Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo Challenge 2018

April 10, 2018 NaPoWriMo Challenge Poem: “Ossifrage”

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Toes

Odyssey & Bookmark

Ossifrage

I am reading a new translation
of Homer’s Odyssey.
The unwise mother in me
wants to spank Telemachus—rude
“godlike?” boy barking orders.
I never spanked my own daughter,
now at a fabled university
far across a northern sea.

I am trying to plot cloth
across a canvas stiffer than sails,
and I fear I have lost my way.
In this domestic battle of minor key,
I see I am crafty Penelope, making
and unmaking to pass the time.
I spend hours seeking to capture, just right,
the evanescence of the northern light.

I keep hoping for more patience
than I possess. I call it down
with each stroke of the knife
I use to cube these garden-bright
vegetables for soup. Do we all invent
unweaving of omens, claim glimpses
of Athena in the quick wing of a bird,
or in the rapturous seizing upon a new word?

Leslie Schultz

Today, as I began to tackle the challenge for the tenth day, I just looked at my ten toes. I felt beset by writer’s block.  Then, in looking around my tiny rooms, I saw very vividly the gifts that others have made to me–from a tiny bookmark, to the jewelry I am wearing, to the hand-dyed cloths I am using, the art work I am refurbishing, and the books I am reading–all the structure of my life and joy.

My heart was full of gratitude, the writer’s block was broken, and I saw a way to make something new. I decided to simply write about my morning,and ended up with this meditation on the joy of making–of how that joy permeates my life and helps me to learn new words, new skills, and (maybe, occasionally) new wisdom. Here are a few photos to share what I saw.

The Father’s Empty Rocker

Woven Base

Cloth Sail

Colored Cloths

Glitter

Northern Lights & Treadle

Self

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April 9, 2018 (Part II) NaPoWriMo Challenge Poem: “New Compass” (Pantoum)

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New Compass

Long shadows weight my shadow-boxing heart.
These mind-forged manacles are all too real.
My body is scarred by its psychic part.
My life contains constraints I make and feel.

These mind-forged manacles are all too real.
How can a galley slave plot a new course?
My life contains constraints I make and feel.
What if good changes tip things, make them worse?

How can a galley slave plot a new course?
I sing of future freedom until I’m hoarse.
What if good changes tip things, make them worse?
Yet still, today, my song lifts my long curse.

I sing of future freedom until I’m hoarse.
My body is scarred by its psychic part,
Yet still, today, my song lifts my long curse,
While shadows weight my shadow-boxing heart.

Leslie Schultz

This “bonus” poem for April 9 sprang from a long-standing echo from William’s Blake’s famous poem, “London,”  written in 1792 and published in his 1794 collection Songs of Experience. Since I first read it, decades ago, I have never stopped thinking about his inspired phrase “mind-forged manacles.” Where Blake looked outward, in this poem I turned the telescope around.

Wishing you a great start to the week! Leslie

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April 8, 2018 NaPoWriMo Challenge Poem “Homo Aspirans”

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Homo aspirāns

It seems our common fate:
to draw our last breath
on an inconvenient date
hoping for better than death.

  Leslie Schultz

Dear Readers, This morning, I inadvertently sent the day’s poem out under tomorrow’s date. Hence, two poems in one day, to catch up with deadlines properly labeled. Tomorrow, perhaps, an “April 9, Part II” — or perhaps we’ll observe a day of silence. Time will tell!  Leslie

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April 9, 2018 NaPoWriMo Challenge Poem: “Orbit”

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Orbit
for Timothy

Shall I make a pot of tea
here in our house beside the sea?

Might my lens and I take aim
and place your picture in a frame?

Will you submit to clerihew,
your name submersed in comic hue?

What is that lost allusive phrase
pulled from a rock song’s sonic maze?

Would you please listen to what’s here
inside this shell beside your ear?

Can you imagine us next year
lofting champagne with all good cheer?

Sharing your life has helped me see
fine tempests in a pot of tea.

Leslie Schultz

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April 7, 2018 NaPoWriMo Challenge Poem: “Skaters: ‘Lara’s Theme'”

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Skaters: “Lara’s Theme”

They speed, glide, and slow, pirouetting twice,
then pause atop the tiny frozen lake.
Love calls across glare mirrors and thin ice.

I was dreaming but I hear something nice.
Grandma’s new music box calls me awake.
Two tiny skaters glide, then twirl twice

as if they’re dodging tin cans and tossed rice.
My breath clouds the mirror; it doesn’t break.
Love keeps them spinning on the thinnest ice.

Grandma explains: a magnetic device
works under the surface, for goodness sake.
The toy skaters glide, pirouetting twice.

Their frozen figures describe a paradise,
but widows know the flowing of heartache.
Love hurls men and women onto thin ice.

Grandma will remarry; once, twice, thrice.
She understands the motions it will take.
Lovers glide, then slow, pirouetting twice.
Love drowns their molten hearts in melting ice.

Leslie Schultz

This villanelle is based, as they say, on a true story, sparked by memories of my widowed grandmother, her collection of music boxes, and her several remarriages, all ending unhappily. Here she is, pictured in a hopeful moment, in 1969 (younger than I am now), stepping into her first remarriage.

Thanks for your readerly attention this week! Leslie

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