“I’d like to challenge you to write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life – one that typically isn’t done all that often, or only in specific circumstances.”

NaPoWriMo

There is the warmth that is there from the start
In my fingertips, in my chest--
like gusts of wind blushing against my skin. 
But there is fear
of burnt tea cookies,
or crumbling gingerbread men. 
There is joy in adding milk to moisten, 
dread of the crystallized sugar bits and stubborn butter. 
Hand cramps and wrist aches--why did I think this was a good idea?
My mother helps scrape the sides of the doughy bowl,
sharing the burden.
The best part is yet to come: the extra powdered sugar, the sprinkles, the crushed nuts.
But I am impatient to taste the winter in each bite
tapping at the oven to hurryuphurryuphurryup
To distract myself I think of rolling dough between my
palms, of licking dangerous spoonfuls of batter, of the holiday
plate we’ll place them on.
What was I complaining about? 
We giggle and dance while the cookies cool,
and when we are ready, 
we eat them like a final dinner’s treat, 
like they hold our childhood memories in each bite, 
like they might disappear if we don’t consume ravenously, 
like they might be so sweet--so delightful--to 
ease the fear
the aches
the doubt. 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 29: "Write a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, 
on an emotion you have felt powerfully."
 
It takes courage to belong.
The desire wells up in me like
something about to crash and break
at the shore of my fingertips. 
It subsides at times, like a tame animal,
but the heat is always there, at the core. 
My teeth may not chatter, my hands may not shake,
my body tremble,
But it’s all there
like a colorblind creature in a sea of red poppies.
It takes guts to belong,
to say, ‘I will stand right here by this stone, in this moment, for as
long as I need
because I earned it
and we only have a little time
to stand where we desire.’ 
 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 28: "Try your hand at a meta-poem (poem about a poem/poetry)."

I try to find you in the old sock drawer,
I try to catch you in the eye of a stranger.
I try to taste you in the syrup of my adolescence,
I try to feel you through the sheets at night. 
You sure like to hide. 
It’s a game to you. 
You ask if I’m down to play, and if I am
not--if I prefer to sit and sulk with thoughts that will never be written down--
you go away for now and leave me be. 
I look for you in the moonlight,
in the shy girl’s twitch. 
I look for you in intoxication,
in the glare of a campfire. 
Somedays you move so fast, I’m winded and too weak,
and you’ve gone to play with someone else. 
But I’m not worried. 
I know that you will return soon 
And this time,
I will catch you.
 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 25: "Write a poem that: (1) Is specific to a season, (2) Uses 
imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell),
(3) Includes a rhetorical question, (like Keats’ “where are the songs of spring?”)"

The nights are orange and black,
filled with the scent of cinnamon
and the mewing of street cats.
The dead lurk in the alleyways and on
the roofs of old houses. 
They ponder what it used to be like to crunch
fallen leaves in their hands,
to taste the sweet crisp of a freshly picked apple,
or the juicy flesh of plump squash.
'Tis the season of mourning is it not?
Oh how beautiful the decay. 
The rot which brings forth youth,
the sacrifice of being forgotten
so that there may be space for more souls like you
to taste the sweet wind of a fall afternoon. 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 24: "Write a poem that is inspired by a reference book. Locate a 
dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the 
two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day."

It was late on a Friday evening and she sat by the windowsill
with the pith of a orange in her hand, its piquant odor consuming the air,
and a pistol on the table. 
She heard the pit-a-pat of a pipit, its brown feathers
deep into a pinpin apple that lay on the front lawn. 
In her pixie world, she was among the stars
with Neptune and the Pisces constellation, among the 
shoals of fish, the sharks, the rays, the piranhas.
Once accepted among their kind, she would pivot and 
pirouette to the sound of melodious pizzicato so beautiful
that not even her piteous state, there by the window,
could deem her unworthy. 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 22: "Write a poem that engages with another art form." 

Gone out to play on my own
but the wind was so strong
it killed the flower. 
I brought it’s giant corpse inside and it collapsed immediately,
petals raining down the stairs to the deep below. 
We’ve been here a long time, 
in this place. 
It is not home. It never will be. 
When will the wind be strong enough to carry it all away?
It almost got me by the ends of my hair.
I should’ve given in, but I had to think of my friend. 
I opened her plastic grasp and inserted a yellow petal.
It would become the anodyne that awakened her from 
her deepest sleep inside my subconscious.
Little did I know that when this happened, 
I would be as dead as the fallen sunflower
that lay at my toes. 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 21: "Write a poem that, like The Color of Pomegranates and 
“City That Does Not Sleep,” incorporates wild, surreal images. Try to play around with
 writing that doesn’t make formal sense, but which engages all the senses and
 involves dream-logic."

We go down the rabbit hole
only to find ourselves going up once more, 
climbing high and out of breath

then down again we go 
(or is it up?)
then under                       then around. 
We’re hypnotized like moths encircling a flame.
We feel we’re moving with control and deliberation,
but we might be hallucinating. 
The pink hues of the roses have begun to melt the icicles in my
chest and finally, I can breathe. 
I can breathe. 

The clashing of tea cups, the sips of a new elixir in 
every room, the chaos of our own consciousness filling every empty bottle
like a rewinding genie.
We observe the tiniest of objects until we at once 
become them, conflating ourselves into
an infantile world where sensations go through 
us like milk, or graze us like silk, 
or gash us like thorns. 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 19: "Write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word 
choice follows the words/order of the alphabet."

A box of cherries arrived at the dilapidated door that morning.
Every neighbor fidgeted gainlessly on their respective porches
hoping it was just a coincidence that they 
were left mysteriously near the ogre who previously
quarreled ruthlessly with any stagnant trespasser from
underneath his vast cave of cobwebs and xanthocomic young
insects who were killed quickly and zealously.

By the next morning,
every red fruit had disappeared and the
cherry pits littered the sidewalks
like crumbs to a graveyard. 

NaPoWriMo Prompt 17: "Write a poem that presents a scene from an unusual point 
of view."

I burn by their bodies,
warming their toes
while they exhale smoky-gray
not unlike my own effusions. 
They yell as fiercely as I grow
when I am fed thick wood and sticks, 
or when gasoline is poured into me like juice. 

When the first men made me
they were so terrified they watered my sparks
before I could show them my might. 
They were slow learners, but they learned
not to mess with me. 

Now, these same men roast gooey-white substances and 
brown squares over my orange flames. 
They encircle me with cans of poisonous liquid--
that taunting liquid.  
Now, they let me burn while I watch them yell.
And punch
And kick. They pull out a small black device
and with a bang louder than my loudest hiss when the rains dissolve me to ashes,
one of the tallest bodies falls flat to the ground,
a pool of red forms around his shadowy skull. 
All other noises cease.
An exodus of the guilty leave my hearth,
and I am left with the pile of bones,
wondering when I would be put out, too.
 

The moonlight nudges me at night,
creeping under my sleep mask and
under my drowsy lids to say
Hello 
She wants me to see how the clouds pass by her roundness
How she can outshine the night stars
How powerful she is. 
Wake from your dreams, she insists.
Men came a long way to stand on her surface
so many years ago
And even now, they sample her body and soul
to discover what life may be.
Wolves howl at me
Witches chase me like a kite
Many others gaze as I transform before their eyes.
I yawn. Her rays have come to sit upon my shoulders.
I wax , I wane, she sings. 
I am a crescent,
I am whole.
I can be red as blood,
or white as milk.
Please, come see me again tomorrow.
I am all alone up here and you,
my blue-eyed friend,
are so much more beautiful than I.