Month: April 2018

Life Chapters

Today’s NaPoWriMo challenge is to write a poem of lists, based on fictitious names.  I always thought I could write a memoir, with each chapter being a play on the name of the streets I’ve lived on:

Dawn: Life Begins
Kings way: Patriarchy Established
Towering Heights:  The Rise Before the Fall
Wake – Elle:  Feminism is Born
Black Acres:  The Dark Years
Berkshire:  A Male Chauvinist Pig
Springbank:  Hope
William:  A New Ruler
Topping:  The Final Straw
Wonderland:  Like Alice
Beached Wood:  Pregnancy
Hardsley:  Still Pregnant
Highview:  Scrambling for Perspective
Deck Her:  Perspective is Obvious
Bricks n Ham:  Hard Life
Baseline:  A Bottom to Build From
Griffin:  Chasing a Myth
Crestly:  Climbing
Mark Us:  Noteworthy
Iron Wood:  Gaining
Boler:  Hats Off to Progress

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A Poem in Three Voices

Page three! Father would say
whenever she opened mouth
to speak – inevitable tale waiting

I just want you to hear me,
I remember feeling, to know
that my words have meaning

You get all your needs met;
it’s why I work so hard, now
don’t bother me, get along… 

She learned to hold things in,
to refrain from long passages,
practiced needing no one.

Dear diary, why does everyone
hate me? What have I done,
and why do I feel so alone …?

You hide away in that room
of yours, ignoring your mother
and me; what’s wrong with you?

 She shrugs, picks up her purse
and heads out the door, school
is almost finished, then freedom.

Left home today; so happy to be
away; hope my roommates like
me, hope I don’t ruin it for us. 

Just called to see if you’re okay,
your mother and I worry; let
us know if you need anything…

But she’d stop needing long ago –
shut down in the formative years,
when rejection defined esteem.

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem in three voices.)

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Security

Silly really,
this relationship of mine –
how I hang on, despite
the tears, the fraying
edges, ignore
the waning
of fibres,
how lifted
to the light
I can see through –
warmth no longer
a reason for
clinging,
and yet
there are memories
woven in between
loose threads –
heartache and
consolation –
and so, like Linus
I cannot let it go.

(Decided to join NaPoWriMo, hosted by Maureen Thorson.  A little slow on the uptake, I’ve started with the early prompt:  to write a letter (poem) to an inanimate object.)

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Plateaus

The quest for love
an uphill climb,
the footholds
loose and failing

Scrapes heal, and
hearts yearning
begin again, forget
the falls, aspire

Unconditional love
a dizzying height,
soulmates and
pre-destination

Goals for romantics,
by my heart reaches
for a memory, a return
to the beginning

When kisses warm
and embraces strong
conveyed desirability,
love’s reverence a peak

much steeper to attain
when age, in its folly
lusts after a youth’s game,
time a cruel intervener.