Day 18 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2017

More than halfway . . . 3/5 in fact. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "write a poem that incorporates neologisms. . . . portmanteaus [or maybe] words invented entirely for their sound. [They] don’t have to be funny or used in the service of humor. You can use them to try to get at something that you don’t have an exact word for, or to create a sense of sound and rhythm, or simply to make the poem feel strange and unworldly." Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day Two-for-Tuesday prompt: "Write a life poem. The poem could be about the miracle of life, the complexity of life, the game of Life, or anything else that means life for you. Or . . . Write a death poem. For most organisms, life leads to death. So this should be as full of possibility as the life poem." Poles, antipodes, new words for old, new words from old, old words for new, diametrics, phoenix. one |  zero     and |  nor sunrise |  moonset birdflash |  birdfall leafbud |  trunkbreak mistralswoon |  twisterdoom starbubble |  spiralcinder rippleswell |  tidalcrash hiveswarm |  lonerbee wombsend |  gravesend dna |  end —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] As you can see in the third line from the bottom, I was influenced by Alan's poem "Where Are Those Who Were Before Us" on the 12th. I feel for that single, lonely bee who couldn't find the hive. Please look back at that poem. It's heartbreaking. The proverbial child who came home from school to find his family had moved. In fact, the whole house — in this case, the whole tree — had disappeared. About his poem today, Alan wrote, "Neologisms from my father, who left them for us —" Bottleassin’ My dad took me “bottleassin’ ” on occasion, mostly Saturdays we got done early from work and didn’t feel like going home, about the same as “hanging out,” but more, not “drunk,” because my dad despised a drunk. “bottleassin’ ” means to be as free of care as a greenbottle fly, to be directionless as an afternoon when you can drive around and stop at a country mom-and-pop and find the kind of soda that you never have at home, a flavor different from the standby Coca-Cola your mom would buy, and take that sweaty bottle back and sit shotgun and ride all over county roads and listen to his music on the radio and talk about the world that you could reach with half a tank, the world you don’t see yet because, like him, you spent the great part of your life in one known place or, what I see now, you’re just fifteen and haven’t thought about the world past paperbacks and junior year, your dad yet a healthy man you haven’t tried to figure out because he’s steady, and it doesn’t occur to you that one day he won’t be steady, and you think that you will manage to be steady, too, but not his way; he hasn’t let on he’s figured out you won’t be in this county long, but he won’t say because he doesn’t want it solid with those words, but when he thinks about it, he’ll continue driving, but now he’s stretching out his time with you and isn’t bottleassin’ any more. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Our illustration today is the cover of Killjoy Literary Magazine, The #Demands Issue — Tax Day 2017. The cover image is my own "Russian Hacking Gothic," a parody of the Grant Wood painting. This Killjoy issue was published today. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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