Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo2019

mother of my mother – NaPoWriMo 2019 #13

mother of my mother

I remember her like it was
yesterday…my grandmother,
Mary Magdalene, mother of my
mother, confidant, and crone,
teller of family lore, of Russian
gypsies, garden remedies, secrets
of a distant past, in words I once
understood but can’t recall, days
of magic lived with her and my
grandpa, of lumpy cream of wheat,
whiskey-laced toddies, make-believe
reality, fleeting childhood memories
etched in my heart, ultimately part
of who I am…a bit of quirk, tree
whisperer, faerie friend, maker of
art, ‘twas she who taught me how
to see what others overlook, to
hear the voices in the breeze, to
see the acorns for the trees, to
feel the trembling earth with my
bare feet, my gypsy soul, always
home, no matter where or for
how long, clearly where I’m meant
to be, however short, however bitter
sweet, lessons to glean, new friends
to meet, my grandmother, all this,
taught me, leaving too soon, her
wisdom buried, silenced, from the
questions I have only thought of,
left unanswered now, but life goes on…
those sacred strands, connecting
those who came before, however
dim, inform this mother’s mother’s
child, who lives to tell her own
grandchildren tales of old, of
gypsies, whispering trees, of faerie
folk, we’ll listen to the breeze, dancing
on hallowed ground in our bare feet,
eat lumpy cream of wheat, conjure
our own realities of make-believe,
and come to know no matter where
we find ourselves, we’re always home,
never alone, embraced by kin, by
every gypsy soul who ever lived before
and who is living still in us and will again

~kat


NaPoWriMo 2019 #13 Prompt: write a poem about something mysterious and spooky! Your poem could be about something that is mysterious and spooky in a bad way (like a witch), or mysterious and spooky in a good way (possibly also like a witch? It depends on the witch, I guess!) Or just the everyday, mysterious, spooky quality of being alive.


the children are gone – NaPoWriMo #12

the children are gone

they were never really mine
though i held them twenty years
my dreams faded over time
blood and sweat and many tears

though i held them twenty years
they decided who they’d be
blood and sweat and many tears
all for naught, when they left me

they decided who they’d be
independence lured them hence
all for naught, when they left me
did my best, in my defense

independence lured them hence
gone to live their life and dreams
did my best, in my defense
doesn’t matter now, it seems

gone to live their life and dreams
they think they must turn away
doesn’t matter now, it seems
‘twas a simple role i played

they think they must turn away
my dreams faded over time
‘twas a simple role i played
they were never really mine

~kat


A Pantoum for NaPoWriMo 2019 #12 Prompt: write a poem about a dull thing that you own, and why (and how) you love it. Alternatively, what would it mean to you to give away or destroy a significant object?

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who am i ? – NaPoWriMo 2019 #11

who am i?

sometimes i go barefoot just
to feel the earth murmuring,
infusing me with nature song,
lilting sweet, fierce…one day
i shall return to those cool, dark
catacombs below to cavort
with the worms and slugs

i’ve been known to hug a tree
or three or more, now and
again to remember how
to bend when tempests reel
and whirlwinds leave me
vulnerable to the cold, in
nakedness, learning to let go

i have floated in still pools and
on the edge of wave-rushed
shores learning to trust in
buoyancy and the rhythm
of all life’s ebbs and flows…
listening to chattering shell
shards dancing just below

i have counted on a thousand
stars, each night another wish
proposed, felt the moon’s
dizzying nudges, helpless as
the ocean tides, cursed the sun
on sweltering summer days
embraced the dusk and dawn

who am i, but flesh and blood,
carbon, hydrogen and air…to
think that i am separate from
everything i see and hear, the
universe is deep and wide, and i,
a blip in time, a dot in space who’ll
one day disappear without a trace.

~kat


NaPoWriMo 2019 #11 Prompt: write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually? Maybe you are from Vikings and the sea and diet coke and angry gulls in parking lots. Maybe you are from gentle hills and angry mothers and dust disappearing down an unpaved road. And having come from there, where are you now?

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gray – NaPoWriMo #10

gray

today’s a melancholy kind of day
birds are flying low, and cows laying down,
the leaves of great oak trees are spinning ’round,

whispers a-roaring while reapers make hay,
limp locks a-drooping from curly-topped crowns,
dry seaweed grows damp beneath painted clouds

it’s a good time to be inside tucked away
winged gnats are nipping, vile creepers break ground
it’s gray and windy, for cover we’re bound

the cock’s crow last night, filled us with dismay
we knew it was coming, signs all around
now hear the rain pour, bewitched by the sound
today’s a melancholy kind of day

~kat

I found several bits of weather lore for today’s NaPoWriMo 2019 Challenge Prompt: write a poem that starts from a regional phrase, particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon. 

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mind blown – NaPoWriMo #8

mind blown

I don’t believe I knew what “brrrblubbbballlloooobalub” meant when I was new and my vocabulary was nonexistent, but I’m guessing I liked it all the same, smiling at my parents’ funny faces when they said it… I don’t believe they understood what it meant either, but it stopped me from crying, so they said it again and again…and again. They didn’t understand a lot of things those early years, as they grew up with me and learned about parenting, trial and error being key…somehow I survived barely, moving on and out before they lost their minds…you think I’m kidding… I should have said, before my father put a bullet between his eyes and my mother destroyed her body with years of drug abuse and doctor tripping…too much?

What I meant to say is that I have a pretty good idea how not to lose oneself to oblivion, not because I’m any less neurotic than my parents…I’m afraid my genes are laced with lunacy…but I have tried to learn from their mistakes, spent decades vomiting words to therapists (with an “s” because it takes time to find the right one who is not a bible-thumping, name it, claim it, pray the demon out of you, zealot), gotten the right mix, the perfect recipe, for my anti-depressive cocktail of pharmaceuticals, legal, of course, and I have tried to be good, to be kind, to be a good listener, to be a helper, but not a doormat, and to learn to say no, to learn to trust, to let myself love another person, and to give myself permission to walk away from anyone or thing that feels wrong…it has taken me a long time to figure out I’m okay…

sometimes I let out a roudy brrblubbbballlloooobalub when no one is listening just to feel the rush of joy that bubbles up inside me, centering me in the moment, so I can breathe in and out and smile. I think I’m starting to understand what that silly gibberish means after all these years. Absolutely nothing, of course and that is okay…that is okay.

~kat

A prose poem for NaPoWriMo 2019 #9 Prompt – Write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.”