One poem closer to equaling July’s date. Can I make it? Not extremely pleased with some of these offerings, but they’re passable, and they’re certainly authentic: I don’t have time to dress them up!
Morning, I'm full of
promises seldom kept.
Game show brilliance
gives way to cartoon
gibberish. Soulful
insight yields to
hard-hearted logic, then
to weepy emotions.
Gemstone in morn's
peeking sun. If flaws
perfect diamonds, I
must be priceless.
26/100
Chipmunk flies into
air: ah, it's a sparrow!
Eats seeds as before.
25/100
I follow few blogs (he said, cringing at the fact about 150 follow his). One that I follow, belatedly, catching up to its posts when I can, is from Ben East, until recently a member of our country’s foreign service. I’m not sure what though it might have been U. S. Aid. It’s not important. What is important is that he wrote a book about some super-notable people who started in the Peace Corps and went on to distinguished careers in foreign service.
Around the time Ben published his book, he wrote this post which really hits home to the writers among us. I urge you to read it if you consider yourself a writer, even if you’ve written little.
I’ll be shouting out a couple of other blogs in the near future. Ciao for now.
Every day I’m posting one poem for 100 days…or attempting to. August will tell the tale. So far I’ve navigated a couple of things which could have derailed me, including a broken arm last Tuesday evening. I’m reminded of the supposed Jerry Seinfeld mantra: “Don’t Break The Chain.” Seinfeld claimed it wasn’t his idea, but oddly, the show Seinfeld had an episode about it. The legend is that Seinfeld was at something (it’s been attributed to an open mike night/interview type of thing) and was asked what advice he would give to an aspiring comedian. His supposed answer was, “Every day write one joke. And don’t…break…the…chain!”
BAROMETER HEAD
Tunes atmosphere
Hears what no one
else can. Predicts
rain. Suffers through
hurricanes, his
head poundingly
painful. Displays
unnatural giddiness
during sunny
high pressure domes.
Can't leap tall buildings,
Can't stop bullets,
(but his sinuses
sometimes feel as
if they've done so).
His kryptonite?
Nasal sprays which
would destroy his
power, inure him
to those swirly
times when colors
speak, spoken words
seem tangible,
when he walks inside
his waking dreams.
24/100
A funny thing happened when I started writing my poem for today. Halfway through a different poem said, “No, write me instead!”
A true tale….
I once read a book
where every distinct idea
received its own line,
prose as poem,
purposefully presenting them
in bite-sized pieces.
I remember it because
at sixteen years
I learned about infinity
this way, how
one infinity can be bigger than another.
Before this, I had thought
"Infinity is just Infinity,"
never dreaming
"it" should be "they,"
never considering
they could be quantified
(kind of).
"Think of all the numbers on a number line,
how they go on to Infinity.
Call it Set A.
What if we add one to Set A?
Call it Set B.
Set B must be bigger!"
"Think how a number line goes from Zero to One.
If you go halfway from One to Zero,
then halfway again,
and so on:
obviously you'll never get to Zero.
It's an Infinity, but...
since it's contained between Zero and One,
just as obviously it's smaller
than the infinities we discussed with Sets A and B."
My mind was blown. No
wonder I took psychotropics.
What else could I do to
fill the spaces it had made?
23/100
My wife changes
linens as lunatics do:
four sets, towels,
sheets, rotated through
twenty-eight days.
White as reliably
follows Black as
Waxing follows
Waning.
Occasionally I've
challenged the Tide
by suggesting, "why
don't you wash Thursday
instead of Friday?
We're vacationing
soon. Best to look
forward, balance it."
I've no idea how
my Tides of Time
intersect hers. It
makes things
interesting.
22/100
O children of our thoughtless world,
Rise up to claim your prize.
We've left you worthless baubles,
We've left what you despise.
In times long past, when 'things were good'
Rewards fell in our lap.
We now disdain your plaintive cries that
All we've left seems crap.
Times get easy, times get tough,
It's not our fault we won—
We cashed those chips that came to us
As we think you'd have done.
Wonder not why we don't hear
Your cries for fairness' sake.
All we want lies in our graves
Where we'll be when things break.
We know deep down your reckoning
Will come as in life's past.
You'll wonder as you're winning why
Your children stare aghast.
21/100
Perhaps not everyone will agree with me on this one. Should you disagree, we can discuss in the comments.
Rainy day,
peanut butter on
whole-grain toast,
lentil soup.
Waterside cabin,
fried eggs,
syrupy pancakes,
bacon dikes the syrup.
Chore day interrupted by
grilled cheese
sandwich
dipped in ketchup.
Warm breezes,
cold-cut sandwich,
cheap potato chips,
airborne laughter.
Hot-off-the-grill
basted shrimp,
salt-air seasoning,
rosy sunset.
Fully packed car,
open road,
charcuterie lunch
eaten while driving.
Opening Day,
roasted peanuts
(shell on),
Yuengling Traditional Lager.
Salty tears,
wedding bells,
niece/nephew giddiness,
families-becoming.
20/100
I’m writing a poem a day (sometimes two), and now I’m 20% there. It’s causing me to rethink poetry and my approach to it, when and how I’ve written it in the past.
Ankle rolls, fall looms!
Poem will be short today—
One-handed typing.
19/100
all the voices in my head 