Category Archives: Bad Poem-A-Day August

08.01.18
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Bad Poem-a-Day August 2018

Sometimes, you’re sittin’ on a stump, trying to get your thoughts collected, and Life decides that you will not being doing that right now. Life does the Dance of Distraction all around you, and, well, you fall for it.

I’m finishing up the last leg of a road trip. I have poems. I have limited connectivity, and I had no plan to deal with that.

There will be poems. Probably even tomorrow. I’ll make it up to you. In the meantime, I’ll be riding all night, watching Montana and Idaho and Oregon go by until we are enveloped by our little neighborhood. Then–a shower. After that, poems.

09.01.17
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We Now Direct You to Bad Poem-a-Week

I did it (again).  31 poems in 31 days.  Some were good and you agreed, some I thought were good probably weren’t, and some of the bad ones were at least entertaining.  

I like this stunt that I’ve pulled, and I appreciate each and every comment or like–they make me feel less like I’m throwing an envelope into the ocean.  Thanks, also, to new followers who felt it was interesting enough to become part of the group.  

I’ve decided to post a new poem once a week from here on out.  The quality should go up as the quantity goes down, but that isn’t a given, is it?  I think I’ll post them on Sundays.  I’ll continue as long as someone is being entertained.  

I also have some book things happening, and school is starting so I can work full-time on those.  Here’s to hoping we all have a rip-roaring finish to 2017.  See you on Sundays.

Much love, Rebecka

08.31.17
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Doggety Dirge

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There is an empty space of bread-box size,
Six inches from the floor and always close.
It was occupied by gentle brown eyes,
Soft nudging on ankles from cold, black nose.
I take my walks all alone and unleashed,
The crumbs under table stay where they fall.
Only the sea smell comes home from the beach,
The bright steel bowls take no space in the hall.
No nails will scrabble to joyfully greet,
The UPS man hears silence, escapes.
Gone, snarfle and crunch of phantom small treats,
The solidity of memory unshapes.
—-Long, small shadow is not where it belongs,
—-At this moment, we are in-between dogs.

Daisy 2000-2015

She was my Special Dog, and really the Best Girl.  We’ve been waiting to get another dog for life things to pass (vacations, etc…) but I am getting antsy for another four-legged best friend.  The empty spot hasn’t filled in, even after all this time.

(And here’s the sonnet!  Some of the iambs are suspect, but hey, we’re working to a deadline here.)

08.30.17
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Retreating

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A writer’s weekend away
Was exactly what I wanted,
But you might have mentioned
Your condo is prehaunted.

It’s a real distraction
To have noises in the night,
And the patting on my leg
Gave even me a fright.

But beyond the Scooby scares,
The worst thing for an empath,
Was the pervading sadness
Lingering in the guest bath.

Despair so deep, it broke me.
I had to pack up and leave.
I fled for home in tears–
It took three days to grieve.

So….thanks for your largesse?
I really appreciate the thought.
I won’t be going back to work
In the Condo of the Lost.

My husband, the Navy vet, tells me that sea stories always start with “This is no shit, man…”  I didn’t think that was an elegant title, so I went with “Retreating.”  I’ve had odd experiences before in my life, but this one topped them all. The pressure of an unseen hand on my leg woke me.  The electrical appliances and lights did a lot of flickering and malfunctioning.  My spare battery pack wouldn’t take a charge (I’m using it right now, it’s fine again).

The hardest part, though, was definitely the emotional imprint left on the place.  I don’t know the whole story, but I can guess.  It still seems very sad, but it no longer seems like my tragedy, as it did while I was there.

I did manage to get some work done, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped.  Next time I get a weekend free, I’m staying in a nice generic hotel, preferably built very recently.

08.29.17
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Almost

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now that you are eight
you pedal-fly and don’t look back
but you’re only eight

I’m posting from a campsite again. This year, the medium boy has a level of independence that leaves me anxiously waiting to hear his bike bell and know that he’s fine. We let the line out, then pull it back a little, let the line out, pull it back again. For him, this is exhilarating and scary and slightly difficult to navigate. Is he ready? Am I ready? Almost.

08.28.17
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The F Word

 

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Today? I wrote for kids.
Fairies, elves and dragons.
Tomorrow, I’m writing horror
And this might sound like bragging–but–

I will use the F word
In so many creative ways.
Noun, verb, adjective, interjection…
I can F for days.

Some will get the vapors,
Others just turn up their nose,
But when you’re writing messy life
The underbelly has to show.

In my real-life conversation,
I don’t F this and that with ease,
But my characters F an awful lot
When faced with extremity.

I guess what I’m saying is
You can’t sanitize real.
My pretend people have to tell you
Exactly how they fucking feel.

It’s sort of funny to me how people extrapolate what and how you write to your own personality. They expect Steve King to live in some sort of Addams family monstrosity, when he’s really someone’s Grandpa and puts a sheet on his couch so the dog doesn’t get hair all over it.

The imagination is an amazing tool, and you don’t always get to pick which doors fly open in the middle of the night. I have these flawed people come to me nearly fully formed. It’s my job to put them in situations and see what they do–and it’s not always nice. *shrug*

08.27.17
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Methaphor

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Checking you out checking out
Maximum packs of pills
Some cold you got there, lady

Bags of refined crystals for me
Socially acceptable RDA implosion
Dying slow, but dying too

You don’t smile, you don’t have one
Fingers to face, worrying at it
Eyes here, there, at me, don’t see

I tug my shirt over my tell
Breathing hard from standing still
Hungry to hate, settling for you

I’ll go straight to the needle
Finger sticks to pay a different piper
Both buying to use ourselves up

I used to self-medicate depression with sugar. I had a high-stress career and a lifetime of bad habits behind me, and I’d buy a couple of candy bars on the way home from work just to deal with the anxiety.

At one of my stops, I ran across a couple, both buying four boxes of generic Sudafed. Not rocket science to figure that out. With age I find greater compassion, and I realize that we all cope somehow.

I’ve broken the candy habit, for the most part, and I’m not on my way to the DIABEETUS.  The depression is mostly mild and comes and goes.  I still want a bag of candy, I just don’t buy one.  I hope those folks are in a similar place.

08.26.17
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Subpart D, Paragraph 2

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don’t get your shoes wet
small lawyers got around that
technicality

I don’t actually begrudge them this particular adventure–I’d be worried if they didn’t immediately and desperately want to play in every creek they see.  He was waging a losing battle against the water skippers, flinging mud and small stones only to watch them regroup in an instant.  I believe next time he will request a flame thrower.

08.25.17
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An Eclogue for Friday

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Well, Fred, how are the sheep?
Fine so far, nary a peep.
What’s that in your lunch today?
It’s supposed to be leftover soufflé,
But after four hours, it’s sort of pourable.
Hmm. Guess soufflé isn’t portable.

After the week we’ve all had, I thought we deserved a nice bucolic eclogue.

Bad Poem-a-Day August is winding down, only six left to go.  There’s that sonnet that I’d like to finish when I can concentrate, and who knows what else?  Not even me.

08.24.17
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Backseat Blitz

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Our summer traveling in the car
Started out kind of rough.
The squabbling children escalated
Until I’d had more than enough.

They screeched and fought every minute
With intent to harm and disturb
Until I PULLED THIS CAR OVER RIGHT NOW
And sat them down on the curb.

I gave them quite a lesson there
Right by the side of the road.
They thought they might be walking home
From a two towns away zip code.

I let them back in on conditions
Which since then, they’ve mostly met.
Like all siblings, they bicker,
About things they should just forget.

This normal silly bickering, though,
I find easier to survive.
In an imagined car of silence,
I switch to internal drive.

It turns out, I’m not quite able to compose a rhymed English sonnet in iambic pentameter while I’m driving.  I was in the car for 5+ hours today, and while I usually do compose verse in my head on the road, keeping track of the syllables and rhyme structure without writing anything down was too much.  So I let my brain make this, not at all inspired by anything that did/did not happen in the backseat today.

Also…this may/may not be a completely true story.