Day Seven ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2014

Day Seven, friends. We've gotten to a week, and roughly a fourth of National Poetry Month. Two days ago, a sixth of the way through, yesterday a fifth, and now a fourth. It's going by much too fast, don't you think? Today's prompts are simple, uncomplicated. At NaPoWriMo.net, Maureen Thorson suggests a love poem to something inanimate. At his Poetic Asides blog, Robert Lee Brewer's prompt asks for a self-portrait poem. Mixing the two prompts again ... here you go, a couple of tankas. Bass jewel blue body recurved fiberglass bow strung with five metal lines deep translucent sheen mirrors my face: I am the guitar fingers boom thunder through your gut : the neck lightning music the arrow flash through golden air : bliss : fire its face : the guitar is me —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's Alan's intro to his Day Seven poem: "Well, somebody lucky named 'Kathy' got a poem dedicated to her when Vince wrote 'Since a New Spring' for Day Four. And, then, Vince got me to thinking about 'golden shovel' poems, and 'Since a New Spring' has a lot of visual images in it, so I decided I would try it again. As you can see, the last word of each line imbeds Vince's poem. I hope it works." Dividing the Curio Cabinet for Vince Gotera When she lived, we thought it was junk. Voices soft, we touch what she forbade, each silvery trinket, the ceramic German children dodging rainshowers, huddled under a giant umbrella, some advertisements, like the Sherman-Williams plaque of paint covering the Earth, an image hidden now but reawakened from more associations with our young mother. As I remember and you both ask again about the crystal vase in which she placed first blooms, announcing spring, the valentine sunblanched to magenta one of us made in second grade, we can’t help laughing. And here, the remnants of her pearly Nativity scene, where Joseph and Mary lean like lovebirds together over an empty manger, the 45 of “Sing a Song,” autographed by Richard Carpenter, slipped into a Webster’s Collegiate to keep it safe, the periwinkle dish remaining from her girlhood tea set (or from her sister’s), my Halloween picture captioned “Indigo Montoya” because I misunderstood Princess Bride. As skies turn twilight, we find among the delicate old keepsakes newer flea market stuff, the blue velveteen box containing lacquered Ben Wa balls, tinny cantatas played by a glued-together music box, a purring toy cat with a sound chip in it, albino salamanders cast in a Lucite paperweight, and tigers screenprinted on reproductions of old Auburn football tickets. I’d gently put them, too, away, and quietly, no lie needed to cover her desire for curios; down at the flea market, she could afford a pretty thing, and it didn’t matter what it was for. Let a feathered roach clip nestle against a sterling baby spoon, a Jimmy Carter peanut with a Green Man beer cozy. She saw fine gossamer tissue in the webbed wings of hologram dragons. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, it definitely works. This poem really has the heft of actual objects, of lived experience — especially the 45 slipped into the dictionary and the misunderstanding of Princess Bride. Thanks for the dedication to somebody lucky named Vince. I'm so impressed 'cause "Since a New Spring" had 33 words in it! Sorry I had a "the" as the fourth word. Perhaps a curio that looked like a "the"? A sibling's clay school project, bookends that had a "the" for the left one and an "end" for the right, say. Great poem! Friends, won't you comment, please? Look for a blue link below that says "Post a comment"; if you don't see that, look in the red line that starts "Posted by" and click on the word "comments." Ingat, everyone.   ヅ

POEM-A-DAY 2014 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

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P.S. Added on 8 April 2014: blue bass, blue shirt, blue shades, blue 2012.