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betterdays Apr 2017
I remember my mother's
black patent leather court shoes
so shiny as to be reflective of my soul
as I stared at them from the floor
of the church, laying between pews
memsmerised by hymns of god's glory
and shiny black shoes


I remember my mother's
black patent leather court shoes
with the crack across the sole
as she put them on to walk the mile
to work, caring for other peoples
sick children

I remember my mother's
black patent leather court shoes
as an adult I sat across from her
dozing form and stared at her feet
malformed by hours of standing
in heeled shoes in operating theatres

I remember, the year we got new shoes
and she had her's patched and repatched
I remember the sighs of relief
as she took off her shoes after a long day
and placed those weary feet into sheepskin slippers,  
bought yearly at the mother's day sales..


I remember these sacrifices
and more as  I help the old lady,
who is my mother with crooked back
and shuffling legs from chair to table
and back again..

I remember with gratitude
the quiet fierceness of her love
I remember my mother's
black patent leather court shoes
and all that they represent...
This i s prompt from last years napowrimo....when I have time...I intend to revisit these prompts....this was for a poem of remembering....
Ottar Apr 2016
I remember Reaching for your hand before we first kissed.

I remember Enjoying the warmth of our hands touching as did our lips.

I remember Measuring my words whispered in your ear, to take you beyond bliss.

I remember Every tasted breath, before we kissed.

I remember Minutes spent together, the blood pounding in my state of light headed
bliss.

I remember Brown eyes drinking in my blue eyes, as we touched finger tips.

I remember Every tasted breath, before we kissed.

I remember Relishing the next time our hands would be closer than our lips.

I remember
the letter
you wrote
saying it was
better that
this was good-
bye, I was across
the country
and could
not test the
look in your
eyes, gone
cold. This
rememberance
is very old.
First serious girlfriend thirty-seven years ago.

A B a A a b A B  rhyme scheme for the 8 lines
ConnectHook Apr 2016
✿   ✿   ✿


Haiku is not true

poetry by any means:

formulaic = dull

Take a haiku (yawn...)

a  poem a day for NaPoWriMo2016

www.connecthook.wordpress.com
Ottar Apr 2016
She kills things.

"Roses are red, the violets are dead.”
She stopped, looked at her toes as she spoke.
Moving at full speed, Her hair flowed from her head .
The door suddenly ****** open, against the vase, which She broke.

Quickly, running, fast up the steps, to find Her granddad

She knew she was is in trouble, forgetting her grandparents warning.
Where the violets had been, there was a shimmering, growing lake.
She saw the garden, in full sun, that she watered that morning.
Bored, across the yard She skipped to count, how many would it take?

Surely done, it was playtime, strawberry stained lips, and no one around.

They left Her there to tidy up, shut off the water, and pick strawberries.
They put Her to work in the flower garden full of colour, and a few bees.
Grandpa said to Grandma, “that girl has a lot of cheek."
She said,"Roses have thorns, violets are weak”

She was the garden tempest.
Backwards story leads to poetry.
I may have missed this by a long ways, but I am glad I am no where near this spooky child.
ConnectHook Apr 2016
ክብረ ነገሥት*

Oh Sovereign of wisdom Solomonic,
forgive us. The wicked wax demonic.
Golden vessels fill with foulness
man is bankrupt, sold and soulless
Unsettling harbingers loom dystopian.
Sheba rises in dreams Ethiopian.*

Tested with questions, her spirit once gone,
occultic suggestions postponed her dawn.
(Six-hundred and sixty-six talents of gold
paid Nineveh’s rise as Messiah foretold.
Go read it in Matthew, obstinate sinner
You think He intends to have Satan the winner?)
Her ruins now surveyed by satellite
beheld on the screens of the Canaanite:
canals to expose, southern deserts to cross,
Eritrean legends of Prophet (and loss),
the Ark of King Menelik—Kebra Negast,
treasures of darkness presented, now past
have us checking those texts that worldlings despise
as we wait under dread Luciferian skies.

Break the sixth seal of the seventh scroll;
let the thirteenth angel spill the bowl !
(or smoke it up in the courts of Heaven
till *****’s infinitude totals seven…)
Exhume Axum with the ****** of Marib.
decode the encryption on Adam’s rib
unearthed from some Antediluvian ravine—
Blast from the past: she explodes on our scene!
Seven oaths shall be sworn on her spectral beauty
(our Biblical transcendental duty).
The libation is mixed. Are we ready to swill it?
Beersheba? She brew ! Let us rise to fulfill it.
from sita to Saba fifth columns are ready:
Oh Sovereign — render their pillars unsteady.
For after explosions there’s mess to clean up,
and it’s worse than the horrors inside of her cup.
ክብረ ነገሥት
a  poem a day for NaPoWriMo2016
www.connecthook.wordpress.com
Ottar Apr 2016
Battle royal for a bottle of red.
Up the ante, we're going for Chianti!

Grant me kindness, pour a splash on my fettered tongue.
Up the ante, we're going for a thousand cases of Chianti!

Hoist the mains'l, sea dogs, raise the anchor, or you be hung!
Up the ante, the Cap'n is in a wanton need of Chianti!

Another wine won't do?
Up the ante, we know where they harbour the Chianti-shhhh

Wind be fast, my thirst is deep, as the desert is dry!
Up the ante, we're not paying' for the Chianti we're takin"

The ship from stem to stern, you get to clean, when we return, alive!
Up the ante, it is worth all the cases of Chianti, below decks we can hold!

Up the ante, we're putting' out to sea, we have a nose for good Chianti!
For when the Cap'n retires he will drink and
sing this Chianti Chanty at a seaside shanty, all day!
Chanty...nuff said
Ottar Apr 2016
This will land like focaccia,
Like the careless 'forgot ya'!

And a man will stand while staring in, through the coffee shop window, going off glossolalia.

The ebullient cashier trainee
remembers every name and mixes up almost all the orders
for coffee,

Cars are lined up for the drive-
through, their voices sound like
didjeridoos, in the ears covered
by single cyborg clip-ons

headset taking orders.

The ****** iconoclast, Street person, bows to the ground, hat off his head, as he prays to the cigarette holes he made in the EXIT sign outside,

his hat remains empty, as each car that whips up the wind that tumbles the receipts tossed egregiously at him, like leaves in the Fall,

While the cruciverbalist sits in the corner in the only soft seat, finger pecking her keyboard while stares at the line and sips her chai tea,

lagniappe of chocolate stashed,

away in her voluptuous bag,  the beleaguered barista has cups lined up over the transcendental horizon,

and she can't wait for her break
so she can eat with Olio Nuovo
olive oil, and Selection Artisan
ged balsamic vinegar, she brought
to dip, her focaccia bread in,
which she forgot almost,
on the counter at home.
From a few days back, posting to HP IG an WordPress, takes more time away from poetry...
Ottar Apr 2016
Will it always only be a safe dream
like wandering in a bare wilderness,
game to robust predators, and wildness
clear choices call across the primal stream.

It was late Spring when we first did daydream
the fragrant flowers were dusting progress
Winter's meagre offer, a cold caress
the wildlife, sedate upon the grounds glean

of Fall's gathered rare jewelled leaf mountains,
among the valley's musk we would linger
peak with sounds, echoes loud voiced joy bringer
beyond Summer's pleasured column fountains,
wayward wine red chances, seasoned drinker
deep red and bottled up, loose danger pains.
So there was a man who watched life pass him by and as he could not be adventurous in deed, he was in word.
Ottar Apr 2016
Is this thing on...?
A blue planet walks up to a
microphone, to tell a joke
or read a spoken word poem.

But no one hears,
for IT is coughing and choking...

i am a steward,
so
stewards are, we all,
every breathing human
has this duty to, the Sphere
with at most, one atmosphere,
no replacement part, no spares
get filled with awe at the beauty
if it is the inspiration to do the duty,
save your woe, save the fear,

use your eyes to share with your soul,
the toll, that bidpedal greed heads have
charged the future wee ones, you tell them "this is
not the planet you are looking for"

but it is the Living, that this Planet is dying for.

This Earth-toned marble and this garbled poetry
is as much responsibility that this Steward can
handle responsibly, alone,

I don't want to be alone in this,
go see the sights, walk in bliss that...
the contract for cleaning the whole
Planet, is up for tender,

and we know, it will go to the lowest bidder,
and not the lowest
common denominator,
in this case one,
we have one Sun, one Moon,
it starts with One,...
my soap box broke
it is recycled stuff,
we have all heard or read this by now,
...sure this is a rant, not magical mystical poetry,
woefully thrown together, like climate change
and weather, and global warming,
what is the harm in
...that, we live in a volatile and dangerous place,
the peace we find,

always has a layer of manufactured dirt,
or made from plastic, and as for air, it needs
a 'do over', where most of you are sitting,
reading this, please care,
I am not able to do much alone.
Earthday Prompt
Mary McCray Apr 2016
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 11, 2016)

There are eight laptops on the table:
An HP, a Dell, my Toshiba and four Apples
all plugged into a six-plug hub.

Four rectangular tables braced
together, a fake wood grain.  
Cheat sheets, memory sheets,
plastics full of liquids.

Wild card expressions
regular on methodical faces.
Dimensions and metrics, conversions and hits,
greatest hits on a histogram.

We’re talking about where geographic
channels drive traffic. Where we stand.
Who we are. What does it mean.
Data, data, data, dream big, world takeover.

How I am a cookie on my computer,
ultimately, mysteriously edible.
I completely crapped out on Napowrimo this year. Wah! I tried to keep going during a business trip that involved two conferences (LA Bookfest and Luminetrics Google Analytics Training). The stress prepping for that crazy trip sent me into a stomach flu spiral on trip day one. So basically I just zombied my way from hotel bed to conference to hotel bed for seven days during which I vaguely watched reality programming on E! and now know more about the various housewife shows than is probably healthy. I thought I would catch up on poems but I have to admit defeat. These notes were taken during the first day of my second conference on the 11th  describing my surroundings and ending on a philosophy. and this is probably as good as it will get for me this year.
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