Under the moon
when the coyotes cry
all the town’s children go whistling by
riding like lightning down Gulliver Lane,
hooting and howling—
a pedaling train.
Brenda Warren 2012
NaPoWriMo Day 13
swallowed shadows
Somewhere in the middle of your bouquet of words
a bee sting pricks the walls of my heart.
Its heat beats through my chest.
Its venom cooks my face.
Salty viscous tears
slide through my soul
and never marry air.
You are a swallow
swimming through the shallows
of my balmy calloused skin.
Intangible shadows rally
and lie in wait
for later sabotage
when echoes of your words
will waft their fetid fragrance
and send you hot and fluttering
through the tender empty shallows
of my ever hungry flesh.
Brenda Warren 2012
NaPoWriMo Day 12
Yesterday’s prompt at NaPoWriMo asked us to consider our senses, which is where this piece took root. Then it took its own direction, and wound up with swallowed shadows. It almost feels like two different pieces to me, but it’s day 12, and I’m tired. It will look completely different to me in the morning, they often do.
Thank you for your support this month. It’s nice to know you read my work.
Black Widow Be – Otch
“Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.” —Plato
It is the lie’s intention.
Enchantress.
Temptress.
Cloak your untruth in something glorious,
something shiny that I’ll really believe.
I do, don’t I?
I believe almost everything you tell me,
and then some.
hmmmm….
Maybe there is something to Plato’s edict.
Maybe you are a lying tramp.
An enchantress?
No.
More like a black widow.
Spinning a web of lies
so you can suck out souls
to nourish your existence
fed on the lifeblood captured
by the fruit of your tempting deception.
Brenda Warren 2012
NaPoWriMo Day 11, Yes eleven poems in eleven days. I’m rocking it!
Process Notes:
No prompt: this was inspired by the recent public break up of a Facebook friend and her girlfriend (and a need to write something for Day 11).
rap ditty
white lady
sparrow
rosebud cheeks
stilettos from the ghetto
once covered your feet
my brother from another
mother sold them to you there
down by the ocean
near the fisherman’s lair
checking out the blanket displaying his ware
you bought his Prada knock offs at 30 bucks a pair
white lady
sparrow
rosebud cheeks
look at you now
a company chief
a tiny rigid powerhouse
you perpetrate the earnings
of the power infrastructure
you set the public’s yearnings
power suit displays you
cunning in its style
sexy but no nonsense
with legs that run for miles
white lady
sparrow
rosebud cheeks
look at you now
all fancy on your feet
you got your Prada it’s the real thing
Gucci, Jimmy Choo—
those Manolo Blahnik pumps rock all over you
from here to there you made it girl
a real Cinderella
with a gigolo dressed up to pet
your dazzling faux fella
did you get him on a blanket,
checking out his ware
down by the ocean near
fisherman’s lair?
Brenda Warren 2012
Process Notes:
The prompt at NaPoWriMo asked that we take a line from a poem and create a new piece from it. The first three lines, which are repeated throughout this piece are lifted from an old poem I wrote. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at a rap style piece, and I think this one is heading in that direction. Thank you for your visits, and reading my work.
That’s ten poems, one each day, for ten days. Hoot! Hoot!
twitterpated spring
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.
broken
staggering in the marrow of her addiction
she misses the moral of every story told
brief snatches of coherence
sorrow flows through her broken blood
humming the songs of her life
dancing inside the worthy morrow of Neverland
where her children lie buried in yesterday’s dusk
while she mates her life to a needle’s destiny
forever sunk in dreams half sung
Brenda Warren 2012
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sunday Whirl words pulled me to a dark place. I am ever thankful that this is not the life I live. It is day 8 of NaPoWriMo, and thus far, I’ve made it—a poem a day. It’s been a fun journey. Thank you for dipping your toes into my river of words.
dark moving thing
dark moving thing, object of me
shrinking and stretching
you beat out time
following me through days of sunshine
where morning eats away at you
and draws you near at noon
before your blackness waxes east
and disappears into night
where I sometimes take you out
in puppets that silhouette stories
moving dark against the wall
without light to give you notice
you’d not be anything at all
Brenda Warren 2012
satsuma
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.
Battered Blues
When my baby hit me, he blackened both my eyes.
When my baby hit me, he blackened both my eyes.
Got me wearing dark sunglasses, beneath these cloudy skies.
Said he’d never lay a hand on me, yet this is what he’s done.
Said he’d never lay a hand on me, yet this is what he’s done.
Thought he’d lay off when the doctor said I’m carrying his son.
His body goes ballistic he explodes in purple rage.
His body goes ballistic he explodes in purple rage.
then he showers me with presents, the presents build a cage
Tonight he’ll bring me roses red and love me slow and deep.
Tonight he’ll bring me roses red and love me slow and deep,
but the rod he puts inside me, has sown its final seed
I’m visiting my sister soon she’s giving me a gun.
I’m visiting my sister soon she’s giving me a gun.
I’ll make his boy a bastard. No, he’ll never know his son.
Brenda Warren 2012
epithalamium in double etheree
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
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.
undercaws 