I’ve been trying to put together some kind of fancy schmancy wrap up for the November Poem A Day project, but I’m busy and fried.

Obviously the daily posting of the poetry being generated fizzled. I’m not terribly concerned about that.

In the end, I generated over 20 poems and fragments that I can possibly use. I didn’t generate 30, but I was pretty close. Closer than I ever was to completing NANOWRIMO. I’m feeling pretty good about that.

Also, while I didn’t consistently produce something everyday, I was thinking poetically everyday. I was observing closely and germinating everyday. Then I’d have some spurts of ripping off two or three ideas in one go. The poetical thinking on a consistent basis is something I thought was a good thing.

So, overall, I’m quite pleased.

NPAD 2008 has not died an ignoble death. I was out of town working for ETS, and between the internets not always being right close, actually working hard all day, good dinner conversations, and avoiding doing my day job work, I simply didn’t have time to post. However, I was scribbling away all weekend. Hoping to have things caught up online by the end of the week.

Until then enjoy this moldy oldy from the archives (with a hidden toy surprise!):

Shiver me timbers and batten down the
hatches on the bow. Posiden’s
out tonight with the fire in his eyes!
Tether the rafts and
gather up the rations.
Unless I’m wrong (and I am
never wrong)
A storm the sight of which has
never been seen since
God’s washing of the
earth is the fate that
lies before us.

02/26/91

On NPAD

That feeling when you open up the bath
Room door expecting an empty room
But find instead your guests arrived and
You clothed only with a broom,

Or when you’re working hard away to cook
A complex, untried recipe,
And family members mumble, over-cautious,
Doubts of your sobriety,

Is nothing weighed against the red-faced terror
Of posting the roughest, most larvae-like
Spoutings of a rusty pen daily upon
One’s little-read internet site.

the poem for day 9–
a rumination fundamental
about a grumpy prophet’s
constitution–
will, when ready, be
posted in its entirety
in this bland space
reserved for its posterity

Miller’s Crossing

The smallest of crackles halted my walk.
Things twitched beyond the tree wall
Off the path through the twigs two eyes then four
Pinned me to ground. Like some opitical
Puzzle, my brain slowly decoding, the
Shapes in the forest became two white
Tailed deer. One minute. Three minutes.
Seven minutes in, a cramp strangled my calf. Still
This unequal trinity stood in percolating silence unsure
Of the protocol for just this sort of meeting.
The one deer, confident, impatient, or comfortable
Moved its neck. Raised its head. Gave a look
To its partner and walked, two steps three.
The cautious one maintained his thorax piercing stare,
Ten minutes of stillness still not convincing him. He
Turned his back and hopped over a log, white
Tail flashing against dun colored bark. I stretched
Out my calves, raised up on toes
When I then saw the third one
Scamper down the ravine to my right.

Ohio Nature Preserve

Rising out of a level farmland desert,
An oasis: trees, creek, a path.
Asphalt manufactured outside of town,
A train from Baltimore rumbling past,
Footbridge from Alabama fashioned from
Pennsylvania steel. Gravel, chalky
White shards of limestone quarried nowhere
Near here, compacted by mechanized thumpers
Purchased from Mr. Smith-Jones on the other
Side of town. In fields to the east, athletes
From seven states run, drill, practice their
Athletic arts. Hwy 18 flows on to the west.
Along the stone path this steel autumn noon
Rain hangs in the air awaiting permission
To fall. Ambling along prescribed paths, now
Coated with discarded leaves, spent
Engines no longer digesting the sun into
Oak, elm, and shagbark, locust or maple.
Limbs all akimbo, trunks standing or
Fallen or felled line artificially meandering
Footpaths. Crickets unused to the twilit
Noon sing one last song hoping for
Summer’s last tumble.

Found Haiku

Ohio Buckeye
Twigs emit a foul odor
When broken

Original source material found in A Field Guide to Eastern Trees: Eastern United States and Canada by George A. Petrides, 1988.

Cure for Warts

Bread soda fig trees stolen meat
Rotting onions corn kernels rain
Dripping from a house knotted string
Tossed over left shoulder standing
On a bayou bridge moonlit night
Dirty dishrags a cross scratched tree
Backwards said prayers over numbered
Peach pits unbidden neighbor
Caterwauling in a darkened
Cemetery plot

Essays in the craft

Scattered leaves strewn on the lawn
Browns and oranges, red highlighted yellow,
Dessicated husks discarded
Left to decay, nutrition for next year’s growth.

Signs of perfection. Tracings gone to nowhere.
Faltering logic flowed from simple footings.
Well-trod pathways taken again and again
Novel paths petering out in too few steps.

False starts or aborted prize-winners. Who
Can tell? Word collections displayed, ironed
Between wax paper tied with yarn.
Once alive now fused in wax.

Crumpled sheaves of life giving tatters
Fallen in rings round the gnarled trunk
Year, each year, spring life trials
Seeking final ecstatic expression

The Word

A prophet breathes.
Inspiration enters buttressed
Caverns hung with alveoli
Chandeliers giving light
To bent cave dwellers.

Rush wind cascades through
Open doors regulated by
Tie-burdened ushers. Doors
Vibrate, humming harmonic
Sympathy to passing exhalations.

Respirations was through waxed
Canals crashing in on taut sails,
Ebb and flow; tidal energy transferred
by Rube Goldberg contraptions
To the seat of knowledge.