Happy Birthday to Me - WD Poetry Challenge

Sadly, today is the final day of National Poetry Month.   However, it's not all bad news today - it's also my birthday!  In celebration of both, I wrote one last poem for this year's Writer's Digest Poetry Challenge.

Frederick Daniel Hardy
The First Birthday Party, public domain

Day 30: Calling-it-a-day poem

"Happy Birthday to Me"

The clock strikes 5:something a.m.
And with that,
it is finished -
the twenty-fourth year of my life.

I am asleep,
dreaming about the early days
when my Mom set up
treasure hunts around the house
and taped streamers
and paper cut-outs of my new age
all over my bedroom
before without waking me up
so I would see them first thing
when I opened my eyes.

No streamers or paper numbers this morning
but a good breakfast - oatmeal -
and sweet birthday kisses
from a clean-shaven husband.

No treasure hunts,
but an (un)surprising party tonight -
a room full of friends,
food and fun.

And later,
when the clock strikes 5:something a.m.
I'll call it a day -
the first day
of my twenty-fifth year.

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Read my poem for Day 26 here.
Read my poem for Day 28 here.

Tell it to the Clouds, WD Poetry Challenge

One of my more whimsical constributions to the Writer's Digest PAD Challenge.

Day 24: Tell-it-to-the-Blank poem

"Tell it to the Clouds"

Tell it to the clouds
under the bright sun,
as you lay
on a hill,
away from life's hum.


Cloud study
John Constable

Tell them they look like giants and dragons,
like castles and a princess trapped in the highest tower.

Tell them they are your magic carpet
as you drift away on a westward wind.

Cloud Study, Sunset
John Constable

Tell them as you lay with them late into the night,
and bright stars beginning to poke through with sharp fingers.

Tell them as they drift over the moon,
bundling up just below her chin like a warm woolen afghan.

Tell it to the clouds
as you drift on the ninth one
in the night sky
and fall
fast
asleep.

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Check out my poem from Day 23 too!

A Child of the Wind - WD Poetry Challenge

Admittedly, I haven't posted a poem every day of the Writer's Digest PAD Challenge.  But I have been appreciating the push to write more poetry.  I don't take the time to write out my thoughts this way often because it is much more demanding than just writing them all out as they come.  Writing my thoughts as poetry forces me to rethink, reframe, and revise the sundry ideas and experiences running through my mind.  I have not only to catch them, but to sit down and examine them, to look into their eyes and find out who or what they are.  All that to say, I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge!

Here is my latest favourite poem from the challenge:

Day 21: Back-to-the-basics poem

The Gale (public domain)
Antônio Parreiras (via Wikimedia Commons)

"A Child of the Wind"

I am a child of the wind,
made of mud, sweat and tears.

I exhale for the first time,
sending ripples
into earth's swirling orb,
and find myself
laying next to you -
a child of the light,
the bright and morning star -
on a hill far away.

As I wake,
you slip into sleep
your last breath my first,
perpetuating the pulse in
the womb of existence,
your hand
holding mine.

My first breath rises
and I lean across your chest
to exhale,
my last breath
perpetuating your pulse,
the rhythm of existence.

For who am I
but a child of the wind?

Ode to Kenneth Burke - WD Poetry Challenge

Here is my favourite of the poems written in the last few days of the Poem-a-Day Challenge with Writer's Digest. 

Kenneth Burke

Day 11 - Statement poem

"Ode to Kenneth Burke"

"It's more complicated than that."
He says,
squinting those intelligent eyes,
causing little wrinkles to spread
across his mild face
and broad brow.

"It's not either/or; it's both/and."
Weighing the options
in outstretched hands.
One up, then the other,
then stretching both out toward me.

I say, "Yes."
and "How can it be?"
And yet, I know it is so.

Humanity is mysterious,
paradoxical -
wonderfully dangerous,
tragically beautiful.

Lungs breath in and out, in and out.
Hearts beat and rest, beat and rest.
Minds wake and sleep, wake and sleep.
Souls give and take, give and take.
And we are more than the sum of our parts.

I have also posted poems on Day 12 and today, Day 15, since my last post. Enjoy and get poeming!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Spring is (finally) in the air!  Plants are blooming, birds are singing, and poets are poem-ing! 

In honour of National Poetry Month 2014 (and because I am bombarded with homework and have little time to blog in my last end of semester crunch ever...at least for a while), I am going to post poems that I write in response to prompts from the Writer's Digest's Poem-a-Day (PAD) Challenge. 

Here's today's poem.

Day 10: Future poem

"Like a Train, Hallelujah"

 

Here we go

careening on

like a train

toward a turnoff

unsure if the lever

will be pulled

or if we will go

careening on

off the tracks,

over the edge,

into the unknown.

 

The lever is pulled

and we go

careening on

down the tracks

into the unknown.

 

Hallelujah. 

 

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