#napowrimo2018
Playing rummy is a lot like music.
Rules to guide you
A pure sequence to bind you
Leeway otherwise, to slide by
A pile to dig from
A companion to play with
(or against?)
And a purpose
to find.
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 1:22 PM UTC
Apr 28
Hi all !
Having a great time here in post-modern poetry.
We’ve been on the island since Sylvia Plath croaked in ’63.
It’s been a bit smoggy, incoherent and gratuitously cryptic, but the prison-guards are super-nice and they let us write Haiku once in a while. There’s this MFA creative-writing place just up the road from the gulag, it’s really charming. They publish a chapbook that 4 people on the island read. They also host workshops, like How to Find Your Authentic Voice and Pushing Language Beyond the Boundaries. Last night we saw some non-identity-politics-driven verse in the nearby wilderness reserve. It had beautiful plumage and made totally weird sounds. (Hey Dylan, you’re remembering to feed my muse, right? Don’t let her out after 5 since she might stay out all night. She does NOT like the free-verse abstract work. Feed her the structured message-oriented stuff to the right of the editorial literary-elite. Thanks ☺ ) Anyway, we’re trapped on this island so if you find someway to get us off, do your best.
PLEEZ tell the editorial prison-guards that we are working on our English Lit MA degrees.
P.S: send the Maya Angelou and Adrienne Rich books soon !!!!!
Love,
Rita Dove’s Bookshelf*
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 8:48 AM UTC
I pull my suitcase out
from under the bed
hoping to pack away
the baggage I have been carrying
everywhere.
On it, I see
is a cat
asleep
probably dreaming:
her paws come together
and part
in a rhythm
as if in prayer.
And I think
I'll carry the baggage along
for one more day.
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 1:08 PM UTC
sent over neural pathways
the sight of a scent
could make one wax
transcendent:
Yankee Candle
budding one's tongue
the sound of a taste
may disturb the ears
aural astral waste;
Monosodium Glutamate
to feel the touch
of a sight beheld
might dazzle the senses
beyond defenses:
Tear Gas
Sin is apt
to skew such lapses.
Sin’s esthetic
glimpsed in apses
acts as anesthetic;
dulls our enhanced ecstatic senses:
a synthetic synaptic celestial deception . . .
Make sense?
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 4:05 PM UTC
_back_
Wind hisses. Water runs. Leaves rustle. Bees buzz. Roosters cuckoo.
_forth_
Bird takes flight. Napkin falls from the string. Cat jumps from a 7-foot door. Man splashes water on face.
_back_
Almost-ripe mangoes. Jackfruit cut open. Garlic tadka in ghee. Just-washed hair.
_forth_
Cool wooden swing. Fly hovers over my skin. Strand of hair against my face. Hot tea almost burns tongue.
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM UTC
चेंबूर अग्निशमन केन्द्रच्या समोर
एक पिल्लू पहिल्यांदा
उडी मारतं
त्याची आई इकडे तिकडे वळते
कोणी बघितली का तिच्या चिमुकल्याची
पहिली उडी
माझी बस जणू या दृश्यासाठी
वेग कमी करते
आणि माझ्या चेहऱ्यावर
छोटंसं का होई ना
हसू उमटतं
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 12:44 PM UTC
Endless scoldings from the Nanny
mean-face global fascist granny;
data-driven witch of woe
born of winter’s frigid flow.
Boys rebel in her dull school:
passive subversion of her rule.
Minds thus stagnate—shut down early
graduating sullen, surly;
unsure why they hate the world,
emasculated and begirled.
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 5:44 PM UTC
प्यार चुन चुन के करती हूँ
कभी तुम्हारे आँखों से
जिसमें मिट्टी बहती है
कभी तुम्हारी बातों से
जो ख़ुद में मशरूफ़ रहती हैं
कभी तुम्हारे हाथों से
जो ज़ुल्फ़ों को सहलाते हैं
कभी तुम्हारे होठों से
जो ग़ुस्सा पिघलाते हैं
और कभी तुम्हारी धड़कन से
जो वक़्त को रोक लेती है
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 1:56 PM UTC
Of fatal head-wounds, beasts, and kings
my holy muse, avenging, sings
and mocking, scorns
the ten kings’ horns
while greater wisdom brings.
Divide ten horns on seven heads;
numeric challenge overspreads . . .
Ten for seven ?
Thus does Heaven
plan to up your meds.
Seven candlesticks, vials of wrath
first lit, then poured, shall light your path
toward paradise;
and shall suffice
in holy aftermath.
Such Hebrew numerology:
an Antichrist apology.
No death in vain.
Those babies slain?
Pure semiology.
You come with true prophetic zeal
the Revelation to unseal;
and yet, I doubt
what you’re about . . .
you need a balanced meal.
Nutcase: extraordinary
measures may prove necessary.
Vitamin B
deficiency
turns you visionary.
Good supplements might help your brain
and God Himself perhaps might deign
to grant some light
and ease your plight
till truth and love remain.
Go, crack the Book. Let us resume
the cryptic parable of doom;
Saint John raving
(text worth saving)
lightens the End-Time gloom.
Voice of many waters’ thunder
barely startles . . . on we blunder.
Shut up and buy—
demystify
as barbarians plunder.
Of jeweled harlots, rising wars
and opening of infernal doors,
near-psychotic
occult logic
breeds the juggernaut spores.
Those seven churches, now long-gone,
return once more in light of dawn.
Prophetic ghosts
in ****** hosts
give birth: prophetic spawn.
The fabled fornication-wine,
unholy, though no less divine . . .
we drain the cup—
our time is up;
all hail the Lord’s design.
Archetypal memes of madness:
slaughtered saints revive with gladness
the slain lamb’s life
brings end to strife
and closure to our mess.
Sharpen your dull Christology,
fanatic eschatology:
void of logic—
semiotic
misanthropology . . .
Delta of the dark Euphrates:
something from the bowels of Hades
issues forth
to test the worth
of Babylon’s ladies.
Cool out, my brother. Close the book.
It’s not the end yet; take a look.
Glimpse the city—
what a pity . . .
omens have got you shook.
These frightening prophetic screeds
should urge you more toward Christian deeds;
not satanic
modes of panic,
but meeting human needs.
The predatory drones of war,
infernal technoids from the core
of smoking earth
are finally worth
their scrap—and little more.
A desert woman clothed with sun;
Abaddon’s legions on the run
as they retreat,
admit defeat:
the Devil’s doings, done.
The reign of Antichrist now ends
the host of heaven, triumphant, rends
satanic skies;
before our eyes
the Bride, adorned, descends.
And though my muse shall never quit,
her inspiration lags a bit;
apostates curse,
the world grows worse—
the Devil throws a fit.
Of beasts and fatal head-wounds healed
and wrathful angel’s scrolls unsealed
I’ve had enough,
and call God’s bluff:
Apocalypse revealed.
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 8:48 PM UTC
Every time I visit my nani
Aai has a new memory to tell.
This time it was about
a tree
in the building compound.
It has existed, lived
for longer than Aai has.
Blooming, yellowing, eventually
going barren,
and then growing again.
It has stood there,
watching, giving, supporting
the children playing around it.
It stands there now,
with the adults
watching, giving, supporting
it,
recounting its life
intertwined with their own
and coming full circle.
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 12:43 PM UTC