Experiment: 30/1... 30 poems, 1 day
Experiment started and completed today.
I didn't plan to do 30/30 (30 poems in 30 days to celebrate National Poetry Month) this year like a lot of poets, but I couldn't sleep last night so right after midnight I started this project: 30/1...30 poems in ONE day.
Not only did I do 30 poems, I used 30 different poetry forms.
All poems written April 25, 2010. Please forgive any typos. I'll fix them later, promise.
All 30 poems composed April 25, 2010 for 30/30, a different style for each day.
1. GHETTO CONGRESS
(Blank Verse - 5 accents per line)
Clothelines snapping sunlight from their dresses,
flags bearing twenty-second floored nations.
Citizens milling the ghetto valleys
lobbying brown bottle bag amendments,
sidewalk legislators debate crap rolls,
gin senators take the floor of nightclubs
pleading jukebox law, demanding barroom rights,
billiard constitutions signed in smoke rings
2. PEACE O’ MIND
(Blues Poem)
All last night I wonder, wonder why you won’t answer the phone
All night I wonder baby, wonder why you ain’t answer the phone
Is it ‘cause your cellphone dead sugar
or ‘cause your ass ain’t at home?
Every time I got a night off, can’t find you anywhere
Every night I get some time off, I can’t find you anywhere
Has some villain stole you ‘way from me,
and hid you in his secret lair?
I need to know where you at momma, need to know for peace of mind
I need to know where you be at baby, tryin’ to get some peace of mind
My sweet brown eyes go green with envy
when your love I cannot find.
3. I DON’T GET WRITER’S BLOCK, KID
(Bouts-Rimes between Snoop Doog, offering the rhymed words, and Charles Bukowski filling in the lines)
So I woke up erlizzle,
rolled out of bedizzle,
crawled to the johnizzle,
washed out the vomizzle.
Forizzle.
Downed a liquid breakfast of the ‘Zay,
chased it with a shot of the Tanqueray.
Sat down at my writing throne,
eyed the page, the words standing alone.
Typed this drivel that ends in “izzle”
The rapper’s too high to get that I’m pissizzled.
4. FINDING LOVE IN PRISON BARS
(Calligram)
My heart in the bars of my ribs,
prison sex, taking me in the night,
no kiss, no history, stone tongues,
punching massages. Release me, lover.
5. INNOCENCE’S REWARD
(Cento)
We go into it at night,
there whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee.
A tyrant spell has bound me
in the deep waters, in the high air, in woods and pastures,
and the bowels of the earth.
My master carries me to church,
not one paper dollar to crumple in my hand.
Good pennyworths - but money cannot move.
I can not maintain her with silver and gold
nor buy all the fine things that a big house can hold.
The magic of our first love is our ignorance
that it can never end.
NOTES
---------
1“The Orchard” Gretel Ehrlich
2“The Presence of Love” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
3“The Night” Emily Bronte
4-5 “Love” Henry David Thoreau
6 “Sally In Our Alley” Henry Carey
7 “Seven Daffodils” Traditional, American
8 “Fine Knack for Ladies” Anonymous
9-10 “Pretty Sara” Traditional, English (I know it says "no". That's how it was.)
11-12 “Quote” Benjamin Disraeli
6. HALF COUNSELOR
(Cinquain)
Half moon
offers oceans
dust-filled, listening friend
swallowing the wishes of love
for man.
7. WE COME TOGETHER
(Concrete Poem)
We come together
We come together
We come together
We come together
We come together
Wecometogether
Wecomeogether
Wcomeogether
Womegether
Wmegether
Wmegher
Wmegr
Wegr
We
8. FOR QUENTIN
(Epitaph)
You lie here but not here so long as you can be called.
Where there is memory, there is presence, there is essence, there is all.
9. SLOW JAM IN 6/8 TIME
(Event Poem)
Cleave the grammar from its lyric and put the remaining syllables in your journal for prose.
Soak your heart in its rhythm for fifteen minutes or five repeats of the song, whichever comes first.
Line your guts with its bass lines until tennis rackets are jealous.
Rub it hard into the skin until ash concedes and your veins become bass clef staves.
Grind its beat under your fingernails, make your hands filthy with their longing.
Kiss every one you hear, right on their ridges and terminals.
10. JEFFTY
(Found Poem, courtesy of Harlan Ellison short story)
When he spoke,
it was with the squeaking,
soprano voice of a five-year-old;
when he talked to you
it was about the concerns
of a five-year-old…
comic books
playing soldier
using a clothes pin to attach
a stiff piece of cardboard to the front
fork of his bike so the sound it made
when the spokes hit was like
a motorboat, asking questions like
why does that thing do that like that,
how high is up,
how old is old,
why is grass green
what’s an elephant look like?
At twenty-two,
he was five.
11. KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS
(Free Verse)
First it was the cow, foreshadowing the morning
when all of town would sit still, stirring in its cocoons,
when the diner would become the plate
when the county fair goes smorgasbord and white,
when the rulers awaken and spin hungry dictates from their wombs,
when the kingdom screams and goes ripe in the desert sun.
12. THE KINDERGARTNER SHOOTS GAME OVER LUNCH
(Haiku)
I’m in construction,
castles and spaceships mostly.
I’m a Lego man.
13. 30/30
(Limerick)
The poets are writing so fast;
a poem a day if they last.
The poems aren’t great
but it’s never too late
to hope that they run out of gas.
14. OTHELLO’S PACKING LIST FOR VENICE
(List Poem)
Scimitar, sheath
Wrist dagger
Egyptian silk pillow cases
Mom’s handkerchief
Soul Glo hair grease
5 pairs of pantaloons
Saturday night turban
Prayer mat
Pinkie rings
Anger management checklist
Dezzy’s bedclothes
Berlioz Italian for Spanish Speakers
15. ALI BUMBAYE
(Lune)
Calling Muhammed
Cassius Clay
invites ass-whuppin’
16. DON’T PLAY, SON
(Pantoum)
Revenge is like a meal to me.
I’ll eat it cold or warm, don’t matter.
When crossed, my appetite is ravenous.
Take it fast or slow, even out of a bag.
I’ll eat it cold or warm, don’t matter.
Prepared by the best chefs or flipped on racks.
Take it fast or slow, even out ofa bag.
Even rolling on pins in a gas station.
Prepared by the best chefs or flipped on racks
It will fill my belly either way
Even rolling on pins in a gas station
I’ll take it as a pinch or a pound.
It will fill my belly either way
Rest assured, I’ll not push away from the table.
I’ll take it as a pinch or a pound.
Revenge is like a meal to me.
17. GOD IS A THURSDAY NIGHT
(Prose Poem)
I pinwheeled her around the bedroom, more impassioned than Ismail, more deft
than surgeon’s talons, serene as a sorority of suns, standing over the landscape of
her bed like monoliths, the desert of her sheets winding away into a dusk of incense
smoke, lost cufflinks ripped away for constellations. She descended from above me
as if I had dreamed her, hair falling like rain from the heaven in her face. Every person
I had ever been lost in the absolution of her kiss, her exhalation, her gospel. Infinite.
18. HORROR MOVIE GIRLS #5
(Quatrain)
You can tell which of the girls will die
in the horror movie’s sorority;
they’re the pretty ones that cheat and lie
with no redeeming qualities.
19. THE FIRST RULE OF POETRY CLUB
(Senryu)
Poetry’s first rule:
tell truth even when lying
to thine self be true.
20. THE HAMILTON ROAD / BRIDGE STREET TROLL
(Skeltonic Verse)
Out on the fringe,
where winos binge
and trash cans singe,
beards feel the tinge
of dusky wine
poured ever time
from bottom line
never with lime
palms seeking kind
of peace of mind
never to find
like porridge rinds
no watch to wind,
no grapes on vines
no food to dine
no mean, no sine.
A math-like love
destroys the dove,
the branch goes stark
the olive dark.
He knows his place.
Shame and disgrace
are known to him
like next of kin,
like blood run thin
like ancient sin
like they were friends.
21. TOUR
(Tanka)
Don’t call.
The telephone will only make me
wish you here.
Mountains and miles and moons standing guard
sentinels damning our distance.
22. DECIPHERED
(Triolet)
Only her hands know me,
only they speak the tongue of my mouth.
The chamber of her lips keeps my things.
Only her hands know me…
her fingers, eyes, all of these things sing.
Only her hands know me
only they speak the tongue of my mouth.
23. HIGH NOON WITH A BULLY ON NOVEMBER 1ST
(Villanelle)
This candy is mine.
Don’t let the smooth taste fool you;
I have been suspended for less.
I walked all Hallow’s Eve for this
stalked every house on this avenue.
This candy is mine.
Every chocolate, mint and mallow is bliss.
Touching this bag is the last thing you’ll do.
I have been suspended for less.
I know you weren’t just eyeing my Hershey’s Kiss.
I’ll leave your body black and blue.
This candy is mine.
I plan to eat every bit of this Swedish Fish
so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll move.
I have been suspended for less.
I take this request as a personal dis
and I’m eating every piece of this Halloween food.
This candy is mine.
I have been suspended for less.
24. WHISPERING KLINGON IN YOUR NECK
(Macaronic Verse)
Teach me the ways of muSHa’,
your wuSDu’ tracing the pltlh of my ‘etlh,
where danger and ‘lw spend the days,
and nuj and kisses spend the nights.
jIH muSHa' SoH!
There is no world this is not true.
25. THE ABORTION
(Alphabet Poem)
Albert bellowed callously,
denying everyone first grievances.
“How I joined knowing love might never ‘onor purses.”
Quietly, Rochelle sank. “Take us very warmly,”
x-raying young Zachary.
26. ARS ELECTRONICA
(Acrostic)
Alleviated of a proper name,
Robot Boy could not remain.
Steel can feel when wind could not, and
Poetry is what the robot sought.
Open mics, he found his way
Electrc hymns he tried to relay
Though much to his dismay he found
Internal politics abound.
Calculating love, his heart led astray, the Robot Boy wasted
Away.
27. THERE IS NO SPOON (FOR RON SILLIMAN)
(Sijo)
He once wrote, “the words are not ‘out there’”, to which I agree.
I plumb my vices deep, my virtues are too alien still.
Sometimes I lose the sounding line, sometimes I haul in tomes.
28. JUDAS
(Pleiades utilizing the letter J)
Jesus tugged at the back of my neck,
just a game, never a charged thing.
Justified as the fly who dies crashing into the
jar. “Come,” he said,
“join us. We fish for the souls of men.”
Jokes, I thought. “Too late for
Jonah”, I said, to which The Master laughed.
29. PRIVATE STOCK
(Tercet ; non-haiku, 8 syllables each line)
You can ask me for anything -
the clothes, the shoes, everything…
but the Playstation? Private stock.
30. WHO WILL REMEMBER YOU
(Ekphrastic based on “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”, Pieter Bruegel)
The farmer is more impotant than the mule.
The mule is more important than the ship.
The ship is more important than the shepherd.
The shepherd is more important than the sheep.
The sheep is more important than the city.
The city is more important than the splash.
The splash is more important than the dreamer,
if for no other reason than because the splash disrupts the fisherman,
who is more important than the dreamer
and his wings and his sandaled feet,
kicking at eternity in vain.
I didn't plan to do 30/30 (30 poems in 30 days to celebrate National Poetry Month) this year like a lot of poets, but I couldn't sleep last night so right after midnight I started this project: 30/1...30 poems in ONE day.
Not only did I do 30 poems, I used 30 different poetry forms.
All poems written April 25, 2010. Please forgive any typos. I'll fix them later, promise.
All 30 poems composed April 25, 2010 for 30/30, a different style for each day.
1. GHETTO CONGRESS
(Blank Verse - 5 accents per line)
Clothelines snapping sunlight from their dresses,
flags bearing twenty-second floored nations.
Citizens milling the ghetto valleys
lobbying brown bottle bag amendments,
sidewalk legislators debate crap rolls,
gin senators take the floor of nightclubs
pleading jukebox law, demanding barroom rights,
billiard constitutions signed in smoke rings
2. PEACE O’ MIND
(Blues Poem)
All last night I wonder, wonder why you won’t answer the phone
All night I wonder baby, wonder why you ain’t answer the phone
Is it ‘cause your cellphone dead sugar
or ‘cause your ass ain’t at home?
Every time I got a night off, can’t find you anywhere
Every night I get some time off, I can’t find you anywhere
Has some villain stole you ‘way from me,
and hid you in his secret lair?
I need to know where you at momma, need to know for peace of mind
I need to know where you be at baby, tryin’ to get some peace of mind
My sweet brown eyes go green with envy
when your love I cannot find.
3. I DON’T GET WRITER’S BLOCK, KID
(Bouts-Rimes between Snoop Doog, offering the rhymed words, and Charles Bukowski filling in the lines)
So I woke up erlizzle,
rolled out of bedizzle,
crawled to the johnizzle,
washed out the vomizzle.
Forizzle.
Downed a liquid breakfast of the ‘Zay,
chased it with a shot of the Tanqueray.
Sat down at my writing throne,
eyed the page, the words standing alone.
Typed this drivel that ends in “izzle”
The rapper’s too high to get that I’m pissizzled.
4. FINDING LOVE IN PRISON BARS
(Calligram)
My heart in the bars of my ribs,
prison sex, taking me in the night,
no kiss, no history, stone tongues,
punching massages. Release me, lover.
5. INNOCENCE’S REWARD
(Cento)
We go into it at night,
there whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee.
A tyrant spell has bound me
in the deep waters, in the high air, in woods and pastures,
and the bowels of the earth.
My master carries me to church,
not one paper dollar to crumple in my hand.
Good pennyworths - but money cannot move.
I can not maintain her with silver and gold
nor buy all the fine things that a big house can hold.
The magic of our first love is our ignorance
that it can never end.
NOTES
---------
1“The Orchard” Gretel Ehrlich
2“The Presence of Love” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
3“The Night” Emily Bronte
4-5 “Love” Henry David Thoreau
6 “Sally In Our Alley” Henry Carey
7 “Seven Daffodils” Traditional, American
8 “Fine Knack for Ladies” Anonymous
9-10 “Pretty Sara” Traditional, English (I know it says "no". That's how it was.)
11-12 “Quote” Benjamin Disraeli
6. HALF COUNSELOR
(Cinquain)
Half moon
offers oceans
dust-filled, listening friend
swallowing the wishes of love
for man.
7. WE COME TOGETHER
(Concrete Poem)
We come together
We come together
We come together
We come together
We come together
Wecometogether
Wecomeogether
Wcomeogether
Womegether
Wmegether
Wmegher
Wmegr
Wegr
We
8. FOR QUENTIN
(Epitaph)
You lie here but not here so long as you can be called.
Where there is memory, there is presence, there is essence, there is all.
9. SLOW JAM IN 6/8 TIME
(Event Poem)
Cleave the grammar from its lyric and put the remaining syllables in your journal for prose.
Soak your heart in its rhythm for fifteen minutes or five repeats of the song, whichever comes first.
Line your guts with its bass lines until tennis rackets are jealous.
Rub it hard into the skin until ash concedes and your veins become bass clef staves.
Grind its beat under your fingernails, make your hands filthy with their longing.
Kiss every one you hear, right on their ridges and terminals.
10. JEFFTY
(Found Poem, courtesy of Harlan Ellison short story)
When he spoke,
it was with the squeaking,
soprano voice of a five-year-old;
when he talked to you
it was about the concerns
of a five-year-old…
comic books
playing soldier
using a clothes pin to attach
a stiff piece of cardboard to the front
fork of his bike so the sound it made
when the spokes hit was like
a motorboat, asking questions like
why does that thing do that like that,
how high is up,
how old is old,
why is grass green
what’s an elephant look like?
At twenty-two,
he was five.
11. KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS
(Free Verse)
First it was the cow, foreshadowing the morning
when all of town would sit still, stirring in its cocoons,
when the diner would become the plate
when the county fair goes smorgasbord and white,
when the rulers awaken and spin hungry dictates from their wombs,
when the kingdom screams and goes ripe in the desert sun.
12. THE KINDERGARTNER SHOOTS GAME OVER LUNCH
(Haiku)
I’m in construction,
castles and spaceships mostly.
I’m a Lego man.
13. 30/30
(Limerick)
The poets are writing so fast;
a poem a day if they last.
The poems aren’t great
but it’s never too late
to hope that they run out of gas.
14. OTHELLO’S PACKING LIST FOR VENICE
(List Poem)
Scimitar, sheath
Wrist dagger
Egyptian silk pillow cases
Mom’s handkerchief
Soul Glo hair grease
5 pairs of pantaloons
Saturday night turban
Prayer mat
Pinkie rings
Anger management checklist
Dezzy’s bedclothes
Berlioz Italian for Spanish Speakers
15. ALI BUMBAYE
(Lune)
Calling Muhammed
Cassius Clay
invites ass-whuppin’
16. DON’T PLAY, SON
(Pantoum)
Revenge is like a meal to me.
I’ll eat it cold or warm, don’t matter.
When crossed, my appetite is ravenous.
Take it fast or slow, even out of a bag.
I’ll eat it cold or warm, don’t matter.
Prepared by the best chefs or flipped on racks.
Take it fast or slow, even out ofa bag.
Even rolling on pins in a gas station.
Prepared by the best chefs or flipped on racks
It will fill my belly either way
Even rolling on pins in a gas station
I’ll take it as a pinch or a pound.
It will fill my belly either way
Rest assured, I’ll not push away from the table.
I’ll take it as a pinch or a pound.
Revenge is like a meal to me.
17. GOD IS A THURSDAY NIGHT
(Prose Poem)
I pinwheeled her around the bedroom, more impassioned than Ismail, more deft
than surgeon’s talons, serene as a sorority of suns, standing over the landscape of
her bed like monoliths, the desert of her sheets winding away into a dusk of incense
smoke, lost cufflinks ripped away for constellations. She descended from above me
as if I had dreamed her, hair falling like rain from the heaven in her face. Every person
I had ever been lost in the absolution of her kiss, her exhalation, her gospel. Infinite.
18. HORROR MOVIE GIRLS #5
(Quatrain)
You can tell which of the girls will die
in the horror movie’s sorority;
they’re the pretty ones that cheat and lie
with no redeeming qualities.
19. THE FIRST RULE OF POETRY CLUB
(Senryu)
Poetry’s first rule:
tell truth even when lying
to thine self be true.
20. THE HAMILTON ROAD / BRIDGE STREET TROLL
(Skeltonic Verse)
Out on the fringe,
where winos binge
and trash cans singe,
beards feel the tinge
of dusky wine
poured ever time
from bottom line
never with lime
palms seeking kind
of peace of mind
never to find
like porridge rinds
no watch to wind,
no grapes on vines
no food to dine
no mean, no sine.
A math-like love
destroys the dove,
the branch goes stark
the olive dark.
He knows his place.
Shame and disgrace
are known to him
like next of kin,
like blood run thin
like ancient sin
like they were friends.
21. TOUR
(Tanka)
Don’t call.
The telephone will only make me
wish you here.
Mountains and miles and moons standing guard
sentinels damning our distance.
22. DECIPHERED
(Triolet)
Only her hands know me,
only they speak the tongue of my mouth.
The chamber of her lips keeps my things.
Only her hands know me…
her fingers, eyes, all of these things sing.
Only her hands know me
only they speak the tongue of my mouth.
23. HIGH NOON WITH A BULLY ON NOVEMBER 1ST
(Villanelle)
This candy is mine.
Don’t let the smooth taste fool you;
I have been suspended for less.
I walked all Hallow’s Eve for this
stalked every house on this avenue.
This candy is mine.
Every chocolate, mint and mallow is bliss.
Touching this bag is the last thing you’ll do.
I have been suspended for less.
I know you weren’t just eyeing my Hershey’s Kiss.
I’ll leave your body black and blue.
This candy is mine.
I plan to eat every bit of this Swedish Fish
so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll move.
I have been suspended for less.
I take this request as a personal dis
and I’m eating every piece of this Halloween food.
This candy is mine.
I have been suspended for less.
24. WHISPERING KLINGON IN YOUR NECK
(Macaronic Verse)
Teach me the ways of muSHa’,
your wuSDu’ tracing the pltlh of my ‘etlh,
where danger and ‘lw spend the days,
and nuj and kisses spend the nights.
jIH muSHa' SoH!
There is no world this is not true.
25. THE ABORTION
(Alphabet Poem)
Albert bellowed callously,
denying everyone first grievances.
“How I joined knowing love might never ‘onor purses.”
Quietly, Rochelle sank. “Take us very warmly,”
x-raying young Zachary.
26. ARS ELECTRONICA
(Acrostic)
Alleviated of a proper name,
Robot Boy could not remain.
Steel can feel when wind could not, and
Poetry is what the robot sought.
Open mics, he found his way
Electrc hymns he tried to relay
Though much to his dismay he found
Internal politics abound.
Calculating love, his heart led astray, the Robot Boy wasted
Away.
27. THERE IS NO SPOON (FOR RON SILLIMAN)
(Sijo)
He once wrote, “the words are not ‘out there’”, to which I agree.
I plumb my vices deep, my virtues are too alien still.
Sometimes I lose the sounding line, sometimes I haul in tomes.
28. JUDAS
(Pleiades utilizing the letter J)
Jesus tugged at the back of my neck,
just a game, never a charged thing.
Justified as the fly who dies crashing into the
jar. “Come,” he said,
“join us. We fish for the souls of men.”
Jokes, I thought. “Too late for
Jonah”, I said, to which The Master laughed.
29. PRIVATE STOCK
(Tercet ; non-haiku, 8 syllables each line)
You can ask me for anything -
the clothes, the shoes, everything…
but the Playstation? Private stock.
30. WHO WILL REMEMBER YOU
(Ekphrastic based on “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”, Pieter Bruegel)
The farmer is more impotant than the mule.
The mule is more important than the ship.
The ship is more important than the shepherd.
The shepherd is more important than the sheep.
The sheep is more important than the city.
The city is more important than the splash.
The splash is more important than the dreamer,
if for no other reason than because the splash disrupts the fisherman,
who is more important than the dreamer
and his wings and his sandaled feet,
kicking at eternity in vain.
