memories of my feral youth flash like jiffy pop in my head at the sight of buttercups in bloom what wild little beasts we were slamming the screen door on our way to never land at dawn small change in our pockets to spend on penny candy, the streetlights striking midnight at dusk when all good brats scurried back home before turning into pumpkins, days in the sunshine with dandelion stem curls in our hair, the gritty satisfying taste of mud, fashioning queen Anne’s lace into bouquets, collecting fossil rocks, garden snakes in coffee tins, and pop bottles to earn enough money, 50 cents, for a Saturday matinee fearless, it’s a wonder any of us survived considering how cautiously we rear our progeny in 21st century bubbles…once upon a lifetime ago monsters hid under our beds or in the closet never dared to stalk us in daylight… simpler times then, nights illuminated by fireflies in pickle jars buttercups glowing under our chins to prove we liked butter ringing round rosies like whirligigs on a breeze, down, down…to ashes
~kat
NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge Day Twenty/Seven: write your own poem titled “The ________ of ________,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun. The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.
it’s biology. blood and spit transport the slurry of DNA that determines what i am to the world, pale, easily sunburned skin, big arms and hands, small breasts, and breeder’s hips…that’s what my dad called them…I made good use of them too, squeezing out several healthy babies in my day…and an aversion to cilantro DNA…now when I look in the mirror my eyes look the same as in my youth, blue, with the same dashes of gray, gray like the random strands that pepper, or is that salt, my blond thinning curls, my body softening, i’m older now, and wiser, I think wisdom, while hard-earned is wasted on the old… one look at me and you might decide you know everything you need to know about who I am, but I am not my DNA, my soul begs to differ…confuse what with who and you will completely miss the who standing in front of you like a book, it is only when you flip through the pages… give it a try…you’ll see… did you know? I write poetry
~kat
NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge Day 26: write a portrait poem that focuses on or plays with the meaning of the subject’s name. This could be a self-portrait, a portrait of a family member or close friend, or even a portrait of a famous or historical person.
when first we met, the exquisite pain of longing for you allayed in an instant my heart swelling, splintering into a million pieces, every cell, every sinew of my body tingling, flush in that moment how you terrified me your perfection, your delicate fingers, button toes, your oddly familiar features, my mouth and nose, his eyes, the lusty, primal sound of your first breath’s cry took my breath away, consumed me full how intense that moment when your eyes met mine, how deep and wise your gaze, piercing my soul, a glimpse into eternity beyond the veil where you had dwelt only seconds before, miracle hardly explains your entrance, but a magnificent miracle you are how you surprised me with a love so pure, opening my heart to its perfection, a love I have never known or imagined could exist in this jaded world of give and take, gently persuading me with a sigh to give you all…darling baby, how I loved you then and still a mother’s heart knows no bounds
~kat
For NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge Day Twenty-Five: write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.
I didn’t manage to include a flower but I love where today’s prompt transported me…seems like only yesterday. ❤️
the sweet scent of buttercups infuses the warm breeze, leaf buds have popped; tiny flutters of emerald green against an azure sky,the Fowler toads have emerged from their winter hideaways, a cacophony of spring peepers greets the dusk with lusty verve, hummingbirds have returned buzzling by my head to sip sweet nectar from feeders that have been at the ready for weeks, the world is awake, teeming with life mourning doves, bluejays, tits, wrens, phoebes, and bright crimson cardinals congregate at wood’s edge twitter-chattering, gray squirrels toss seed to the ground, while dangling from the feeders… spring…Gaia’s first bloom, debutante of debutante’s, oh, she has outdone herself, or maybe I’m just getting wiser, not to mention older, all this to say, well done, spring… well done, decades of springs have come and gone, but first blooms, and new life never get old
-kat
NaPoWriMo2023 Challenge Day Twenty-Four: write a poem in the form of a review. But not a review of a book or a movie of a restaurant. Instead, I challenge you to write a poetic review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. For example, your mother-in-law, the moon, or the year you were ten years old.
1- soot dusted space morning sun glare floor to ceiling windows leak streaked inside from too much rain cubicle of cubicles the corporate sweatshop that devoured me
2- down, down, downsized from a one hundred year old money-trap, a thousand square feet of accumulated stuff to lose, memories are not things, to a forever home in the Blue Ridge foothills with undressed windows, ambient green
3- the pandemic, people were dying, they told us, “pack everything, work from home”, a few weeks turned into months into years from cubicle to corner nook sheltered, stir crazy, in place hummingbirds at the window squirrels in the hickory trees
4- i don’t miss the commute from dark dawn to dark dusk the break room chatter, gossip, office politics ugly they’re telling us, “pack everything, come back to the cubicles”, but i have decided to stay where life has balance, home where my heart is
~kat
NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge Day Twenty-Three: write a poem of your own that has multiple numbered sections. Attempt to have each section be in dialogue with the others, like a song where a different person sings each verse, giving a different point of view. Set the poem in a specific place that you used to spend a lot of time in, but don’t spend time in anymore.
So it is easier for you to find all the parts/chapters of my ongoing fiction series, I created a new page that lists all the links. You can check it out HERE!
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