Official DUP NaPo/GloPoWrimo 2020 Competition

#2
That time you missed my birthday

That’s when I grew up.
It’s when I knew
I didn’t figure in your plans
or rise to your consciousness

Time to put on the big girl pants,
get on with life on my own
So I did
with a vengeance
turning aloneness to fierce independence
wearing shame shamelessly as bravado

Maybe I miss all that could have been
if I had really mattered in your life.
Maybe -- but I don’t know --
I can’t imagine it anymore;
I don’t.

Maybe I’m grateful
You set me adrift
….set me alight….

Although your memory still shapes my flames
I’m free to shower my sparks on others
who will never suspect
they were once
rejected

2/30

Death Of A Poet

In a cloak of greyness
her embers rose,
wayward and burning still
as words in her mouth
yet unwritten nor spoken;
words which lay unformed.

The memory of her was alive
still in so many minds
and pages in volumes,
eras, decades, storied
in a past so vibrant,
so crystalline in its power.

We can remember
all the poets taught us
as we become their words
for a lifetime, or a spell
long enough to be inspired
we can be as they were,
we can learn and teach,
we can burn and reach;
we are the new carriers of
the timeless torch.

#2 of 30


The Else... Another

The Else...Another

Symbols
Not
Allotted,

Symbolic
Representations…

Of a consciousness,
Which indeed tends to frolic…

Non concise

In places of tattered photo edges,

A white spot, a flash of a fragment previously,

Branded...into a tiny tot's

Bandwidth…
Without their consent or previous knowledge…

Feelings come in reverberatory fashion…
Up my vertibrae
And squeezing in between these lungs

As if someone…

Took the cut up colours of manufactured trees…

And through daggers…

Double Staggered…

Even further backward

Before there was
Even uttered

A word...

Seems absurd, yes

But absurdity knows me best,

To a frightful place…wherest one is surrounded…

By everything…

Yet,
Everything is…

Everything is…
I don't know

No, I know,
But... conjunction is being slow…

As I write this line I semi struggle with,

Senses out of order…

Back then?

Sometimes only one at a time…

Seeing and hearing in mismatched jitters…

Focusing in and out…

Focusing on things Another…

Not nothing…

But not the external senses…

The extent of this…
Is
Difficult
To
Even
Happenstance
Let alone
Fumbling other recall

I can sense a picture of what my sensory birds nest would look

And string nouns along…

But…

I cannot… seem to connect my feeling to my body consistently

And

Thoughts…

Outside of my mind..

I project them on the wall...

One moment, I watch them frolic in barely legible movements on the thing, just not yet known what is

Then I hear a pitch muffled and drawn out,

That I cannot seem to string together…

Put about,

My input

As though someone attacked a construction paper chain decoration,

With machete style confetti...

Disjointed,

All I know is a prelude to a small girls constant confusion

A step back on the evolutionary chain...The embryonic stage of anxiety…

And I am alive…

I'm a thing

But I'm Else,

I barely focus…

A preconcept of speech…

I'm yet to understand that words even consist of sound,
And that colours consist of light

Usually I'm Another

Unless I encounter the creature I later will learn is called bright

And the one yet to be known as jarble of noise

I don't feel happy
I don't exactly feel sad
Prerequisite to fear is confusion

Perhaps I don't feel inside or even my young skin, but out

Air and wind, I don't know what that's about

I feel...blank

I feel... preoccupied by Else

To which Else, I cannot describe

Neither that of Another,

I feel a shadow of a quarter of a faded jumping image that

There are many times I'm much more preoccupied with those two dreaming states than movement or the sounds of both my father and mother...

Where am I?

Staring at a wall, but seeing past it

Am I sitting assisted
Or in someone's arms…?

I only feel Else,

And embryonic stage anxiety

Confusion of course, the prelude...

For I know quite well the jarble and jitter

Another seems much more satisfactory, or prettier...

But it is not a feeling or a place

A translucent sort of,
Impassive

Yet to construct the foundation of stimuli

Colours, flashes, at times a sudden move
A constant tone pitch, a zig zag of an utterance, on occasion, a choppy mess

At most times,
My mind's comfort was,

The Else…Another

                                    (3/30)

               These Quarantined Times

During these quarantined times, artistic minds are supplying inspiration
To counteract the overwhelming facts broadcasting on every station
The power of persuasion builds nations rather easily
So we need to uplift each other by spreading positivity

Whether poetry or art just let it depart from your heart
Do your part to impart some joy when each day starts
Times are hard & getting harder with each passing moment
We need encouragement so use your talent to help people through it

I am double posting due to being caught up late after work yesterday taking care of medical and family shit until really late


1/30
Adjusting

Facetime doesn’t hold the space our Kind wakes into. Adapt and escape, re-map the way we relate. Make the most of shift, representing and wary
Documentary of my life would best be shown from an aerial drone perspective
Sharing my dome on the collective, breathe the Sun for breakfast
Constantly cycling through the fundaments that can apply across business, war, dating, the mat, life
Constantly grinding away to get each piece right. Only coming close by the close of every night
If everything shuts down everything I prepared for will be for a reason
I culled everyone down to the assets, the core essential
We run through scenarios until they seem most likely to us. Confirmation bias is easy to seek
The next illicit bubble to emerge will set the course for the next decade’s culture
Something had to re-define us, show what really matters
10 years from now, this stage is remembered as pivotal 10 days from now this stage is still liminal
10 hours from now this stage is still live
Groove and ride, juke and jive, rebuke, re-boost and strive. Stay spry, all the time.
Fuck. It took a global crisis to shake up my ability to rhyme




2/30
Re-molding

Routines have been stripped away. Hurry up and wait, but there’s no urgency in haste.
If this is your last day, give the love away. You’re not above feeling what’s torn
Healing through a quiet storm
Do more than be informed. Get warm, pass it beyond. This is the dawn for which we were born
The places nobody else sees. The texts, the food and favors and anonymous support
Maybe just a moment to pay forward, a layer to touch the core
Assume you’re already fucked and figure what you can do for more
What uplift, what lighter side, what can you provide, strive to be a gift, ride this rift
Strange times. Remain signed. Rippling crimes, illicit bubbles emerge, blurry tines, what grinds off the hub
Uncertainty opens the worst and the me-first, but also the Human Tree, what we really see

*Edited because of a posting mistake - I had the wrong time - and double-posting on the third because I'm totally swamped by online classes. Seven of them. We're doing our best.

2 / 30

big brother

I remember when we smoked together.

You had me waiting up
on Tuesday nights,
hurrying through calc homework
and taking my time
on, say, a perfect night
with sashimi and black coffee

hanging around the sleeping house
in hopes to hear your
"Come outside."

When I think of the good times
I have a pile of them,

like hot clean laundry,
like all of us, dogs to Dad, on the bed;
old songbooks bloated on adolescence - junk food,
things scarfed down;

and, big brother,
tobacco guts
poured from Swisher skin.

I was so excited,
and you hadn't talked to me before. At all,
not for real
except to tease
or make me smile
no matter how hard I tried to pout.

But I remember the smell.
The downstairs tiptoe -
watching you roll it up,
sidling up to the stained-glass front door
and following,
slipping out.

We'd breathe fire in your dingy white Jeep, and you spat rhymes
endless and fly
and - I thought -
so was I,

and we blew smoke
and big brother, how
we would speak.
You told me stories
and that idea for a movie,
and I thought it was not too late for you,
that you'd make it all come alive
and leave home soon.
I got to know you.
You are brilliant
but completely shut up inside,
afraid to move or even try to - your "stuck"
a deeper-dug, duct-taped version of mine.

I miss it,
not even the smoke,
but you speaking
for me to listen.

I tried too many times to fit our hearts together, I s'pose,
and now that I've needed
to stop,
you can't see through that pretty smoke,
but I'm watching you,
wanting to talk.

------

3 / 30

leaving Mr. Habit (singy song)

You think that you can strut yourself to the front door
and bang bang bang to your pretty ass in,
But using you to use me to use you -
it's a circle that I'm done standing in.

Of course it feels good,
I mean, real good,
blissful as can be, initially -

no, it feels grand
when arms-o'-steel man
wraps you up, all warm in that first squeeze

but I'll be goddamned
if I ain't learned from those bruises! -
You incubus, sidling up to me

That you'll leave alone and hurt
after all that gas has burned
with my desert tongue and nothing good to breathe.

You taught me good, ah, you-you
It's in me, little like a tattoo
That this life is dizzying but who I see is up to me -
honey, the devil's chains hang loose.

#3 of 30
Free
I’ve always hated being defined as a girl
I feel both feminine and masculine
I’ve always felt restricted with labels
I feel attracted to all genders

This is something I have considered for a while
And I’ve been trying to sort through my feelings
This confusion about who I identify as
And who I fall in love with, has led me here

Led me to a realization
Like I can finally breathe
Led me to the start of a journey
Like I’m just beginning to explore

I need to accept myself
And not compress it all down
I need to be real with myself
And not act like I don’t feel this way

As of right now
I don’t consider myself straight
As of right now
I don’t want a label

I want to be free for a little while

2/30

Banana Bunny

I have a pocket friend
Nobody sees
He’s hidden in my jacket
And puts me at ease
Days suck now and then
It’s a given
My joyful light stomped out
By malicious women
Only god will forgive them
But my tiny toy with ears
Is what has me going
Wipes my freezer tears away
To keep the rest from knowing
One day they’ll see him
Poke from his hidey hole
But never from the place he resides
Within my fragile soul
Pink and fuzzy
Gifted with love
Specifically for me
Banana bunny

2/30

got stuck in the garden

got stuck in the garden
this is how to get shot
strolling late to the party
doubly fashionable by missing a year
the house torn by the garden wild
fleshy raspberries buddha squash
champagne vines climb the fir next to a disconnected lamppost crook
the gussied barrow misses a leg in the crook there the crock has a teardrop hole
driveway carless and only becomes engaged by the light rays which moves still things in shadow
flowers write letters to the sky
people were once upon a time the creationists
of dust and are


68/90 Words

Day #3 of 30

Poets in a Pickle?



Salt and vinager
the sensation

Page worms
never want

to be in a pickle!

Please resist
the temptation

to put
yourself out

hung up and fickle

Stay crisp and salty
keep your attitude

but for the sake of pity
decency
and everything pretty

Firmly stay cool
organically
cucumber

With a generous
heaping pinch
of crunchy pith

Mmmm!

Why did the pickle
cross the road?

Because eventually
....they all do

Stay edible!
Sans cannibal!

62 unique words

3-30

as if jumping could restore my faith in the lost clouds that couldn't do more than sigh

there are times when the cliffs edge is nothing more
than an adagio of strings fluttering in the breeze
a connection across milliseconds
filaments of her hair are electricity
spooled at sharp angles
as if the bones of her scapula
are malformed wings
she curls a howling S
against the epicentre of broken

a breeze is a skilled charlatan
as it bids you leap
for faith has the same wings that defy gravity
and it tickles at the consciousness that it may attempt to grab you
with it's glassy essence
an ethereal mist that cries if only you had held on
to the ground
everything created in the free fall
is waiting to disappear
when everything is inverted
by a
s
u
d
d
e
n
stop
 

None

3/30

2nite 0ur 2ime 0rises

Bountiful bullshit, big brother bourgeoisifying.
Radiation risk rising, riot rebels revolutionising.
Obtuse observations opaquely, one-siding.
Karma Kaleidoscope, knowledge karyotyping.
Earth elected emissary, enigmatic, enlightening.
Nobility nervous , numbed now neutralising  
Power play pandemic! People photosynthesising,
Oxygenated, oppose occult overcommercializing.
Emanating energy, earths electrifying,  
Terraforming thought, third-eye temporalizing!
2nite
0ur
2ime
0rises