IMUNURI prompt: five

Do something this week with the number five.

- Write a poem with five lines.

- Or write a poem in which each line has exactly five words. Or five syllables.

- Make the title of your poem "Five [BLANK]" or "[BLANK] times five" or "The fifth time I ever [BLANK]."
 
- Writing on a theme or subject that relates to the number five, such as Charles Simic's "Bestiary for the Fingers of My Right Hand," a five-part poem about his fingers; or Eleanor Lerman's poem "Starfish."

Five stanzas.
Lines that rhyme in sets of five.
Take five breaths between each word you write.
Listen to Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" (in 5/4 time) as you write.
Eat five bananas before writing.

Five a poem this week.

labels:  [five, poem, your name]

lightning

brain  storm

in this inferno capped by skull

all the singeing singing clatter

of me shaking one grey fungal mat

of mycorrhizal dendrites

mold on fire

shaking  moon 

trees of in

sight

found in the cracks

from the magnificent
boulder, dangling down
into prismatic
       flashing sky space
the plumbing air root--
while wriggling in mineral tissue
the fractal tree trades
textures one molecule at a spin

gathering (I)

Aren't we only part physical beings manifesting on this phenomenological plane

much like gathering clouds gathering gathering?

one moment 

not visible but then impending 

even dooming threatening

gathering gathering gathering 

air particles enciting

dust tickling heat rising and falling

wrolling rolling growling

 

catalyzing (II) 

 

What is it that sparks

the quick as lightning

manifestation

(spirit, truth,

seeing

?)

c

  ra

c  

k

    in

g

d  

 o

w 

n

l

  i

k

e

el      

         ec

tr i

c   

it

    y

w

a     k

i            ng

us               up

  t   o             w   ho

   w e  re a        l  l   y  ar  

 ~   ~      ~      e     ~  ~  ~  ~ ~ 
t o u   c    h    i     n   g       d   o   w    n  (III)

fast in s e e i n g fast in experiencing yet this phys i cal
ground takes in   materializes   the spirit that is us  such
that sl o wing happens connections between molecules
creating solid masses  s e e mingly solid simply excited
particles  some how re lating in their mutual ex ci tation
bonding  familiarizing  con-fusing temporarily  merging
attributes creating aggregates of like-minded  light  and
pony shows giving eachofus some thing to riderideride
to lay down at somepoint where the natural return(s) to

thatwhichInitially catalyzes such arisings fanfare sweet
birth of moisture and dust  ~  that which is seen/unseen

Prompt: Lightning

Write like lightning. Write fast. Write to sizzle to a single singeing point. Illuminate. Arc and zag. Come quick and leave fast. Take all the breath in the room and light up the dark, then return to darkness. Boom and holler, then be silence. This is the poem of lightning.

Keywords: poem, lightning, [poet's moniker]

Note Uranus is the planet of lightning, is in Aries. Lightning is being born, lightning is on fire.

Image credit: Science Daily (2008, March 28). "Bolts of Blue Lightning and other Weird Lightning Explained."

Off the Road (by Fang-O)

I walk out of the cab near dark,
my ukelele-banjo-guitar in a black sack
wrapped around me, stalking dusk
and a microbrew. I hate driving
that truck.

Somedays a prison, some days
sanctuary. Somedays all I want
is a little more humanity in my white box,
more than the tinny radio yields.

My truck. Long days driving in
a refrigerator, a cock pit, a coffin:
perhaps tonight
music will open up the door.

"Never in a Vest"

(The Sinatra hit that never was)

I feel better in a sweater.

I can stay afloat in a coat.

I know that I can hack it when I put on a jacket,

but I never look my best in a vest.

I can dig a trench coat--that’s a fact,

and I feel mighty macho in a mac.

My heart beats quicker when I slip into a slicker,

but I never look my best in a vest.

BRIDGE:

Outerwear suits me fine…

I wear it out at any time, in nearly any clime.

I can fit in any knit or any weave--

but I won’t play in any layer that doesn’t even have a sleeve.

Well, I look real good in a hoodie.

and I fare fairly decent in a fleece.

I feel like head honcho when I don a poncho,

but I never look my best in a vest.

I’m perfectly happy in a serape.

I’m no pushover in a pullover.

The tailor has a taker if she’ll make me a windbreaker,

but I never look my best in vest.

Baby, anything’s a snap in a wrap.

I’ll give it my all dressed in a shawl.

I’m not trying to brag--I’m glad in any old rag

but I never look my best--and let's make a clean breast:

I never look my best-- why, I'm hardly even dressed!

It may be neatly pressed, but I really must protest

because I never look my best in a vest.

(Old Blue Eyes would have used this alternate for the "old rag" line when playing the Borscht Belt:  “It hardly seems to ‘matta’--it could be any old shmata…”)

sweet slicing

pear balanced knife
   sweet slicing
        invites
      
        MORPH

I am shorter than ever
& totally female
& standing in combat boots
with “Negotiator” blazed
across my back
& one nasty black luger
on my right hip

that said to the poet (drinking coffee at a table)
“she’d win a lot of negotiations with that luger on her hip,
& put their feet in cement & turn the hose on”

oh how the poet digresses
I just wanted a short cap &
saw the goateed older guy staring with interest so I gave him a nod,
no smile nothing but a nod
& walked out with my short cap
& left him with his words to write.

announce

i am in all of you
outside all of you
you've made a mockery of me
a high deity of me
a something
once was
merely minding its own
business gestating gestating
i was prompted
egged
striated
confounded
compounded to take on
other forms than my own
my once pristine nature
of yet known emanation

and there was something
in you
that went to see
the spectrum of lights
within me
still missing me
and yet
the timing was
what it was
is what it is
and now
once beautiful
once waiting
i have donned
conned
fueled
forthstood
frigated
shorn
shod
decimated
disseminated
gloriously created
exacerbated
shockingly hated
cosmically bated
all you foretold

innocent am i
waiting and sly
cannot contain myself
bating you on
singing this song
one and the same
all in your name

simply what
was once was
life itself still
waiting
the grace am i
to still
come to know
myself

rock oil
hydro carbon
pet roleum
you think you
know me

just beginning
now

Ultraluminous Galaxy Merger

 

• I am just going to stand here 
• as the lightshow spins away. 
• But if it were petroleum  
• in a puddle and I were 
• still young by the sun’s count, 
• I would put my finger in 
• to see what I could be midwife to  
• for the wonder of it, and,  
• looking up, to share.

15,000: as a galactic cloud so deep

I know there's more than 15,000

stars in the night sky, but I always thought there was

lots of space between them, I imagined them

langorous and whimsical in their

gyres and frolic

in the deep deep

spacious

tides of blackness.

I know there's more than 15,000

people at this conference, and I never knew

how jostling it must be for those stars.

How they might push and hustle to get a spot

in the great halls of velvet darkness.

Do constellations ever wonder

if they matter or if they're just specks?

Or can I learn from them, how to keep

my bright fire bright, how to find my place in the echoing

hallways of deep space

through relating to other bright candles?

I promised to myself to introduce myself

as "a galactic cloud so deep"*

if anyone asked who I was.

I know there's more than 15,000

but none of them asked.

So I'm writing this poem

to constellate myself within the great and spacious

tides of time, to sing out my brightness

as "a galactic cloud so deep"

* Adrienne Rich, from "Planetarium"

Image credit: The Photopic Sky Survey, the largest true-color all-sky survey – along with a constellation and star name overlay option – is available here. From http://www.universetoday.com/85577/photopic-sky-survey/

IMUNURI prompt: someone else

by David Fleischmann

This week, don't be yourself.

A poet can sometimes convey deep truth by intentionally tilting her own platform by self-imposing an obstacle, restraint, recipe, unfamiliarity, randomness or surprise within the writing process.

This week, doff your daily persona and don a different one. Speak like someone else. Take a different voice or perspective. Try a mode or method of writing that is unfamiliar. Tap into details that reflect something you didn't experience directly but reflect the deeper truth.

In short, adopt a different persona and write as someone else.


keywords: poem, altpersona, your name

Celestial Bodies

Celestial bodies

if you give a galaxy to carry
give me the milky way
with Hathor and Osiris astride
so here and near I can almost see the laser beaming aliens

& give my aliens bodies
for I have finally
come to love this body of mine
so complex & rich in pains and pleasures
& able to sense sound
& smell & taste & sight &
      TOUCH!

feel me with your lasers
celestial bodies out there
peel my layers & pierce these starry eyed skies
with mirth & circumstance

send your constant arrow of light...

IMUNURI Prompt: Write of the Night Sky and How We Carry Constellation(s)

In Classical Chinese Medicine, the meridian lines are the maps of star constellations pulled onto the human body.

Adrienne Rich in "Planetarium" describes how she relates to the stars, how she is "a galactic cloud so deep...an instrument in the shape/ of a woman trying to translate pulsations / into images for the relief of the body / and the reconstruction of the mind." (further fab poem excerpt below)

Select a galaxy or constellation and write about it, either from the poetry of its name or image, how it resides inside you, or where you carry it within or express it.

Here are some images of galaxies to inspire (click "images" to see more)... clickable pictures of constellations... and here, for the science geek poetic sparks, what are galaxies? (from NASA)

keywords: constellation, poem, [poet's moniker]

Excerpt from "Planetarium" by Adrienne Rich

...Heartbeat of the pulsar

heart sweating through my body

The radio impulse

pouring in from Taurus

I am bombarded yet I stand

I have been standing all my life in the

direct path of a battery of signals

the most accurately transmitted most

untranslatable language in the universe

I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-

luted that a light wave could take 15

years to travel through me And has

taken I am an instrument in the shape

of a woman trying to translate pulsations

into images for the relief of the body

and the reconstruction of the mind.

Adrienne Rich's poetry is reprinted in entirety here at the Poetry Foundation.

and and and and, a humanifesto

“The Freeing of” “the Wreck”

[Denise Levertov - book title, 1975] [Adrienne Rich - book title, 1973]

1.

"the sacred bats

hang in their chosen grove" [DL, Door in the Hive, 59]

"too long dead" [MP, poem title, Colors Passing Through Us, 2003, p. 20]

"I know I have been dreaming" [AR, Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 25]

"Of all my dead it's you

who come to me unfinished" [AR, Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 57]

"I dreamed you were a poem" [AR, Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 25]

"the bats hang dreaming

of an airy world" [AR, Diving into the Wreck, 1973, p. 42]

2.

bats, omens of birth

does finding you again and again

mean that's why they suddenly end -

to begin again?

3.

my fists are full of poems

why is my heart still empty

full empty?

stay with us still, i demand of

the dead their blessing

presence

i can handle almost anything

if only the mothers stay near

4.

Conjuring “Dream of a Common” “Sorrow Dance”

[Adrienne Rich, Title, 1978] [Denise Levertov, Title, 1989]

i can't remember how to speak

on my own, for grief

"in a world almost archaic

so precious by this time

that merely to step in pure water

or stare into clean air

is to feel a spasm of pain" [AR, Diving into the Wreck, 1973, p. 36]

5.

"the sacred bats

hang in their chosen grove" [DL, Door in the Hive, 59]

"too long dead" [MP, poem title, Colors Passing Through Us, 2003, p. 20]

"I know I have been dreaming" [AR, Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 25]

"Of all my dead it's you who come to me unfinished" [AR, Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 57]

"I dreamed you were a poem" [AR, Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 25]

"the bats hang dreaming" [AR, Diving into the Wreck, 1973, p. 42]

DL = Denise Levertov

AR = Adrienne Rich

MP = Marge Piercy

"liberation into interdependence"

(Watkins & Shulman, 2008)

i want to laugh but i am tearing

out my hair/heart with adrienne

gone

how can you leave, o goddess of the deep?

when my wife was in the hospital i tried

to read you to her but it was too rough and wrangle

and she needed peace

now what i need is you, hope you can be

an ancestress blessing us

we sure need some of your

can-must-will in this time of freefalling:

steady on, adrienne, goddess of all

(no foolin)

IMUNURI prompt: scramble

This week, make a scramble.

Take another poem, song lyric, prose passage or other piece of writing and play magnetic refrigerator poetry with it. Rearrange the words in any order you like to create a new piece of writing.

Will you echo the original meaning or leverage the process of rearrangement to make a rebuttal? Will you try to keep your source material apparent, or will your new piece be unrecognizable?

In your post (if you wish), indicate the original work for reference.

Tags: poem, scramble, your name

"communication for fools" by FangO

and we’re waiting for brunch after our order ticket

was dropped out of the queue due to a server error,

talking with our friends visiting from Sacramento—

he’s a professor sick of watching grinning young faces

turned downward into their laps where their hands are

moving vigorously. Please stop texting during my class,

he says several times a semester. Through the morning,

I have made it a point to glance into my red smartphone

and run thumbs across its keypad, but now I pretend it

is vibrating and pull it out of my pocket with annoyance

and disdain. Like this thing, I cry. It never lets me be!

And I throw it into my water glass where it splashes

spray onto the table and then sits magnified through

the glass and the cold water. My smartphone is under-

water. Nobody says anything. My friends are stunned

for ten seconds at least before they begin to fish around

for a question or something appropriate to say now that

our down-with-technology mantra has come true. It is

that crux of time that’s the joy of the trickster, the joy
of the fool. A shout out to my friend Janet who is a pro

photographer and thought of me while she was getting

rid of a set of fake cell phones that are no longer being

used in ads. That thing made April 1 very special for me.