So we drive around the block
like two or three times
well okay multiply that by the number of days it takes to get to Mars
and that’s more like it.

I keep hoping we’ll accidentally see Brady outside or something
and Shayna says, “Yeah, but is it accidental
when we’ve driven around the block like five gazillion times?”
I ignore her as his house approaches,
….letmeseehim letmeseehim letmeseehim….
if I believed in magic he’d appear
hell, he should appear from the sheer will of my wanting.

OMG, there he is!
I dive to the floor of the car
scrunching into the smallest space I can
while Shayna honks and waves at him.
She honks and waves at him.
Smacking her gum with this asinine smile.

She’s dead.
There’s no question.

Brady sports plaid Bermudas
and boat shoes.
The hair on his legs tangles
like moss on the trunks of trees
and hangs like a picture in my mind.

God I love spring.

Brenda Warren 2012

NaPoWriMo 9
The NaPoWriMo prompt for day 9 asks us to write a persona poem. I took on the spring crush of a teenager.

my hands are cracking branches
bugs feed on dead flesh flaking from my fingers
it tickles, and they release the smell of oranges as they eat
my hands emit strange noises, cooing sighs of sweet relief
reminding me that oranges in Eden make more sense for Eve
my hands aren’t cracking, I am
maybe it has something to do with the bugs
the bugs that are scarfing down orange fleshed me
maybe it’s because I sprayed their ancestors, an insect retribution
don’t bite the hand that feeds you I tell the little buggers
The frienzied feast of nirvana carries on
a moving carpet of bugs grooms my hands
and I pay homage to the insect world

warren g wails as
world’s die beneath our feet
crawling stigmatas
We will dance the distance between here and there
carpe diem
as the orchard inhales bugs, and exhales satsuma
the branches of my fingers will reach out free and clear

Brenda Warren 2012
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Process Notes:
I found this interesting prompt at Margo Roby’s Wordgathering. The skin on my hands is at times untenable. I have an appointment in six week’s time out of town, as the dermatologist’s in my town aren’t worth their weight in beans. The piece fell from this rather detailed prompt Margo supplied. I started it early this morning, then came back to it to finish and polish it. I don’t know if it’s done yet, or not. But it was a good exercise. Thank you, Margo. If you haven’t visited Margo’s blog, you should.

Satsuma is a variety of mandarin orange. The Body Shop puts out an amazing body butter with the Satsuma scent. That’s the other piece of inspiration besides my hands and Margo’s prompt. The bugs showed up on their own.

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in
succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia [mixing the senses].
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word [slang?] you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve heard [preferably in dialect and/or
which you don’t understand].
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction:The
[adjective] [concrete noun] of [abstract noun]…
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative
qualities.
13. Make the character in the poem do something he/she could not
do in real life.
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense such that part of the poem sounds like a
prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that
finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Personify an object.
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but
that echoes an image from earlier in the poem.

sweet
young bride
a flower
a maidenhead
blooming in the night
unfold your soft petals
set your lily stamen free
filaments, anthers and pistils
stimulating your sweet nectary
a simultaneous pollination
transubstantiates this love between we
cocooning in a honeymoon suite
we merge into morning bright wings
rise up Lepidoptera
flitter dry our wet wings
these petals so white
unfold sunlight
and flutter
into
flight

Brenda Warren 2012

NaPoWriMo 4

This piece is my first double etheree, based on the NaPoWriMo Day 4 prompt.

“…write an epithalamium. This is nothing more or less than a poem celebrating a wedding. The first such poems were popular in the classical world, and were typically addressed to brides. The modern versions are a bit more expansive, and needn’t address just the bride, but can address the whole idea of the wedding, both partners, weddings in general, etc. …. No particular form, length, or rhyme scheme required!”

A double etheree has 1-10 syllables in ascending order through line 10. It has 10-1 syllables in descending order in lines 11-20.

Japanese Americans line up in a row
relocated to desolate spaces.
Stripped of life where families grow
Japanese Americans line up in a row,
a homegrown “work camp” show.
Pearl Harbor grows enemy faces
Japanese Americans line up in a row
relocated to desolate spaces.

Brenda Warren 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 2