Friday, April 1, 2016

A to Z Challenge: A



Two poems to kick off the A to Z Challenge: First, a basic straight-forward piece.  Then an A to Z poem with more creativity, but also a lot of obscure references.

(untitled)


Autumn surrendered to winter
Draping the ground in its white flag.
A tree fell in the forest
Its sound muffled by shuttered
Windows and crackling fires.
We left the proof of our existence
Where we walked, like amateur
Criminals. Though, to be fair,
It could not be proven
If we were walking
To or from something.
We sipped coffee and played
Chess, pretending to be intellectual.
We ate comfort foods and dreamed
Of beaches while the radiator
Coughed in the corner. Then spring
Arrived, unfurling her brightly colored
Finery. What we thought we felt
For each other melted with the snow. 






Autumn Poem

Autumn is the topic of the month
But I’m sweating 90 degrees as iced
Coffee slides down my throat,
Drowns a dozen metaphors.

Every poet writes with his
Fingers crossed.  But somewhere
Ginsberg is tripping on his last line,
Howling at a harvest moon,
Injecting Bill’s
Junkie veins with stanzas of gibberish.
Killed by conformity, the Beats
Live on in paperback-addled
Minds of lesser intellects.
Neal, in Denver, published obscene
Odes between women’s thighs -
Poetry of a different kind.  I read
Quoof and was unimpressed.  (If I
Ramble it’s because I lack inspiration – no Carl
Solomon to guide my pen.)

The windows of hell look onto poems
Unfinished: a third floor room -
View of libraries wet with tears.
Writing here is like a drug -
X perhaps.  I steal words to pay for my
Yearning.  My thoughts drift to the barista’s
Zipper, tan legs slouching towards closing time.

11 comments:

  1. A whirlwind of imagery and emotions—chaotic and pretty and too deep for a nom de plum to truly grasp, but ... I dig it. Ginsberg would've howled for you, too.

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  2. Both are cool and I don't even pretend to be intellectual but I love the imagery. I also love how you started with the letters of the alphabet in the 2nd poem, very crafty and I bet you can bowl at the moon:)

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  3. Thanks for visiting my blog post today -- I knew I recognized your "handle" ... Love the Maslow & Film list! If only the old psych prof had used that kind of example when he tried to hammer the Maslow hierarchy into the heads of us thicker than (hubby suggested "thicker than a chocolate mousse in September" but that isn't thick enough ...) concrete students -- and this list wasn't too hard to remember since it is shorter than Jung's or Freud's ... **Sigh** Also, love the imagery in the first poem - especially, the line about comfort food and the radiator ...

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    1. Thanks.

      I minored in Psychology, but I was good at cramming for tests. So I don't remember much. Ha.

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  4. Loving those poems. It's nice to know people too young to have lived through the '60s still consume those rebellious words. Where are today's literary rebels? Here, perhaps.
    @fparkerswords
    Frank Parker’s Author Site (use for blogger sites)

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  5. I second the love for the Maslow's post.

    I'm the kind of poetry reader who prefers your first poem, because it's easily accessible. Poetry I have to work for still makes me feel stupid. But I REALLY like the first poem, and am going to send it to my sister, another Easily Understandable Poetry fan.

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    1. I don't really know why the second one went the way it did. I wrote it for an online poetry group, and the topic was autumn. But as indicated, it was unseasonably hot. How I got from a normal A to Z poem to a reference-laden piece I don't remember.

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  6. Very nice!
    Best Wishes,
    Annette

    My A2Z: http://nananettie1969.com/a-to-z-challenge-2016
    Follow Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nananettie1969

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