Octothrope BYOTP

40,000 Americans are injured by toilets every year, maybe because the e flat flush makes them giddy or  like Steve Jobs, they are soaking their tootsies (and it takes 142 licks to the center of a tootsie pop-btw) in Apple company toilets to relieve stress. The astronauts shit on a 19 million dollar toilet on ISS (el presidente’s toilet is just gold). It’s BYOTP in Cuba, and if you’re desperate, socks feel a lot better. World Toilet Day is the 19th of November the same day World Toilet Organization was founded. Yes, there’s a World Toilet Organization.

Dial 672 to reach someone in Antarctica  because who knew there was even landline or cell service way down there. Penguins are more advanced then people know. Ever get a call from an unknown number,  you pick up & no one’s there? Because penguins don’t speak-
penguins need to work too- they have to do something besides being a penguin.

So octothrope (#) this while soaking you feet in your boss’s toilet, shitter politics- just say no.


***
Hey all, Here we are the final poem of NaPoWriMo. Woo. So this is a bit more, okay a lot more fun, then any of my poems this month. Who doesn't love poems about the toilet?  So I did follow the prompt for today. It felt like it should be a narrative poem. I really like how it turned out.

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Exception was Advancement

***

And here is poem 29.  Some of you may know that  I have been creating a poem from each page of the book Waiting by Debra Ginsberg.  You can find all the poems on the Pinterest board, One Book 300 Poems. They are either whiteout poems or blackout poems. And today I realized there is more than one way to create a poem from page of text. Today, I rolled dice and circled the corresponding word. I did this three times  to create a word bank. From the word bank, I created a poem.  All these words are found in the original text. I did change some verb tenses or parts of speech but that's all. 

To keep with the style of the whole board, I made into a graphic. Let's be honest, poems are a lot more interesting when there is some visualness to it. 

It has been weeks since I worked on this board. Every week I plan on doing three. And every week, time vanishes and then another week happens. Yeah, I live in a weird time and place spectrum. Sometimes, it is amazing that I actually accomplish a lot through the week. 

Well, I am all caught up now. Tomorrow is the end of NaPoWrimo, this month went by fast. 

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Glad You're Not Here

Yesterday, I geared up and found the cavern once again. I was alone as I maneuvered the depths where no sunlight dared to separate the murky water curtain. The pressure became unbearable. Yet, I persevered. Until the cavern open like a mouth of an angler fish. Inside, it was like wading in the ocean not far from shore. The water here is crystal and pure. And there my treasure lies. Sponges that look like coral. I’ve read about them many times in those old books you once gave while you thought you were dying, but it was a false alarm and you wanted the books back but I hid them, devouring every word of the ancients. As I cut the sponges they bled with a diamond and emerald blood, it shimmered like molten metal fresh from the kiln. And they screamed. Shrieked. Wailed. My ear drums and eyes began to drip blood. Yet, I preserved. Once I collected enough, I slowly started  to the surface. Their screams stopped. Now the real science will begin. In notes like this, I guess the right words are “I wish you were here.” But the truth is I don’t wish you were. I’m glad you’re not here. Truth is mine. Fame is mine. And you are just an old man rotting in the shadows.

***
Hey all here is poem 28, I got back late last night and was tired as hell. Good news is I did get some writing done for Solitary Girl.  I followed the prompt for the day. It is one of my favorite styles of poetry- narrative poems. I really should write more of them. I try to write the drabbles but I have been losing my way. This is technically a post card poem. I think think it is both a poem and story.

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Life Very

The gallows, wooden figure
                                           suspended in mystery
imitations express
                             falsely the whole

life in suspension
                           suspension of prudence
                                                                which prudence?

Veiled vanity on published
                                         leaves . That’s my
sacrifice, resurrection
                                   duty, resurrection and the universe

I story exhaust and cross nature
                                                 suspended from the gallows.





Source: Waite, Arthur Edward. "The Hanged Man" The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm Accessed 28 Apr. 2018.

***
Hey all, here is  poem 27. I have no idea where I was yesterday. It was like I was somewhere else. And it's weird too, because I was working on things and then 9 pm hit and the world seemed to vanish. Oh well. So I followed the prompt for the day. All these words came from the interpretation of the card.

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Destiny be Damned

the primrose talisman
and the drugstore masquerade
light the Venetian volcano.

I ride perspiration
pony after the meteor
tapering  while ripple
fritters rain down the valley

so the chancellor
tells me the future
and I run the other
way drawing my
own tarot- destiny
be damned.

***
Hey all, Here is poem 26. Today, I jotted some random words and phrases and wrote a poem, pretty much whatever came to mind.

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Liquid Moonlight

Lemonade on summer porches
Inquires for dawn
Quail takes flight at noon
Underwater discos
Inject retired
Dogma. I find the

Moon hidden in the bushes.
Oxygen comes from the trees
Oligarchies takes the trees,
Narnia collapses while
Lava lamps burn plastic blogs.
I sculpt beach sand
Gears crunch the mantle
Hot potato, hot tomato
Tear up the receipt and join in me in memory

***
Hey all, here is poem 25. I posted yesterday's poem after midnight and wasn't really paying attention. Oh well, 25 poems and five more to go.

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Notebook Remembering

Sunflower capture
words blossom
remember the yellow
and hour glass dream
the kerosene darkness
loss of open night

A full night
draped in silence
the trying blossom
jitterbugs to dream sunshine
I remember the notebook

***
Hey all,  Day 25. I can't believe there are only 5 days left of NaPoWriMo. So this poem is created from various old poem that I ran through the Dada generator. Then I started to see something after writing a bunch of phrases. It's the writing life, you know the bits of those fleeting images and phrases that have to be written down. Most of the time, I never have something (although I am getting better since I have One Note on my phone) but in this poem, I remember the notebook.

Find more awesome poets at NaPoWriMo

Wormhole

Void- light rips a hole
hungry toothless mouth- inviting
angle bent starlight
I step in- no other  choice
twenty years past, in present
***
Hey all, here is poem 23, a tanka. I spent most of all day ready Ready Player One. My brain is not with me at the moment.

But find more poets at NaPoWriMo

Beyond the Flatlands

While the moons circle to the east
the sun rises in west
dust and shit flies
whip in the green dust storm
tentacles and limbs
dot the flatlands.

I wipe the sweat from
my hands and sling the plasma
gun over my back, wave
my hand, we slink in between
shrinking shadows

I didn’t ask for this
I wanted to be alone
in my hut
in the ground and watch the moons
volley sunlight

but I  heard them cry
and there has to be something better
then this place
then this war

I’ve heard a place
a place of freedom
where sanctuary is given
to those who make it across the border
where dumpsters overflow with food
where it rains water

I’ve heard of a place
a place of wealth and safety.

I’ve heard of a place that
has to exist beyond propogandic stories

We walk toward the west ward sun
another day, another fifty miles
I can see the green grass shining like
polished emeralds beyond the golden road.


***
Hey all, here is poem 22.  I felt pretty inspired by the prompt today. I sat  down and just wrote. And this whole story came out. I like how it turned out. A little different than what I have been writing.

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Where You Used to Be

winged wild flowers shell
shallow filaments

the stereophonic magic
hour and mystery essays

vibrate the shank
forecasters claw through

soaking rain to transplant
100 balloons in the sewer

that cyrptokinectic expression
you wear while sodium vapor

lamps burn over the dry
lake bed is of molten festivals

asphalt hills stains wet wood
weeds have gone wild

the apex here under
the migraine where you used to be

***
Well here's poem 21.  Now to work on the current poem.

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After Sunday Dinner in Late April

They
filtered
like denominators
of nitrogen
Beneath a sideways  moral

And the root
decanter of lineage
With fiesta-stubble stroked

the afternoon rooster
wakes the setting sun

***
Hey all, here is day 20's poem. Two more to go...

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Cathedral

***

Hey all, I've been under the weather for the last couple of days, but I am determined to catch up today. Here is Day 19's poem. I loved this prompt. It is a great way to write a poem when you don't want to use another author's text. I did a little free writing then made a black out poem. Since it was all digital, I love adding backgrounds and changing the typography. 

Three more to go.... 

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Stray Worth

***

Hey all, Here is poem 18. Today, I decided to do a found poem from This Side of Paradise.  

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snow smear on April

Snow smear on April
mosquitoes quiver in cracks
I strangle the sun.

***
Hey all, today is haiku day! So of course,  I had to write one today. I feel like I should add more to this blog post. Fuck it...

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Mayberry

Closet sunshine
and silky sweaters drape
over wooden skeletons
Here’s the turn for Mayberry
watch your step, the world has changed.

***
Hey all here is poem 16- a tanka. Because you know me, I love my tanka poems. I want to make a dream catcher with a tanka poem in the center. I just have't gotten around to writing a poem for it. I really should try to get it made before the end of April.

Find more awesome poets at NaPoWriMo.

The Shallows

Since the last nitrate rain, the wine wintered
lavish and  placid buffoons to orbit blueberries.

The lost  patrol whooshes in the superlative;
all guilty  fools  husk  a dead rosary.

Corner  syllabic mosaic,  toast  is gone
from all  leftovers  and gravity.

Here in this place, the shallows fascinate
I wait for butterflies  to pasteurize.

***
Hey all, here is day fifteen's poem. I started it last night, but then I got too involved with The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. Afterward, I dozed off. I always seem more tired when I go away for the weekend then when I stay home.

So yes, I do have to do another poem tonight.  Find more poets at NaPoWriMo

If You Dream of Me

If you dream of a tea cup then someone keeps you in a China
closet hidden in the attic, in a fallen house.

If you dream of a hammer then you are feeling joy about an upcoming
 death that is a surprise like winning the lottery at the cemetery.

If you dream of a seagull you are worried about the road falling
into a sinkhole during a hurricane while asteroids fall.

If you dream of a ballet slipper your memories
are starting to churn into tremors.

If you dream of a shark you are seeking a robot
chicken that can sing old Broadway show tunes.

If you dream of a wobbly table you believe
you will wake in Wonderland as the white rabbit.

If you dream of a dentist you are moss looking for north.

If you dream of a rowboat you want to buy
a townhouse in Atlantis and marry angry merfolk.

If you dream of me then you are wrong about where
 we met and why the specters in the room laughing with rolling thunder.

***
Hey all, here is day fourteen's poem. I actually wrote it last night on my phone, but didn't post it. I followed the prompt at NaPoWriMo.  Now, I just have to write one for today and I will be caught up.

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Interdimensional Fishing

The worst thing since
sewn starvation, ducks are their own
pecking the eyes
 from the bread feeders.

The sun moves
in a darkened fashion
around the moon,
and the kool-aid is fresh
under the lime tree

insects sing madam butterfly
as the traffic lights blink
SOS.

I run through the maze on a straight
path, acid sunshine
makes no difference
and there up ahead

the land of lollipops
and lavender where honey
comes to die

I reach through the wormhole
pull reel in another time.

***
Hey all, I was going to write a poem about the weird things I saw today being Friday the 13th and all, but I don't think it is ready yet. Maybe this weekend. Happy Friday the 13the,
may you find that shiny penny heads up.

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Mountain Rural Silence

Tucked away in the Appalachians between used up coal mines and logging ghosts where people come to live and never leave. The places to be burned down or are boarded up. Three relators have their signs up for storefronts that haven’t seen action in decades. Lobsters don’t swim in tanks at the grocery store. It’s endless beauty salons and two pizza places. Spreading out like ancient fingers from downtown hundred year old houses with or without new siding, trailers, the occasional Victorian sit quietly sheltered by trees and light poles.

Sun beams slice trees

imagination ignites 

my lost synapses 

***

Hey all, here is day 12's poem. I was pretty excited since the prompt was a haibun. But for some reason I just wasn't feeling today. Find more awesome poets at NaPoWriMo

Deja Vu on Tuesday

Alternative roads roll
in augmented reality
cowboys and aliens eat
bite size whiskey
cakes from silver platters
this is Tuesday
laced in brown sugar.

I wash laundry on Tuesday
while creative freedom
reincarnates
in the tin lunch box.

Tuesday brings lighthouses
and tugboats
with a puffy pulse
skydivers stream
province

saints and silent
dynamite hex
empathetic synergies
I wash augmented
laundry on Tuesday
and roll up alternative roads
in deja vu.

***
Hey all, Here is poem number 10 where I went back to language and surrealistic poetry. Find more awesome poets at
NaPoWriMo

When You Stare into the Sun too Long, Visions become Distortions

Under songs
and magic, sleepy
laurel sinks the sun
beneath berries, alligators
shimmer

sunken songs
the red sun opens
floorboard magic curtains
sleepy cotton

floorboard alligators
sunken bunny
magic opens dust.

I pluck the memories
and pack them
on a paper boat

heading to Mars,
Pennsylvania

***
Hey all here is poem 9. I know this is a bit more a bizarre then what I have been writing these several days. I took three different haiku and ran through the Dada tool. Then I wrote down the phrases I liked, I saw an interesting pattern so I went with it.

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Sunday Night

Sunday night & Front
Street lays unfolded
in shadows under the pink
and blue neon from the
never open dry cleaners

girls in 80's makeup & hair
look at me from the 2000
Kia.

the sky unzips
fireflies tumble forth
like wasted blinking snowflakes

cigarettes light up and
blow smoke signals
against the rose sky

the 80's girls fade into trash
and I am left holding the fire hose.

***
Hey all, here is poem eight- posted before midnight. When I put my mind to it, writing gets a little easier.  And I'm on surrealistic kick right now, for no real reason, just because.  Find more kick ass poets at NaPoWriMo

Moundsville Prison

It’s the smell rotten books and peeling paint
paintings of better times are left in
hallways and mess halls
etched sandstone from the original 100
after West Virginia first became a state

alone for 22 and half hours a day
in 5 x7 cells- the worst of the worst
or so the plucky guide with a twang says

it’s crude naked women farting rainbows
in a cell that no one can see except
through the camera.
rusting stairways, empty caged crow’s nest
ghosts of the armed men
the screaming and flushing toilets are lost in imagination

shuffling from one block to another
to the sunshine filled yard where life could
almost be normal.

Stories of riots, blood and murder
behind steel bars and the blood has been
long gone
now just stories in the dark.

It’s the step into a place where you are sure
there are ghosts but don’t reach out touch you
and the chill comes from outside

And you wonder about the ghosts and why
they only come out at night.
It’s always night through the bars
and steel cages.

Stepping back into the entrance.
In sunshine, beyond the barb wire
the prison shines and across the street
a native burial mound.

***
Hey all, here is day seven's poem. I know it's a little late, but I was tired when I got back home last night. I am caught up, just need to work on today's poem, which I will be working on shortly. Find more great poets at NaPoWriMo

Commodities

April sanctions
daffodil commodities
the rain turns to snow
I watch pool reflections dance
over the cornfield ceiling.

***
Hey all, here is poem 6. I know it is a little late. I decided to write a tanka today because I haven't written one in awhile. Find more great poets at NaPoWrimo.

Tomorrow, I am supposed to visit the West Virginia State Pen. I a, looking forward to checking it out.

Bubble

Vliegangst is het scherpste protest tegen CO2: thuisblijven en

photo retrieved from Pintrest

pissen in de pompbak, gedistilleerd drinken tegen waterschaarste
schepje rijst per dag. Kluizenaar met wilde haren wist het
stilzitten is de beste bescherming tegen pijn. Blijf binnen.

-Runa Svetlikova "De Geebruiker van Dit Lichaam"

Bubble 

Villainy is the sharpest protest taking CO2, this jive is
passing in the poppy back, distilled drama  taken in chartreuse water
slammed in the bag. In the aquarium the wild harem with the
sizzle stone is the better beseechment. Take the pin. Blithe the bubble.



Source poem: Svetlikova, Runa.  "De Geebruiker van Dit Lichaam" Poetry International Web. http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/29043/auto/0/Runa-Svetlikova-THE-USER-OF-THIS-BODY
***

Hey all, here is day five's poem. I actually followed the prompt on NaPoWriMo. I used the first verse of the Svetlokova's poem to base my poem off of.  I hope you enjoy and be sure to check the link for other poets. 

Wednesday's Wind

Road winds. Road showers.
Toppled Wednesday.
Sporadic gap chance.

It was tight and pleasant
in the valley. I’ve been
across the caused country
where trees are personnel
from one payday to payday-
promotionless

from the wind, I came to-
there was a hall with more
power, Pepsi and pitt bulls,

damages, outages, damages.

***
Hey all, here it is day four's poem. Today I took text from the local paper and ran through the Dada generator. Mixed and matched, added and subtracted and voila- a poem. Find more great poets at NaPoWrimo.

Reticulated

I went to the pyramid in the sky. Purple prisms spin out of control and onto the precipice. Here is the call the of eagle that was extinct last year but revived with some old DNA preserved in the lab. Reticulated. Somber.

The night comes with lightening and snakes awake to the LA rumble as it falls into the ocean.  There is a war that comes every hundred years and our time is up. Here I lay in mud, sinking upward into the blue eye and find the meaning of words written in pictures.

thunder on the crest 

shredded feather pillows float 

I am the writing. 

***'

Hey all, Here is day three's poem- a haibun. So far so good, but of course it is still early in the month. 

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Eclipse

I.
The sun slips into dark pantyhose
footsteps stop walking up and down
the steps, eyes to the sky
bats fly from the cave and I find the
bones I’ve been looking for

II.
They call it the event of the decade
I call it a waste of time
They call it end of the world
I call it five minutes of
idling
I look up on the stopped freeway
just as the corona expands
taking  me away.

III.
I’ve been waiting for this moment
twenty years and counting
the old lady at the county fair
said I would fly
when darkness covers the day
I step off the building
but, I think as I look at the mess,
I didn’t understand what she meant.

IV.
Quiet street. Shadows overcome
light. Still wind. Crickets sing.
Complete darkness. The old black cat
dies in the rock garden.

V.
Some say there is magic
celestial blessings grown in
golden penumbras, but the tarot doesn’t
cooperate and I find myself like I was last
year waiting for an event that I only see
85 percent of.

***
Hey all, This was inspired by the day two prompt at NaPoWriMo. Wow, look at that two poems in one day. I am on fire....

Days without Prescription

Hidden letters in the symposiac alter
music. You know you’re right
when the abbey redirects
chapels and replaces faults. Truth
and influence captured in newsprint loses
glare and dazzle in the Pennsylvania
landfill.

Days without prescription
and the silver edge analysis of the balcony
procession find sunlight under the trees.

I find sleep to disappoint and the story unwritten.

***
Hey all, I know I am a day late to start NaPoWriMo. I went away to the shore for the weekend, and I was tired as hell last night. Don't worry though, I plan on catching up. Find more awesome poets at NaPoWriMo