I got into the NaPM spirit late in the month. Here's all that I made (posted earlier in some other site; not in order)
An American Elegy
i sang about the sun
i sang about the red of dawn
i sang about flowers blooming, pollen spreading
across the chilly air
i sang about melting ice
and streams filling up with water,
mud, and salmon eggs
i sang about the bear
waking up to the smell of juneberries,
to the smell of another season to eat through,
to breed through, to live and die through
i sang about the mountains
rising in the distance
i sang about the eagle
soaring over the sea
i sang about the stones
sleeping under my feet
i sang about my mother
surrounding me in all her beauty,
in all her ancient splendor
i sang about the spring
and then you came, and built
your vast marble house
on the backs of tender sleepers
and the bones of newborn life
then you dragged me to your bed,
stealing away the sun,
tearing away my throat
A Russian Elegy
Into the quiet taiga I go,
into a Moscow of pines and birches
and firs and spruces,
where mosquitoes the size of my hand
ride taxis and trains
through tunnels and roads
of twigs and tree-trunks and roots
to work on my skin,
where hedgehogs and bear cubs
and eagle-owls and horses
dart through the ferns, the flowers, the fog,
to have some tea,
where the sunlight always falls
through the cracks in the canvas of green
above my unwashed hair
like yesterday's medovukha
falling from your bottle's mouth,
swirling around in your glass,
tasting your two sweet lips,
washing away your thirst,
where I am free to sing
of my quiet schedule,
of my empty samovar,
of my desperate soul.
Greetings from Sunset Boulevard
I've got
sixteen candles lighting up the line,
sixteen bright green candles
glowing sweetly like your eyes,
sixteen gifts -- sixteenth birthday,
sixteenth record from my grandpa the musician,
ever-playing that old Stratocaster,
with its sixteen strings of metal,
with his sixteen notes of rebellion,
and sixteen bars across his door --
sixteen candles lighting up the lines
of my cubicle in Christmas:
a final taste of what I leave behind
before all these papers fly away tomorrow
to LA.
I've got
long white lines of plastic
flowing from my ears to my phone,
drowning out the noise of the landing,
playing in this lonely cabin
Joni's songs of hard regret,
of liquor-love and California,
of rivers -- skaters on the freeway,
coyote heads and verdant eyes,
two young lovers listening live
to old Joni's best jive yet,
too young to understand how one
becomes a drifter, becomes a prisoner
of the long white lines of the freeway --
and I'm here, I'm finally here,
in LA.
I've got
an hole in my schedule, a pen in my hand
and a sixteen dollar laminated photo
bounded by four long white lines
of ink -- lovers in a bedroom,
sixteen long white lines of semen
all over your frustrated face:
sixteen bars across the door,
our last hurrah before this flight tonight,
before I ride a paper plane
for this damned Christmas job --
so here I am, filled with hard regret,
imprisoned on the long white lines
of Sunset, looking for our hero,
old Joni, with a pen in my hand,
and a sixteen dollar laminated photo
of LA.
Supernova
Today, my navel outshines me,
for today, it is a dying star
huffing its last desperate breath.
The immense pressure of gravity's hands
ever-squeezing its fiery core
at last compounds its basic elements
into a heavy hole in time.
Its shell of gas and light erupts
into a splendid rainbow of dust,
of carbon and oxygen and iron and nitrogen,
of water and earth and wind and flame,
of all the material elements.
And this great cloud of stardust scatters
throughout the arms of the black cosmos,
beyond the world of my humble body,
beyond the womb of mother earth,
beyond the weirs on heaven and hell,
to continue their master's brilliant legacy
by filling the gaps of the puzzle of life.
Fishing for a Wife
To every corner of the world, I went,
inspired by a distant dream,
looking for the perfect woman,
the woman worthy of my seed.
First, four women, I had found:
from the east, a sun-kissed slave
with cold blue cheeks and sweet throat,
a singer and dancer, easily forgotten;
from the west, a grey-eyed girl
with cold blue lips and sweet cheeks,
a warrior and poet, perpetual virgin;
from the north, a fair-haired sprite
with cold blue breasts and sweet lips,
a soothsayer and priestess, always silent;
from the south, a moon-kissed ghost
with cold blue hands and sweet breasts,
a queen and strumpet, too open to the world.
But they were not the perfect woman,
the woman worthy of my seed.
And then, you came, the perfect woman,
the woman worthy of my seed:
a red-haired, green-eyed goddess,
mother of all, the living and the dead,
with cold blue skin and sweet hands,
and implements of steel and fire.
What pride I felt, until I found
that you were from the very sea
I'd journeyed through: the perfect woman,
the woman worthy of my seed,
is from the sea's reflective skin.
This Can't Be the Place (Awkward Melody) [Adapted from "Naive Melody", an older poem of mine]
The spotlights on the stage
are glowing green and gold.
Their flaming eyes are smothered by the dark.
I squeeze your hand --
my hot sweat stings me.
The spotlights on the stage
are burning blue on blue.
Their eyes are set afire in this light.
My hand is loose --
the cold air stings me.
