NaPoWriMo # 7: Flight to Boston

Flight to Boston

I had to get to the airport,
to catch a flight to Boston.
I thought it best
to get to the airport by bicycle.
I could not get the over-sized suitcase
onto the small bike rack,
that hangs over the back tire.

At the last minute had to catch a cab,
and somehow arrived at the airport
nine hours early for my flight to Boston.
I camped out in a tent city
at the airport, my stuff strewn about
everywhere, with all the other nomads.

The airport white phone,
kept calling my name,
interfering with my airport camp out.
Each time I got back from the
white courtesy phone, my campsite
became larger, more dispersed.

After hitting the snooze,
maybe a dozen times
I cancelled my flight,
packed up my suitcase,
moved out of the tent city,

And got dressed for work.

April 7, 2008

NaPoWriMo # 6: Secret Agent

Secret Agent

The paper fell down from the window as a butterfly,
it was barely legible, going through a vapor of steam,
steam from a vaporizer that calmed the babies cry.
I woke up suddenly, wishing it was only a bad dream.

The dampness of my sweat completely soaked my hair,
while the train I rode on passed by a lake,
and like the young foal of a mare
the train was carrying me to my rendezvous, I am late.

This steam drenched paper must prove more than a test,
what will I gather from the papers to create?
Among the secret documents I’ve now found a mess,
enough to keep the KGB agent from thinking he can sedate
me and keep from thinking their scheme
was more than a pile of broken wicker.

April 5, 2008

Prompt from Poefusion using the format, Bout-Rimes, with the words:
The words are:
butterfly, steam, cry, dream
hair, lake, mare, late
test, create, mess, sedate
scheme, wicker

Bout-Rimes is French for "rhymed ends." A bouts- rimes poem is created by one person's making up a list of rhymed words and giving it to another person, who in turn writes the lines that end with those rhymes, in the same order in which they were given.

NaPoWriMo # 5: Exciting Routines

Exciting Routines

Trash,
who needs it anyway.
You have to always,
Go out and dump it,
it smells and is messy.
Then you have to remember
to put it out to the curb,
on the right night,
with the right combo of cans,
“Is it green waste or
is it recycling this week?”

Mail,
now that’s another exciting topic.
Our mail man loves us,
Always having to stuff our mail
into our box.
It’s his guilty pleasure.

One time he cut us off.
My wife had to go down and pick it up,

And he caught her there:
“I know you, “ he said, startling
and embarrassing her as
he handed the huge stack to her.

We love to let it pile up on the counter….

April 5, 2008

NaPoWriMo # 4: Purple Flowers

Purple Flowers

I remember

The purple flowers in the vase,
my eleven-year-old daughter gave to me
for Christmas when she was three.
Bought at the dollar store,
the love in them is priceless.

I remember

Her standing on the toy box
at less than 2 with zest and zeal,
declaring herself, “Captain S., the Story Teller!”
I see her clapping in a silly motion,
getting us both to join in.

Now I see

The days of soccer t-shirts everyday
have moved onto the shelf,
making room for more
fashionable clothes from Limited Too.

She’s growing now, a tween,
Hannah Montana and other
Disney shows are the soundtrack
that plays in our house now. Her Netflix
queue always has something new
to send out. Soon she's off to Jr. High
and high school not long after that.
Later I will look back to
Her Hannah Montana days,
with fondness, when she’s left her behind,
for someone new.

I will remember

One day my little girl
Leaving home for college,
then walking her down the aisle,
and giving her away.

Right now

I just want to remember
the purple flowers that say
“I love you Daddy”

April 4, 2008

NaPoWriMo # 3: Siren’s Calling

Siren’s Calling

Starbucks' cup logo is changing to brown, what a travesty upon us!

The green mermaid calls as I circumnavigate the globe, to my office cubicle.

Like a beacon of light she guides through the waves of cars, I hear her voice.

I hear the siren calling out to me. No, it’s a police car chasing!

What's that officer? You don't care about mermaids….I ran a red light.

Don't worry about brown, he says, yellow is your color today, your Ticket!

(This poem is a made up of multiple American Sentences, developed as an alternative to Haiku by Allen Ginsberg. An American sentence is 17 syllables in one line. )

NaPoWriMo # 2

Aunt Ada

Aunt Ada came to live us
when she was 70, not able
to live on her own anymore.
I remember the long drive to Clear Lake
to bring the small, thin woman
back to our home.
Her house was dark and had a musty smell to it,
with lots of nick knacks
collected through the years.

Early on we found out she had cancer,
after a lifetime of smoking.
At Christmastime I went to Macy’s
to find a gift for her with
a friend from school. We asked
the salesperson for a teacup,
but it had to be “very light,
since she's not in good health.”
What a funny sight,
two young guys
in the China section.

Aunt Ada was a feisty old woman,
defiant to the end.
She sneaked the harsh Chinese cigarettes
my step dad brought from China,
that were too strong for him.
We found the empty boxes in her dresser
when sorting through her things,
after she passed away.

My mom passed on her dresser
to me, when I married 15 years ago.
It still sits in my room today.

April 2, 2008

The Diving Board for this poem was the prompt on Aunts over at ReadWritePoem.

NaPoWriMo # 1

Legacy

What do I pass on,
What is the legacy I leave my children?
The heritage passed on from me,
May it be honorable,
Not one of anger, strife, or abandonment.

What legacy was left for me?
Parents began with an affair,
dissolved 13 years later in divorce,
not a sturdy foundation for my sister and me.
My father suffered mentally,
Several breakdowns ravaged him.
We were built on brokenness,
Multiple step-parents on both sides,
Came in and out of lives
We cobbled together the life we could,
We had each other,
we found family in friends,
stability in Faith.

Both married now with kids,
We are building our families, our legacies.
A new generation formed,
Commitment, love, faith and hard work,
Shape the new families,
We forge a new way.

What’s deep inside us,
only activated with the pressure
And stress that children sometimes bring?
Fighting siblings, disabilities, reactions, passions,
Emotions sometimes bubble out,
Surprising us.
Responding or reacting,
Which one happens?
Contentment or combustion,
What legacy calls from the past
To the future we are molding?
We must battle
must not settle
for what comes naturally
through inertia.
Legacies of brokenness
do not have to be the ones
we leave, but will not be easy.
We must unravel the brokenness
that shaped us.
Conscious effort,
self-assessment,
covered with prayer,
we must fight,
building better legacies.
Legacy of love, stability,
legacy of commitment, perseverance,
we must build a wall
around our families.
A fortress of strength and stability
will protect our children.
A foundation of faith and love,
builds a better heritage,
a stronger castle,
not on sinking sands.

April 1, 2008

NaPoWriMo

I am going to be writing a poem a day during National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). I have started to write more recently and this is a good challenge that I think I am ready for. It seems like there are a lot of people out there doing it, so this should be fun.

Here I go, I'm jumping in!

Update:
There are some great resources over at ReadWritePoem for the NaPoWriMo, especially this post, informal talk about forms: a brief naprowrimo approach. They also have a button that you can put on your blog:

Feeling Better

I think I have been feeling somewhat better these days. I have been writing more poems and I don't feel depressed as I did before. Also, I'm wondering if the weather has a little bit to do with it as it has been warmer and sunnier. I'm also about to go on vacation and my wife and I are going on a 4 night cruise. So something like that would tend to lift anyone's spirits a bit. Whatever the reason, I feel somewhat better.

Here is a poem I wrote earlier in the week that is lighter in content, for the most part, but was something I had fun writing:

Stream of Consciousness

The words are in my head
And want to come out.
Where will they be,
Should I hurry or scurry,
Where, o Where will I go.
This way or that,
My fingers don’t know where the paper flows.
It keeps going
the page might
End and Then
Where will the letters
Fall?
Go, Go the stream of consciousness
Knows not where it goes,
Poem to prose,
How does one know.
Faster
Faster
Faster,
I type and I’m tight,
But I want to be light
On my fingers,
But they are so often
Stuck in pockets,
But the sockets of my eyes
Can be so dry that I can’t
See what I would write.
Shall it light or heavy,
I think I will buy a Chevy,
Take it to the Levy,
But you know about the levy and Chevy,
Well they’re not wet.
This can be fun to run
Seeing where the writing will take me.
Will I go back to correct
Back to correct,
Or leave as is,
And was.
I don’t know where I’ll go.
But the words want to flow.
The streams in the dessert.
The words are down in there
And they want to bust out.
Oh, now a trout,
That could bust and out
A trout that could swim
Upstream
Like a dream
Ripped at the seam
Dashed on the rocks
Its no Goldilocks.
But like hard liquor
It goes down and it’s bitter,
The burn and the bile
It will take a while,
For the words to work
Themselves out of my brain,
Like a train on the track,
They’re not coming back.
Quick think,
I’m on the brink,
Hillary threw the kitchen sink,
She’s playing hardball.
She wants politics to be her playground,
Is she the bully or
Just working the angles or
Working us over,
Trying to pulling over,
Trying to change her tune,
Just whistling Dixie,
She’s no trixie.
What do I prattle on
About the rattle
And the battle’s on.
The election,
Most important ever,
Or so they say,
But we’ll live another day,
Another scandal,
Another broken promise,
Empty words,
More complicated scenarios,
Briefed at 3 in the morning,
While Saturday night live re-runs
drone on in the background,
The president laughs,
As Chris Matthew has more interviews
And there are more briefings,
That we never know about,
until we’re in another one that we
Can’t get out of,
Exercise in democracy and
Nation building,
Suddenly from light hearted,
The tone changes to heavy.
I was just practicing,
Poem-ing.
But that’s the funny thing,
You never know how
You get from A to Z.

March 17, 2008

Coming Back to It again.....Brokenness

I always want to pretend I'm OK. I'm not.

At times I can be so sad and at other times I can be so angry. Sometimes I do not get along very well with my middle son, but at times it is more me than him, if I am being honest with myself. I would like to get away from this blog's name but I keep coming back around to the brokenness within me. I can't fix myself no matter how hard I try. I need your help, Jesus. I guess this like my journal at times, when I can't bring myself to open my paper journal. Maybe it is the fact that at times, people do respond back and that does not happen with my paper journal.

I long for deeper friendships, and friends that actually live in the city I am in, not 100 miles away in my old city. It is hard to make friends as everyone at this station in life is so busy with their own families. I long for community that I just don't have now. I long for one or more buddies that I can do something with on the spur of the moment and just hang out. I reach out to many of my friends that are far away, but that is not really happening much. The distance is great enough that "Out of sight, out of mind" comes into play. Or at least that is how it feels where I am sitting. 8 years just past at the beginning of this month that I have been gone from my home town. I sometimes think it would be great to move back to my old city, but I am not sure if it would or not. I have friends there that I have had there since high school, and now I am 40 years old. My sister is in that city. My parents are in that city. I have said on multiple occasions that if I died I would not want to be buried in this city, but my old city. But, my family is in this city. My kids have spent most of their lives in this city, one was born here. Why has it been so hard here. I feel like I have been in the wilderness up here and I don't know why...I don't know if I just suck at making friends or what. But also, know matter where you go, there you are....I will bring myself with me if I go back to my home city.

I also know that I'm not turning to Jesus to meet my needs very much at all. I don't know, maybe I am depressed as well and that can cloud how you feel about things. Jesus, help me in all areas of my life. I am so weary from all the busyness of work, home and life in general. There is a lot of noise that fills up my brain, a lot of distractions that keep from drawing closer to Jesus. Oh boy, life just feels hard right now. I want a break form things....I guess I am having a little break right now....I was going to go to Costco with my wife and son and then I was having a little bit of melt down over a sandwich I was making. My wife gave me a pass on Costco. So I do have a little break. As I am writing this I do feel somewhat better. I'm not handling stress in my life that well in recent days. It all can be overwhelming at times. I am weary, I am tired, but I am not as stressed as I was 30 minutes ago.

I am broken
I need more of Jesus.
I want more friends nearby.
Things aren't as bad as they seem,
life can be difficult, but
it is good to have a break once in a while.
Thank you Jesus.
Fill my brokenness.
Be my friend, Jesus.
Fix me, because I can't fix myself