Slice of Life: April’s Daily Poems


Abandoned Hotel Fire flickr photo by darkday. shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Bud Hunt has been inspiring me to write poems all month with images at his blog site. I am grateful. Thank you, Bud. Midway through April, I wrote an update on the poems I had written for the first half of the month, and here is my second update on the second half of the collection.

I’ve been on a mission to write “small” on the Mastodon network, with small stories (a version, in my mind, of Slice of Life), small quotes (from books I am reading) and small poems, so I have been purposely trying to keep these daily poetry pieces with Bud short, to the point, evocative.

Writing a poem a day in April is a nice transition from writing a slice a day in March, with both the bit of anxiousness (do I have another poem/slice inside of me?) to success (I did have another poem/slice inside of me) to critique (that’s the best poem/slice you could do?). And while the quality of the writing varies in this kind of daily flow, the act of writing each day is powerful. I still like some of the poems I wrote this month, so that’s a good sign.

I think May will be a little bit slower …


The pianist, Washington Square flickr photo by NightFlightToVenus shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

First, I start with the end, the last poem of the month.

So this is where
you say the words go
to rest.

We unwind
the time for
rhymes,

break loose
stanzas
from the lines,

put the poems back
into the pocket
for another
time.

The flow is
slowed but never
silent.

The writing, merely
the temporary act of
capturing the
heart, which never stops
beating.

This is by
design.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/30/npm2018-prompt-30/

 

I am not of this world,
and how strange is it
to realize the truth of that?

So much remains a mystery
of another’s existence,
stretched to the edge of imagination.

What is it we learn from each other
through the stories of images
is a sense of our shared humanity.

I am yet of this world.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/29/npm2018-prompt-29/

 

The child in me still puts
crayons between my fingers,
scratching out color clouds
until everything slowly, methodically,
dissolves into little more than
a soft and silent muddy gray.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/28/npm2018-prompt-28/

 

Turn me off;
I’m not on
today.

No amplification
necessary,
for what I have
to say

is said with the look
of my eyes, not the
words of my voice

I have no choice:
the power button
is now off.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/27/npm2018-prompt-27/

 

She delivered words
on a plate, with poem
as a fork, and a novel
as napkin, and told me,
Dig in.

I crunched some ideas,
rolling rhymes
on my tongue,
watching the landscape
push past me, the window
as refuge from memory.

Dig in, she said,
then left me to my
lunch.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/26/npm2018-prompt-26/

 

What will happen,
I wonder out loud,
when I lean my words
on an angle and
slide the story
down the slope
of the graph?

You laugh.

I’m long past the point
of knowing how to calculate
what you think
when I write,
so I spin a poem
upon this plate,
a problem solved just
for you.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/25/npm2018-prompt-25/

 

Mornings
in this house
become ever more quiet —
a soft solitude
of writers —
until the kettle whistle sings
its steam-song urgency,
the tea bag steeping movement
back into our day.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/24/npm2018-prompt-24/

 

Words and phrases,
discarded into plastic pails
by the back door.

Sometimes,
I’ll lean out my writing window,
let my fingers dangle,
as the poems drop.

I forgot
what it is
I meant to
write.

So much of life
gets away from us,
it’s amazing we even have
the courage

to save a bit
for the remembering

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/23/npm2018-prompt-23/

 

How does
one believe
in the impossible
when the reality
is what’s always
so visible?
Suspend yourself
in the imagination,
so that together,
we can experience
the unknown,
with hearts as wide open
as our eyes.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/22/npm2018-prompt-22/

 

I abandoned
all reason
on the street,
if only so I would
always remember
the day, the time,
the weather,
in which we’d be sure
to meet.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/21/npm2018-prompt-21/

 

Your fingers run lightly
over the keys, a Sonata
in C, I believe, as passersby
hear but don’t listen.
I sit, outside your frame,
watching your body
sway in time to the rhythm
of some long-ago memory,
a postcard wrapped up
in song.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/20/npm2018-prompt-20/

 

It’s the waiting
the wondering
the worrying about
arrival,
the listening
the distractions
the contraptions
of the world,
covering up the sound
I’ve found I’m always here
listening for.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/19/npm2018-prompt-19/

 

On the night
when the waves
were my audience,
and the moon,
my companion,
I danced until dawn
to the music of
the seas.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/18/npm2018-prompt-18/

 

I won’t
spin star-light
from lamp-light,
nor moon-light
from flash-light,
but when darkness
descends, I’ll hold
your hand, letting
the calm flicker inside
this gloom of this room,
as we move in the groove
of the dance-light.

via http://budtheteacher.com/blog/2018/04/17/npm2018-prompt-17/

Peace (in poems and words and rhymes),
Kevin

4 Comments
  1. Your poems have a rhythm of stillness and thought. This daily practice is like breath that keeps us active and alive to the world. Thanks for sharing.

  2. From the looks of several Slicers’ posts today, it looks like a lot of people have been on a similar writing marathon in March and April and are welcoming the slower (writing) pace of May.

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