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 Apr 2015 Mary McCray
Joel M Frye
Some years ago, I begged for firmament,
a lasting place of honor in your skies.
As days of disappointment came and went,
I learned forever's promises are lies.
Still fighting finite life, impermanence,
this chunk of astral rock would never learn
time's atmosphere is entered only once,
and we glow, white and screaming as we burn.

The cold of space interred within my bones
means any source of warmth is welcomed now,
including immolation.  
                                         Had I known
the entropy our years on earth allow,
a reckless plunge would sanction fiery end:
The shooting star is blessed and not condemned.
NaPoWriMo day 8...a palinode to my poem, "Kathie's Song", written over 30 years ago.  An interesting exercise in retrospection.

Kathie's Song

I would be content to be a constant star,
or better still, a constellation
shining brightly in your nighttime from afar;
a trusted guide, an inspiration.

Inner motivation pushed me from my place
and sent me hurtling through the skies,
chancing an encounter with your whirling grace
and the shining smiling of your eyes.

Now not driven, only being drawn to you
by planetary force - not gravity,
but stronger still - the sight of someone being true,
the steady pull of honesty.

Plunging, reckless, through your atmosphere of care,
drinking in your warmth until I glow
and burst - a billion blooming wishes everywhere -
too briefly, brightly burning as I go.

I have been condemned to be a shooting star,
one who deals in days and not forevers.
Time too short to catch enough of who you are
to last throughout a thousand nevers.
In the garden she digs furrows
with her broken clock hands,
plants time in fallow fields.

On hands and knees,
the moist crumbling soil
spills through determined fingers.

With watchful gaze
they wind,
they spin.

She repackages her purpose into
tiny tin boxes,
folds the brittle paper of years ticking by,

molds origami shapes:
the thousand cranes,
one croaking frog,

and stuffs them there.
NaPo 4/8
 Apr 2015 Mary McCray
Joel M Frye
Whose words these are I think I know.
He's on another website, though;
He will not see me shopping here
To snitch his words for me to show.

My readership must think it queer;
I post ten thousand poems a year.
Between the copies, pastes and likes
I've barely time to chug a beer.

They give their addled heads a shake
And ask if there is some mistake.
The others call me out, a creep.
Who cares? They're just a bunch of flakes.

Their poems are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have villanelles to sneak,
And lines to own before I sleep,
And lines to own before I sleep.
NaPoWriMo day 7.  Not by prompt, but something I've wanted to write for a long, long time.
If you really need to steal the work of others to call yourself a poet, it's one of the most pathetic admissions any human being could make.  Stop it.

With apologies to Robert Frost, of course.
Iamb, iamb, iamb, I plod along
in verse predicting I could write a song.
To call upon the muse of higher power
pour some wine, kick off your shoes and glower.

While putting best foot forward, don't forget:
cliches are lines that surely **** your wit.
Reality, you say, bears greener grass?
Abstraction always steps across as crass.

It's true you could walk on like this for days.
Your meter's tight, it rarely ever strays.
But what of clever feet and sounds succinct?
If images are dull, your verse will stink,

As blossoms dance upon the redbud tree
and oceans fill your squid with ink of glee,
remember what your mama always said:
mixed metaphors fill readership with dread!

Say: sonics surely sock a swelling swale,
Entwined, the twisted tongues tell not your tale.
Less is always more, the teachers say.
If tricks you train, then please just walk away!

I never knew how hard it really was
to write a poem that might parade a buzz.
I thank you moderators and big brass
for sticking yours so fully up my ***!
NaPo 4/7  Exhausted already, and muse has gone into hiding.
 Apr 2015 Mary McCray
Joel M Frye
One Monday morning let my lover lie
in warmth and comfort of the tousled bed;
the busy bustling world shall pass her by.

Sunny and insistent morning sky
is keeping covers pulled about her head.
One Monday morning let my lover lie.

A sleepy snuggle, smooch upon closed eye,
absolutely nothing need be said.
The busy bustling world shall pass her by.

The toaster ready, coffee standing by
to clear her mind and wash down breakfast bread.
One Monday morning let my lover lie.

There'll come a day when she won't have to try
and keep up with the worker-drones. Instead,
the busy bustling world shall pass her by.

Today, the radio's insistent cry
called her to rise and shower; off she sped.
One Monday morning, let my lover lie;
the busy bustling world shall pass her by.
NaPoWriMo day 6...a Monday aubade.  Nobody said I couldn't write a villanelle.  ;)
His letters scatter loose upon the ground,
She clenches fists despite arthritic hands
that rail against the words she never found.
To spite the golden noose of tarnished bands,
she douses tomes and quick lets loose a flame.
A tendril's curling wisp of past desire
snakes toward the sky. Still the ash of blame
survives the ceremony's futile pyre.
What fire ever burns away the dross
or dulls the tempered edges of we're done?
Yet embers coax; they succor heat not lost
to years they burned together each alone.
The groan of ache sounds low within her hips.
One letter saved, pressed tightly to her lips.
NaPo 4/5
 Apr 2015 Mary McCray
betterdays
Winter listens, listens.
Meanings, breathe imperial
Tis difference.
When like –
When the it –
When it listens.....
Tis it, the difference
Winter like scar, comes,

He the Landscape
– An –
We, the breath,

-NO-
When Hurt,
goes, –
We imperial none
We hold - are seal,
are afflicted lights

    -The Distance -
    ...of the us...
    – None listens –

Where it holds hurt,
it comes as,
Cathedraled Despair
Any listens – '
Tis –
the goes, '
tis of the us  - goes,

Distance On light,  
But comes, gives us  –
Death -
of certain slanted despair,

None listens - goes,

We find the Distance Of it –
That a Hurt,
Any meaning –
Heavenly Meanings,
Teach us Hurt,
The like of-
tuned,
affliction,
shadows,
imperial despair.

look-teach-look-find-listen-look,  

Send imperial light,  
Shadows of  light
Any Heft- Any Slant -
Of  their affliction,
scar-differential.

Sent like winter
– An –
heaven
None on hold,
goes,

There is it  – There is it -
Shaft of hefted light
Sent slanted - sealed compassion
falls from internal, elanic height.

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
napowrimo2015
prompt:
using an Emily Dickenson
Poem..
rewrite
into a new piece.

Original poem:

There's a certain Slant of light,
BY EMILY DICKINSON

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons –

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes –


Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –

We can find no scar,

But internal difference –

Where the Meanings, are –


None may teach it – Any –

'Tis the seal Despair –

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air –


When it comes, the Landscape listens –

Shadows – hold their breath –

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death
 Apr 2015 Mary McCray
Joel M Frye
the Belle of Amherst -
because she'd not stop for death --
her poems still breathe
NaPoWriMo day 5.
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