
my white moon of Mateena in black eyes.
I love this prompt, but will work with it another day. The moon distracted me tonight.
http://robin-turner.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-search-my-heart-all-week-and-then.html
“When Planning the Bigamist’s Funeral”
This is a first draft. I think there could be a lot more.
http://mmw113.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-23-planning-bigamists-funeral.html
I had a very difficult time with this today! I’ll blame it on the fever…I just wanted to sleep the day away. Hope you are all well!
You can view “Circumstance Unforeseen” at http://bridgeanna.blogspot.com
Pleasant dreams everyone!
I wrote a poem today for Sue Lowden who is a Republican candidate in Nevada running in the Republican primary to be the nominee to defeat Democratic incumbent Harry Reid for the US Senate seat.
Sue Louden recently said, “before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house.” ~ Sue Lowden on a local Nevada morning show.
Pay Day Chicken Lenders
4/23/10
Nevada Sue
Went to the zoo
And thought about Pay Day Lenders,
“There must be a way
That people can pay
Good doctors with chicken tenders.”
The rest of the poem can be read at my blog:
http://babblingoninbabylon.com/blog
After rereading the prompt, I don’t think I really followed it exactly. Oh well. Too tired to start over. I’ll refrain from explaining the elements I’m combining here – it will be more fun if you figure it out as you go along.
~~~~~~~
The Visitors
It smells good in here!
But there’s a prickly energy, too—
Something is definitely going on.
They’re running from room to room
Shoving things into closets,
even my squirrel—hey!
Spraying blue stuff on mirrors,
clanking dishes.
I try to follow her, then him,
give up, go to my bed.
Car door. Footsteps. Voices—
Someone is here!
Someone is here!
Oh, I know them.
They smell like cat
and mint and aftershave.
Talking now, laughter, music.
They’re sitting at the table,
Food, food, food—
Oh it looks good!
Drop some over here,
Just a bite, please?
Please please?
Go-lie-down, he says
But, but… OK!
You don’t have to be mean.
I wake up.
Jingle of car keys, door shutting,
visitors gone.
What? Do I want a cookie?
Yes, I HAVE been a good boy!
A belly rub, too?
So happy now,
So happy.
I half followed yesterday’s prompt for today, using a few words.
Wakemare
My screaming is loud
Reverberating off the aluminum walls
Clanging rudely inside
My aching head
My nails drag across floorboards
Gouging its tender skin
Angry lines to bars and notes
Display my current insanity
I float beside my body
Wishing consciousness would prevail
Instead I curl into a ball
Flinching at the sound of my own voice
A prompt with enormous potential, a day that did not provide enough time or energy to explore it fully or well. My half-baked cake: An Evening at the Arena
I will be revisiting this prompt in the future. No doubt in my mind about that.
http://systematicweasel.blogspot.com/2010/04/koala-4-23-2010-poem-day-challenge.html
Sorry for the late post, been a busy Weasel today. It’s also off prompt, but I’d still like to share.
President Obama takes the Cabinet to Breitenbush Hot Springs.
http://lanijo.com/poetry/three-nights-two-days-bring-life-balance
Don’t ask me
What the vegetable vendor
Was doing with the flute
May be she was humming
Her way to pocket
Or checking if dead greens
Would wake up in her
Enticing music.
NaPoWriMo #23 rag doll
I juxtaposed diving, running, and a city girl. Turned out kind of cool
http://mayaganesan.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-23.html
http://self-intoxication.deviantart.com/art/Need-161769700
Very silly but very fun(; Have you tried once-a-day Napowrimo?
http://alienfireworks.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo.html
http://seashelllz.livejournal.com/117923.html
Another successful prompt-following day: The crows
Mr. Geisel’s Harassment Seminar
(written on an overnight flight, with sleep deprivation)
I thank you all so much for coming today.
Please be seated and we will begin.
Some of you’ve driven from quite a long way
And the room’s only booked until 10:00.
I’m here to remind you to show some respect
To the co-workers for whom you pine.
You mustn’t let anyone know you’re erect
While you’re giving that copier a shine.
An off-color joke, or a good-natured poke
Is so often unwelcome at work.
You’d better not tickle, don’t play hide the pickle
Or else you’ll come off like a jerk.
You shouldn’t say things that might well be construed
As some kind of an etiquette breach.
Like “Why don’t you let me take snaps of you nude
While I search for your star-bellied Sneetch?”
And if by chance you have named your poor junk
There’s no reason that has to be shared.
No one need know how last night you got drunk
And performed in the buff at Le Bare.
Remember to look for the subtler hints,
Like a scream or a kick in the shin.
Clean-up your act or you’ll suffer the wrath
Of Community Service again.
If you don’t heed these words you may end up like me
Unemployed out on Mulberry Street.
So, thank you for coming, there’s coffee and tea.
Don’t forget to sign-in on the sheet.
While I didn’t officially write it on day 23, I was still able to work up something interesting. My contribution is called space available.
http://sky-lined.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-23.html
oh crap, seems like i didn’t comment here yesterday. hope i don’t get disqualified. you can tell from the blog time stamp x:
I wrote it, but failed to post. o well.
Uncrowned Crosier
http://nothinghypothetical.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/uncrowned-crosier/
I did post my poems, but my phone wouldn’t let me post here. http://kagerrr.tumblr.com/post/549209735/april23rdpoem