Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write a change poem. This could be a poem about something that has changed or something that will change. Changing tires, clothes, or perspectives. Change left over when paying for something with cash. Feel encouraged to change it up today.”
Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt today asks participants to fill out an “Almanac Questionnaire” as a basis for a poem. Example items in the questionnaire ask for answers to “Found on the street: _____”; “Hometown memory: _____”; “You walk to the border and hear: _____”; and the like — some items mundane and others strange.
My poem today is a hybrid sonnet for the aswang novella project. This time the son, nine years old, at the point of change, with a couple questionnaire items sneaking in.
Malcolm and the Bully, Fourth Grade
His ugly mouth, with jagged teeth, it seemed,
sprayed spit on my face as he screamed insults
so close I could bite him if I wanted. My shoulders
itched with the budding of wings. His friends formed
a ring of yells around us: Fight! Fight! Fangs
began to lengthen in my mouth as blows
fell on my face, upraised arms. Only thing
I could see in squinted eyes was a red haze.
In my mind I walked up to the edge but heard
Mama’s calm voice, Resist, Malcolm, hold on.
Knocked down to the street, I saw a blue bird’s
wing on the asphalt, torn, beautiful. And
then it was over, laughter fading as they left.
I whispered. Yes, Mama, resist resist.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
After finishing the poem, I googled “torn bird wing street” to find a possible illustration and found this image, not beautiful exactly but arresting and . . . blue. Someone saw this outside their front door and sent this photo to an Extension “Ask an Expert” website inquiring what predator might have done it. Intriguing.
I wrote another aswang poem today, a curtal sonnet from Clara's perspective, a change á la Brewer, a turnabout from the "dark night" poem yesterday where she is feeling overwhelmed and desperate about the future for her and Malcolm without Santiago.
The Future: Clara's Change
After Tiyago died, I started welding
at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Don’t ask
me how I got the job. It was like my man
was guiding my steps from the afterworld.
I love the intense heat and light of the gas
when metals do my bright bidding, melt and
fuse, flow and meld, the acetylene blue
blaze from hearts of stars lighting up the dry dock
where we repair Navy ships. I feel like I’m
a virgin planet in the cosmos, brand-new
sun, electric aswang.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Alan says he's going rogue today. Though on second look, this poem seems to me about change. Bravo, friend! Excellent Petrarchan sonnet.
Poplars
Before late April dawn, a storm blew hard
and broke the poplars’ jointed limbs. I find
their impact-shattered branches. How the wind
that flailed them whistled through our eaves! Our yard
has petals dropped from dogwoods, cherries bared
of blossoms, too. The honeysuckle, twined
stems bending, bowing, newly blown, have joined
the English ivy near our fence, prepared
for mutual defense against my saws
and clippers. Though a poplar branch looked dead,
I found some buds at twig ends. O, what draws
life’s urgency, please work through me and spread
renewed creation, what the poplar knows:
let go; preserve the green new life instead.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
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1 comment:
I think I am having a moment when Dylan Thomas and Gerard Manley Hopkins both influence my thinking.
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