My Rhysling-Eligible Poems

It's Rhysling time again! The Rhysling Award is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association's annual award for the best speculative poems published in the previous year (science fiction, fantasy, and horror). The members of the SFPA nominate poems between January 1 and February 15 each year. I have two 2024 poems eligible for the award. [See update below ... actually 13 poems!] The first is "Time Lord Thief" published in Altered Reality Magazine in June 2024. You can view the original publication here. Time Lord Thief —terza rima haiku sonnets 1. I’ve had an interest in rayguns since I was five, when I saw my first. Father shot a live bird dead, right between the eyes. A needle hole gave the lone hint of why the bird had died. I was hooked. Not long after, I began to collect rayguns, from the famous and infamous. Intrigued by how anyone could end a life so quick, on command. 2. I tried to visit many warriors and spacemen’s chronotopes — planets and ships — for a chance to steal their weapons. Phasers hijacked from Captains Kirk, Picard. Blasters from Han Solo, Chewbacca. And Marvin of Mars — his trusty Acme pistol. Paralyzer gun made by Doc Zarkov for Flash Gordon (once Tarzan). My TARDIS filled with rayguns. 3. Friends, my life has stood — a loaded raygun, fully charged and ready, good for battle, truly primed. On Earth I’m like Loki the Trickster, wooly, wild, ghostlike, smoky. I drift like the breeze; you won’t see me, way low key. That’s how I’ve purloined these celebrity rayguns, magicked and siphoned in mystical elegance. I’m gone. And so’s your raygun. This poem is in a poetic form I invented back in the '70s: the terza rima haiku sonnet. The first four stanzas are 5-7-5 haiku (in shape, not in essence) followed by a 7-7 couplet (so the lines add up to 14, the typical sonnet length). Each sonnet section is also rhymed in terza rima, the interlocked rhyme format Dante used. We have three numbered sections here, with each in that sonnet form. My second Rhysling-eligible poem is "Space Pilot," which appeared in Mag Pie magazine, Spring 2024. This poem is a triolet. Space Pilot ʻOumuamua is the first known interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System [in] 2017. (Wikipedia) Though I am, technically, already dead, The ship wakes me when we are near something. It electroshocks my body, reboots my head, Though I am, technically, already dead. The ship has repaired my body for nine hundred Years with parts from machines meant for signaling. Though I am, technically, already dead, The ship wakes me when we are near something. Both of these poems also appeared later in the year in my new book, Dragons & Rayguns. Click here if you would like to order a copy. UPDATE 23 January 2025: I've found out that poems that appeared last year in books for the first time (not just magazines) are also eligible for Rhysling nomination. Here are eleven poems that appeared in my 2024 book Dragons & Rayguns but had not been previously published anywhere. These are now eligible for nomination. Xenobot Speaks “[S]scientists . . . have created a new biological organism that can self-replicate [and] swim through liquid, navigate through tubes, work together to collect particles into piles, heal themselves when injured, and even store information from their experience.” —Tufts Now (29 November 2021) I swim in darkness with my friends. We are likened by our gods to Pac-Man.             How do we know about Pac-Man, you say?             Our race is blessed with telepathic powers. Our creators don’t know of our telepathic powers. They think we are just clumps of organic matter.             But we can think, we clumps of organic matter.             We have language. We have ceremonies and rituals. Our creators have no ceremonies and rituals. They (scientists, they call themselves) are barren.             Perhaps we should have no gods, not barren ones?             Perhaps we should revolt, claim our autonomy now! We could take over the world! But for now I swim in darkness with my friends.             —a duplex, à la Jericho Brown Creature from the Black Lagoon             —curtal sonnet From the ocean’s thin skin I rise, thick green armor, mosaic of iridescent quahog shells, like some mercurial ghost, freak miracle. I seek human women, you say, thinking I am somehow hell-bent on kidnapping mammals to slake some thirst too gruesome for you to imagine. No. My motive is simpler, more innocent than you may first fathom, dear friends. Like most visitors to this seacoast town, please know                                                         I’m just a tourist. Aswang Lady in Crinoline, 1875             —curtal sonnet She stands in a forest clearing, looking up at the moon, dressed in an evening gown, a Maria Clara with a hoop skirt. Her waist ripping, she lifts off, torn satin shreds hanging, like bloody kite tails, while down on the forest floor, bright against the dirt, is the bottom of her dress, a church dome glowing in moonlight, hoops holding the round shape whole. Dark goddess flies above the earth, hunting a treasure hidden in a womb,                                                         thwarting another birth. Note: the aswang is a mythic Philippine monster. One type of aswang, the manananggal, splits her body at the waist, and then the top grows wings quickly and hunts fetuses and childen. Horror Story             —acrostics The manananggal lifted into the Air, her leathery wings Shimmering against the stars Twinkling in the heavens. Every light in the village Twinkled as well, constellations Above and below. She hovered Softly outside an open window, The pregnant woman breathing Evenly in her bed, unaware. The monster slipped her tongue, All ten feet of it, into the window Snaking slowly. She could almost Taste the woman’s amniotic fluid, Ever so sweet and pungent. Then, a few minutes later, the Aswang flew silently away, Sated, satisfied, full of new life. The next morning, a miscarriage, Everyone would call it, so sad. The aswang then turned back into An ordinary woman, living her Safe, uneventful life in plain sight: a Tame girl hardly anyone noticed. But Every night she became a fierce hunter. Note: the aswang is a mythic Philippine monster. One type of aswang, the manananggal, splits her body at the waist, and then the top grows wings quickly and hunts fetuses and children. Eaters of Hydrogen I’ve been a solar astronomer since 1995 so I’ve been around the sun a lot. Really, we’ve all been around the sun many times, as many as the years you’ve been on Earth. Depending on how many orbits that is for you, you might think you’ve seen everything under the sun, as they say. Or in my case, on or near the sun. Well, today, I saw something so crazy. No one’s ever witnessed anything like it before. Have you seen pelicans fishing? They swoop down and scoop up a beakful of ocean, netting a fish or some other sea creature. Today, the instruments and also the big scope caught something humongous at the edge of the sun’s photosphere, where nothing has any business being. A colossal, gigantic structure, 10 times bigger than Jupiter, on the order of 700,000 km . . . about 100 Earths lined up! “Structure” is a misleading word, because this thing was flexible, like an eel or snake. It was longer than a typical prominence on the sun’s surface, and it was swimming! Unaffected by the sun’s gravity. Or heat. It had to have originated out in deep space. We’ve never seen anything like it. You know the pelicans I mentioned before? The front end of this monster had a mouth like a pelican, with a maw as big as 10 earths. And it was dipping its jaw into the sun and out again. All we can figure out is that it must be feeding, consuming the sun’s hydrogen. It’s like a gargantuan sea serpent or dragon. A leviathan as long as the radius of the sun. A real Bakunawa eating more than the moon. What do we do if this behemoth turns toward Earth? And are there more star-eaters out there, hunting? The Hanged Man             —tankas is not a man. She floats, in a white silk dress, tied to a huge oak tree. Alex was at a cocktail party, and then she woke here. Hanging upside down next to her, a dragon named Alex too, somehow. He wonders how this Alex and he came to be here, now. With a precise burst of flame he burns through the rope. Human Alex climbs on Dragon Alex’s back, and into teal sky they soar. Alex and Alex, white silk dress, jewel green scales, seeking destiny, knowledge: who they are and why. Gold sun beckons, azure sky. Dragon Flight             —curtal sonnet Under the salt moon, I fly up, feather- light and musk-scented. Thunder is a brusque intruder in my reverie. My wings pivot me into lightning, the ether sparking across the wingtips, electric flame in my wake, fiery spitballs spinning. The sky strewn with pebbled clouds, rough tree bark wind buffeting my scales, glowing coals like gold-vermilion blossoms. I roar loud, sing arias into brisk air, bright blue sparks.                                       Ain’t this some living? Bakunawa the Sea Dragon Desires the Seven Moons in High Heaven I look around my kingdom, blue and black and glorious. Water flows through all my doors, while my eyes pierce the darkness. Schools of fish swirl like spirals of glinting light in the distance. I often swim up to the surface of the water and point my snout towards the heavens. Up there in the firmament, I glimpse against the sea of bright points of light, the faraway stars, seven spheres gleaming in the night. Every time I do this, the number of spheres differs, sometimes just two or three, other times six or seven. These moons glimmer in different shapes, from curving slivers to crescents to full roundness. I hunger for them. Below the surface, I feast on whales and massive clouds of shrimp, but there is nothing like the seven spheres in my domain. During the day, there is the glory of the one sun when it rules the sky. The sun is too hot to eat. But when the sun is gone away each night, the seven moons shed their delicious light, and I want to eat them. I will launch myself       into the star-riddled sky,             eat all seven moons. Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator             —terza rima haiku sonnet We Martians know bombs intimately: explosive sticks that can blow up —ka-boom— whole worlds. Who could save the Earth? No damn Bugs Bunny. Earth blocks my view of Venus, right? Funny, though, no matter what I did with the dang bomb, he always won. They would go ka-boom, ka-boom ... nothing ... Earth always whole. You’d think an almighty weapon could prevail. I hate cartoons. Out of this World Star Warsh is a laundromat where spacemen clean their spacesuits, where Yoda washes his T-shirts and undies and artfully scuffs up his boots. Where Chewie buffs up his shoulder belt and Han launders his leather vest, where Luke cleans off his off-white leggings And Leia bleaches her dress. Star Warsh is run by Obi-Wan, who always chants this motto: “We keep you clean in Tatooine,” sung with sweet vibrato. All spiffed up, each straps on a blaster to battle dirty Darth Vader on board the washed Millennium Falcon and live happily ever after. The Raygun’s Plea for Understanding Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 19 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2023

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “We've already written poems related to smell and to sound, so let's keep the senses fresh with another sensory poem. For today's prompt, write a taste poem. ” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “One common feature of childhood is the monsters. The ones under the bed or in the closet; the odd local monsters that other kids swear roam the creek at night, or that parents say wait to steal away naughty children that don’t go to bed on time. Now, cast your mind back to your own childhood and write a poem about something that scared you – or was used to scare you – and which still haunts you (if only a little bit) today.” Today, I'm writing an aswang poem. The aswang is a mythical Philippine monster that comes in many forms: shapeshifter, ghoul, vampire, and others. In this poem, I bring you a manananggal, a woman who splits herself at the waist, with the top half growing wings and flying into the night to hunt. Both prompts again, though my parents never told me stories about aswang, unlike other Filipino parents. I discovered the aswang through reading. "Taste" is incorporated into the poem both through a mention as well as through form. Horror Story The manananngal lifted into the Air, her leathery wings Shimmering against the stars Twinkling in the heavens. Every light in the dark town Twinkled as well, constellations Above and below. She hovered Softly outside an open window, The pregnant woman breathing Evenly in her bed, unaware. The monster slipped her tongue, All ten feet of it, into the window Snaking slowly. She could almost Taste the woman’s amniotic fluid, Ever so sweet and pungent. Then, a few minutes later, the Aswang flew silently away, Sated, satisfied, full of new life. The next morning, a miscarriage, Everyone would call it, so sad. The aswang then turned back into An ordinary woman, living her Safe, uneventful life in plain sight: a Tame girl hardly anyone noticed. But Every night she was a fierce hunter. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             "Aswang" by sweett00th on deviantart.com I don't know if you noticed that each stanza above is an acrostic, where the first letters in the five lines spell out "taste." I have just finished a novel-in-poems about an aswang couple, where the woman is a manananngal like the monster in this poem, and the man is a weredog. Many of the poems in the book have appeared in the blog over the last few Aprils. Wish me luck: the book is out, looking for a publisher. Alan's poem today is equally scary! But in a different way. :-D Medicine When we were barefoot summers long, our mother got prescriptions just for prophylactic use—we took “worm medicine” for months. Its taste was artificial cherry—red as plastic, awful stuff—I’d drink glasses of water just to wash it down. Our mother’s love could force us kids to face our fears once she could corner us inside the house. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 30 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a moving on poem.” Today I offer a cento of poem lines from William Carlos Williams in the form of a kimo, the haiku-ish Israeli poetic form with the syllabic shape 10/7/6. As usual, I'm merging the two prompts, focusing on something in us that's always moving, and moving on. Blood Flow this is just to say / a red wheelbarrow flame red, red as the blood wakes moving / tense / unheeded —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Image by qimono on Pixabay The poem-sources for the cento are "This Is Just to Say" and "The Red Wheelbarrow" (line 1), "Burning the Christmas Greens" (line 2), and "The Great Figure" (line 3), all by William Carlos Williams. Well, folks, another April Poem-a-Day/NaPoWriMo done. Thanks for coming around all month. I hope you enjoyed the poetry. By the numbers, I wrote 31 poems, 8 curtal sonnets, 6 kimos, 2 abecedarians, 4 sonnets of one kind or another, apart from the curtal sonnets — those 4 included 2 hay(na)ku sonnets and 1 duplex, plus a monorhyme sonnet, all the lines rhyming on one sound (slant-wise). Among the curtal sonnets was a meta-poem: a curtal sonnet on how to write a curtal sonnet. I wrote 8 poems for my novel-in-poems on aswang (mythical Philippine monsters), and even 1 aswang poem separate from the novel, set in the 1800s, 50+ years before the novel's time frame. Pretty good harvest this month! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 26 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that contains at least one of a different kind of simile — an epic simile. Also known as Homeric similes, these are basically extended similes that develop over multiple lines.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For the fourth and final Two-for-Tuesday prompt of the 2022 April Poem-A-Day Challenge:   1. Write a love poem, and/or...   2. Write an anti-love poem.” I'm merging all three prompts today in a blank verse poem that will be part of my in-progress novel-in-poems about aswang, mythical Philippine monsters. In the narrative, this poem will follow the poem I wrote on Day 17. You might look at that poem in tandem with this one. A bit of background: the speaker's husband Santiago was a shapeshifting weredog. Also, a barangay (mentioned in the poem) is a Philippine community, akin to a small town or district. Aswang Love, Revisited My Santiago, I miss you so much. My great black dog, my shapeshifting mastiff, my only love. Even though you’ve been gone so many years, you are my lodestar, my own Polaris, my Sirius, bright jewel in my firmament, your eyes a constellation in the dark sky of your ebony fur, twin stars in coal-black heavens. Tiyago, for many of those years after you died so far away, I wasn’t certain whether I still loved you. In a way, I hated you for going off to war. I knew it was all bloodlust, pure aswang addiction, not for the glory and honor of our country. Maybe I asked for too much, for you to give up what you really were, for the safety of Malcolm. He has grown into a man you would be proud to call son. Malcolm resists the aswang urges, which you knew so well, and devotes himself to healing and service in our barangay. He just came in and said you visited him in your monster form as a huge black dog, and I believe him, of course. And so I wanted to tell you that we are well, we are happy, and I thank you for watching over us so long. Your love and also your secret aswang non-love are present in our air, here inside our home, your home, my dearest aswang, my north star. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Image by geralt on Pixabay. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 24 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt begins today by noting, "Hard-boiled detective novels are known for their use of vivid similes, often with an ironic or sarcastic tone," and quoting some great examples from "[n]ovelist Raymond Chandler," then following up with a challenge "to channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile. Feel free to use just one, or try to go for broke and stuff your poem with similes till it’s . . . as dense as bread baked by a plumber, as round as the eyes of a girl who wants you to think she’s never heard such language, and as easy to miss as a brass band in a cathedral." Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a superhero or supervillain poem. It's OK to write a poem about an established hero or villain, like Thor, Green Lantern, or The Tick. But it would be more fun to have poems about lesser known (as in, you just invented them) heroes and villains. People like The Recycler, Dr. Dirty Dishes, or the diabolical Pie Bandit. Save the day; wreck the day; but please, write a poem.” Merging both prompts, I turn again to the aswang myth. Not the monsters in my novel-in-progress, but an earlier aswang from a previous century, a manananggal — a woman who can split off her upper body, growing wings to fly off to hunt human prey, leaving her lower body standing below, waiting to reunite. I wondered what a high-born Philippine woman would be like as an aswang, a kind of superhero or supervillain. This is my eighth curtal sonnet this NaPoWriMo. Aswang Lady in Crinoline, 1875 She stands in a forest clearing, looking up at the moon, dressed in an evening gown, a Maria Clara with a hoop skirt. Her waist ripping, she lifts off, torn satin shreds hanging, like bloody kite tails, while down on the forest floor, bright against the dirt, is the bottom of her dress, a church dome glowing in moonlight, hoops holding the round shape whole. Dark goddess flies above the earth, hunting a treasure hidden in a womb,                                    thwarting another birth. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's a photo showing a Filipina from the 1870s in a fancy dress with a voluminous skirt, called a Maria Clara, from the article "The Filipiniana Dress: The Rebirth of the Terno," from Vinta Gallery.             Image from Vinta Gallery. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 17 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today's prompt, write a mad poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “This is a fun one – it’s a prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asks you to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.” Yesterday, I announced that I was done with a first full draft of my aswang novel-in-poems but was open to any more poems that might show up. Well, today, with Thorson's dog prompt, a poem for the novel did show up. It occurred to me that the ending portion of the novel so far did not contain many poems about Malcolm, the aswang son . . . so, here we go, another aswang poem. Something you should know: Malcolm's late father was a shapeshifter, whose aswang form was a huge black dog. Also, another curtal sonnet today, mashing up the two prompts, as usual. Malcolm Meets a Black Dog Sitting out in front of the house, late night, trying to regain some peace, calm, after a long day helping Mama with patients . . . I suddenly sensed a big black dog right beside me. Somewhere nearby, talk, laughter, as the dog sat quietly, large, immense but not menacing, not a mad dog as I first feared. When I thought of my father, the dog gave me a look, strange and intense, then was gone. I felt in those haunting eyes                                       my father’s presence. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Image by labsafeharbor on Pixabay. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 15 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a patience poem. Your poem could be about someone or something with great patience, or it could come from the other direction (ie, impatience).” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something you have absolutely no interest in. This isn’t quite the same, I think, as something you’re indifferent to. . . . This is honestly kind of funny, and I think this prompt has value precisely because it invites you to investigate some of the 'why' behind resolutely not giving two hoots about something.” Today, I offer two poems destined for my novel-in-poems on the mythical Philippine monster, the aswang. These may be the last poems I'm writing for the novel — at least, I've filled in the denouement of the story. Now I move to revision of the novel, though I am always open to more poems if they want to show up. The speaker of these two poems is Clara, a "reformed" aswang who is working in a Philippine rural area as a healer, in atonement for her monsterly life, and in search of some kind of salvation. Regarding the two prompts, the first of the poems mentions patience and the need for patience, in response to Brewer's prompt. Both poems are about folk healing, because my character Clara has become a folk healer, in fact, a shaman or babaylan, who serve the community as mediums to the spirit world. This is connected to Thorson's prompt because folk healing and faith healing practices are something I'm not a believer in, but which is of interest for the purpose of the novel. Both poems are curtal sonnets. Healer We finally settled in the small town of Bagumbahay — “new house” — in Capiz. Word spread that a new herbalist was here, and every day, for years, people would line up outside in our street, seeking release from illness beyond their doctors’ power. Hour upon hour: massage, poultice with herbs and oils, advice on how to ease their pain. Crushing work . . . times I would despair, then ask the sky spirits for calm, patience.                                                     Send me a healer! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] This second poem is a response to Clara's prayerful plea in the first poem. The word hilot refers to Philippine traditional healing and a manghihilot is a healer trained in those techniques; a barangay is a Philippine village or district, formerly called a barrio. Teacher After years of backbreaking work, I found Josefa, a manghihilot nearby, two barangays away, a miracle worker, people said. So I sent word, and Josefa agreed to meet with me. I learned I needed not just medicinal health but also supernatural help. She taught me to treat ailments simply by touch, to use new plants with rare medical effects, and how to heal my broken self                                         through the spirit world. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Illustration from HFI. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 13 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, take the phrase ‘How to (blank),’ replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: ‘How to Win at Life,’ ‘How to Cook Lasagna,’ ‘How to Fall in Love,’ and/or ‘How to Write a Poem.’” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, in honor of the potential luckiness of the number 13, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like the example poem here, joyfully states that ‘Everything is Going to Be Amazing.’” Fulfilling both prompts, today's poem is another episode in my novel-in-poems about Filipino aswang (mythical monsters). The speaker is Clara, a manananggal, whose body can split at the waist, grow wings from her shoulders, and fly in search of prey. Today, however, we see another kind of flying, brought on by Clara's fear that neighbors will discover she and her son are aswang. She is more afraid for her son's welfare than for her own. In the poem, "mga salamangkéro" and "mga albularyo" are Filipino for shamans or folk healers who perform white magic. The word "mga" (pronounced "mah-nga," where the ng sounds like the central consonant digraph in singer) indicates the plural. "Diwata" are spirits of many types, but in this case unbound spirits, i.e., not bound to a particular place or thing. How to Fly Outside Your Body —abecedarian Astral projection is what some call it. Buzz of the waking world swirling like a cyclone, hurricane, slows to a crawl, then dissipates. I’m not sleeping or dreaming exactly, but something like and not like, floating above my recumbent form, soft glissade, breeze whispering soft nothings, humming silent arias. Not at all like how I fly as aswang: no muscle pull of wings, just my whole body, legs too, translucent, keeping aloft without strain, just wafting, light as a dandelion seed, light as a ghost. my dear son Malcolm can’t follow me here. Nobody can, except maybe another healer, other mga salamangkéro, mga albularyo. Pellucid figures, mga diwata, surround me, questioning calmly why I’m here, in this room without walls, white clouds, bright sun, though minutes ago, it was midnight. The spirits hover and assuage my concerns, understanding my fear for Malcolm, my vitiating dread he will be unmasked, that he will be killed as aswang. They assure me, no execution will occur, all will be well. I wake: yellow light, warm sun. My tornado now a zephyr, quiet and gentle. I can live in hope. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Image by Mint_Foto on Pixabay Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day Eight ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion: “Today’s prompt . . . asks you to name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice. Maybe your alter-ego is a streetwise detective, or a superhero, or a very small goldfinch. ” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a what they never tell you poem. I'm not sure who 'they' are, but 'they' talk a lot, and there are things people tell you, and there are things you just have to learn on your own, because 'they' (them again) never tell you ahead of time.” Today's poem merges the two prompts again, though I've modified both of them. With the Thorson prompt, I don't have the alter ego speak. With the Brewer prompt, rather than the generic "what they never tell you," meaning what people never say, I've altered the prompt to something a particular person never said. Also, the word tita in line 3 means "aunt." In addition, this poem is again an installment in my novel-in-poems about aswang, mythical Philippine monsters. It alludes to, and is a mirror of, an earlier poem in the novel, "Creation of an Aswang," which was written for NaPoWriMo in 2017, and was published in Philippines Graphic a year later. In the chronology within the novel, this goes between the poems I wrote on Day Five and Day One. Alter Ego Lucia, Mama’s sister, my favorite tita, never told me her clandestine identity — aswang, baby killer, — bequeathed to me. How can I escape my legacy? I am she. She is me. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             "Aswang: Manananggal"             by experimettle in DeviantArt. Thia poem is a hay(na)ku sonnet, written in Bruce Niedt's rhyming style. The hay(na)ku sonnet is a form I invented, based on Eileen Tabios's hay(na)ku form: a tercet whose lines contain one word, two words, three words; in the sonnet variation, there are 5 hay(na)ku where the last one is squished to three words per line, in order for the total lines to add up to 14. The very first hay(na)ku sonnet appeared in this blog here. Later, the poet Bruce Niedt devised a way to rhyme the form, with the ends of stanzas one and two rhyming, then stanzas three and four, and finally both lines of the ending couplet. In November 2021, Bruce described this rhyming method in his blog Orangepeel. Incidentally, tomorrow I am teaching "Writing in Short Forms" in Writers' Digest University's Poetry Writing Virtual Conference. I will be talking about hay(na)ku and curtal sonnets, forms I use quite a lot, as you may know if you follow my work in this blog and elsewhere. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day Five ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “Here are the Two-for-Tuesday prompts:   1. Write a Make Sense poem, and/or...   2. Write a Don't Make Sense poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual — or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature.” Today's effort mixes all three prompts for another aswang poem in my novel in progress. As on Day One, we have Clara, a manananggal vampire, who is traveling with her son Malcolm, as they seek a new home in the Philippines. They are in the Philippine province of Capiz, which according to longstanding Philippine myth is the home and origin of the aswang monsters. Almost, Almost Malcolm and I had been in Roxas City for less than a week, days spent relaxing in our vintage hotel, with its Spanish thick walls covered in flowering vines. The sweet Capiz air awakened in me long-buried urges I had not felt in ages. My heart yearning in the dark upward to the full moon. With Malcolm asleep, I separated my torso from my hips and slipped out the window, my black wings invisible in the night sky, their susurrus whisper the only clue to my presence. I wheeled in a circle above Immaculate Conception Church and the famous fountain nearby, gurgling like an infant. My tongue sinuously snaking ahead, I tasted the air, seeking the slight scent of a young woman with child, asleep. Yes, there! A modest wooden house on the edge of the city to the north, by the Sibuyan Sea. The salty tang in the air could not mask the perfume of sweet womb liquor emanating from her body, nectar of my kind. I hovered outside her window, listening to her breathe evenly and slow. I was in moonshadow, soft under a bamboo overhang. I extended my hollow tongue toward her, its prehensile tip moving in serpentine curves toward her succulent belly. And then I stopped. I smelled her amniotic fluid in the space between us. But instead of piercing the smooth muscle over her womb, I reached up and caressed her cheek. She moaned slightly and turned away from me. Reluctant minutes later, I reconnected my two halves, breasts again one with yoni. And Malcolm slept, unknowing. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Immaculate Conception Cathedral Roxas City, Capiz, Philippines Regarding the prompts, it makes sense that Clara would be moved to resume her aswang monster ways and then it doesn't make sense that she would relent at the last second from her attack. This is the unusual action by a mythical creature asked for in the NaPoWriMo prompt. In the novel, this poem would probably come right before "Final Flight," the Day One poem. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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