National Poetry Month - Day 29

And now for our penultimate (optional) prompt! The poet William Wordsworth once said that “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” For Wordsworth, a poem was the calm after the storm – an opportunity to remember and summon up emotion, but at a time and place that allowed the poet to calmly review, direct and control those feelings. A somewhat similar concept is expressed through the tradition of philosophically-inclined poems explicitly labeled as “meditations,” – like Robert Hass’s “Meditation at Lagunitas,” the charming Frank O’Hara prose poem, “Meditations in an Emergency,” or Charles Baudelaire’s “Meditation.”
Today, I’d like to challenge you to blend these concepts into your own work, by producing a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement, like Hass’s “All the new thinking is about loss,” or O’Hara’s “It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.” Or, like, Baudelaire, you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to. There are as many approaches to this as there are poets, and poems.
Happy writing!  I get my prompts HERE!

Life Sucks and is so beautiful

Life sucked so bad when all I wanted was a big brother. As an only child, I asked my Mother, begged and pleaded for a big brother. "That's not how that works." I remember her saying. Which ever way she responded each time I asked was the equivalent to "No."

How beautiful life is when I was United with a son my father had with another woman, not my Mother. He's older than me. We've grown to be very close. We get along famously. He is my big brother.

Life sucks and is so beautiful.

Life was beautiful in the beginning. Full of wonder, joy, peace, excitement, newness, comfort, Mommy, home, love, playing, learning, different, new, home, love, more, future, change, same, same home, same Mommy, same love. Striving for a plato of same while every now and then venturing off to new, to always come back to same.

Change.

Along the way I lost the will to wonder, I lost joy, peace, excitement, and comfort. Only newness was the same. I became uncomfortable, Mommy seemed so far away, home was far away until one day there was no home anywhere, anyway. Love felt lost, no more play. Still learning. Rapidly different, always new. No Mommy, no home, no love, no more, seemingly hopeless. Lost. Some unweighed portion of me still striving to come back, to what? I don't know, except the feeling of comfort, Mommy, Home.

Change.

Life sucks, I'm still not awake to be comfortable while Mommy still waits for me to come home.

National Poetry Month - Day 20

And now for our optional prompt! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that “talks.” What does that mean? Well, take a look at this poem by Diane Seuss. While it isn’t a monologue, it’s largely based in spoken language, interspersed with the speaker/narrator’s own responses and thoughts. Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life. You might incorporate overheard speech or a turn of phrase you heard once that stood out to you – the idea here is to get away from formally “poetic” speech and into the way language tends to work out loud.

Happy writing!

I get my prompts here!

Bits and Peices of Streets and People

Hey soul sista,

I overheard you say there's a party going on over there.

I almost wore my house slippers to the store, making it impossible to cut a rug. I can rip it up now, my favorite flats used to have thin straps across the top, I broke one then cut the other off, the shoes feel better now. 

I wanna dance to loud music all night long.

He is just a baby but he could feel the tension between Mommy and Daddy. I hope we eat soon, he thought.

Best friends laugh together so loud and hard. Faces red. Bellies aching. The laughter lasted a long time. Both friends have forgotten what was so funny in the first place. They laugh another few minutes anyway.

Laughter is contagious.

The man asking passerbys for money smelled of raw onions, rotten fish, burnt plastic, and Toe jam. He began to laugh too. Belly empty, feet blistered and bloody. Hair matted. Black dirt from head to toe.

What does the beggar have to laugh about?

Laughter was the last sound before falling into a deep sleep.

Nights like this I wish you were here with me to hold me close and discuss religion.

God bless us all.

"Life Sucks and is so Beautiful." - Warner Bailey

National Poetry Month Day 9

Our (optional) prompt for the day asks you to engage in another kind of cross-cultural exercise, as it is inspired by the work of Sei Shonagon, a Japanese writer who lived more than 1000 years ago. She wrote a journal that came to be known as The Pillow Book. In it she recorded daily observations, court gossip, poems, aphorisms, and musings, including lists with titles like “Things That Have Lost Their Power,” “Adorable Things,” and “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide!

Happy writing!

I Get My Prompts Here!

Neighborhood Streets and Things I See

Scanning the world around me

The Ugly Beautiful Things

People

Places

Situations

On a side street somewhere in between the hustle and bustle of city boulevards, An old woman, broom in hand, argues heatedly with a young man. Indistinct words exchanged publicly on this little side street for me to see.

Early one Monday morning on the way to work I rode my bicycle for the better part of a mile. On my usual route, there's a hill I don't like to ride up. The hill makes me tired, bones and muscles ache. Sometimes I think it best to surrender to the land and walk this stretch of earth. 

Early one Monday morning on the way to work I made a left turn on to Pierce, I made a left turn on to the same street I always do riding my bike on the way to work.

Early this Monday morning as I made a left turn on to Pierce I noticed a dog running behind me as I pedaled toward the hill I thought better to walk up. I pedaled faster, dog ran faster. Approaching Glen Oaks I was made aware of several other dogs who had joined in on chasing me as I pedaled faster getting closer to the hill, the hill I thought better to walk up.

Dogs barking.

Pedaling.

Faster.

Faster.

Harder.

Chasing me.

Barking and growling,

this started to feel like an attack, not a friendly game between man's best friend and my bicycle and me.

Growing scared.

Frightened.

Confused.

The streets were bare, cars passing occasionally, nobody walking or riding a bicycle like me.

All alone with canine creatures chasing behind me. Barking, growling, running fast enough to catch up to me.

Hill approaching, I felt forced to push and pedal, fighting against gravity.

Tired bones, muscles aching. One dog had grown into many. I feared I would be bitten early on a Monday morning on my way to work by a pack of neighborhood dogs who no longer or never even have seemed friendly.

Make it up the Hill Bailey. Make it up the hill and reach the top where the land becomes flat again and the scary barking, growling, snarling dogs will lose their gain on me and I can once again ride my bicycle to work freely, enjoying the early Monday morning breeze like never before because now I would have survived the most unusual and unexpected attack on an early Monday morning, riding my bicycle on my way to work.

-Warner Bailey

Written to the sounds of John Coltrane and his My Favorite Things

on APRIL 10, 2018

Day Ten

on APRIL 10, 2018

Hello, everyone. Today we are one-third of the way through Na/GloPoWriMo!

Our featured participant for the day is method two madness, where the small-and-large poem for Day 9 plays with repetition . . . and birds!

Today’s craft resource is this fascinating article that details the writing and revision process for a poem by former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey. It provides a really unique glimpse into a writer’s process, and the steps by which a poem takes its final shape.

Finally, here is our (optional) daily prompt. Usually, we take inspiration from our craft resource, but since our resource is about revision, we’ll go a bit further afield for this one! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of simultaneity – in which multiple things are happing at once. A nice example might be Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died”, or this powerful poem by Sarah Green.

Happy writing!

Sounds Far, 

Rain falls to the concrete from the night's sky like music notes

ding ding ding

The trolly passes me, I wonder how the wet tracks continue to conduct the electricity, is it safe?

Bombs landing so far away from farms and farming families look so close from the crops,

war, famine, poverty, lives, and limbs lost are not a part of the farming family's daily routine,

The sun directs the thoughts of the day,

war is not much different than when a baseball team wins a game,

if the harvest yield's we live to eat another day,

the seasons change

change is inevitable,

that is what the family prays for before meals while bombs detonate looking close while far away.

When the rumble in my stomach, like the bass drums played while I asked for another round to be delivered as quickly as possible to me and my friends' table, I shuttered to think that the vomit that insisted, would meet the same hard concrete and ruin the symphony that each raindrop had fallen, struck, and spread to create.

Amen. Everyone ate quietly, then prayed on bended knee before their beds.

Sleep came for the farmer's family once again.

The rooster will crow early morning, the sun will rise, bombs so far will not be heard until twilight until the war ends.

Who knew how beautiful it could be to mix the outcome of a stomach's drum beat with piano keys of a major music piece.

I was relieved to throw up the whiskey I should have never mixed with vodka and gin.

The rain stopped when I had safely arrived home to my 1 bedroom flat.

I could still hear the band play as I fell asleep with my dress and shoes still fastened to me.

The music, now sounding far away, started to fade.

GROWTH

HI! 💁😌💓 

GOOD NEWS OR NOT SUCH GREAT NEWS FIRST?

HA!....THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT YOU'D PICK... NOT YOU, I KNEW YOU WOULD SAY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I THOUGHT. YEAH YOU, YOU KNOW WHO I'M TALKING TO... ANYWAY....

• Not Such Great News First:

• If you're one of my 5 followers, you may have noticed that I have "failed" writing A POEM A DAY FOR 30 DAYS.
• Nextly, I have decided (and taken action) to put my foot down and grace this forsaken land of The Angels NO MORE.
• That's right folks, Warner Bailey is taking this act on the road. 1st Stop? TBA... Hee Hee Hee.

• Great News:
• I HAVEN'T FAILED!!!
• And that ladies and Gents is the best news!
• Not just the fact that I haven't failed. I think a lot of you may already have this knowledge but...

(UPDATE: The above was written by me yesterday. I stopped typing yesterday, to go back to the house I've been working in as a caretaker to relieve the other woman who works there for a few hours on my day off which also, unfortunately, is her day off as well from her night job. I haven't opened my laptop up since. I've been planning to complete this post all night and morning. It's about time to return to that house for work and I won't have the same space to create. No matter anyway because the 2 spaces I create in now are both very challenging for me in their own ways. I shall pick up where I left off now.)

• ...I wish I had finished that sentence because I can't remember what I was going to say, yet, I can still feel the floaty airiness of confidence I had in the fact that I was living without FAILURE or rather the IDEA of FAILURE influencing my decisions, my conversation, my use of space and use of time.

In the past, as in, up to 3 days ago, I would choose to not even begin a project rather than to begin and not complete it.

I would also begin a project if I believed I had enough time, space, and utilities to complete it in a leisurely fashion.

And then there was the route I would take that I like to blame as the culprit of my fear of failure, I would begin a project and if the project wasn't going at least 85%-90% as close to the formula I designed to successfully complete, I would consider the project, the formula for completion, and even the idea for the project or the idea that I could complete it a failed attempt, so I would give up or half-ass my way to a faulty finish. Sometimes I would take this last approach because there was a deadline set by me or someone else that I hadn't met. Sometimes I would self-sabotage before I even got to the deadline because there was no possible way I could perceive making the said deadline.I would like to say here that at some point I started using the term "self-sabotage" but I'd like to take the word self out and say that I sabotaged many opportunities for not only myself but for others. I was affecting other people who know I have the skill, the passion, the experience, and even the drive to create whatever it is I agreed to work on, by not going the distance.

Yesterday, April 6, 2018, I mentally rounded off how many days of the 30/30 Poetry Challenge I had not composed one of my "edge of the seat", Nobel Award deserving pieces of Modern day literary must-have pieces of poetry. Hold on while I fact-check something real quick...

I'm back.

So, I rounded my missed writing days off to about 5 on Friday, April 6, 2018. The last day I wrote a poem dedicated to the 30/30 Poetry Challenge was on Monday, April 2, 2018. That's 3 days of missed writing for that challenge.

In those 3 days, I've written for other platforms, worked my full time job (whereas of today I've worked at for 2 months without pay and received information recently that I will not receive half of the back pay I was promised, and may or may not receive the other half at some point. ATTENTION: THIS IS STRESSFULL.), my van has broken down, my phone fell off of the counter and the screen shattered, while going through a drawn-out break up with my soon to be ex-boyfriend whom I live with, in an unhealthy RV which has been grounded for well over 20 years in the backyard of a married couple I know from AA.

I thought briefly about carving out some time during the day to catch up on the days I missed but quickly dismissed that idea knowing good and damned well that my stress level would skyrocket and I would end up causing more damage than good trying to do something I've not once seen all the way through. I wanted to write the whole writing challenge off as "another failed attempt". I began to sing myself the same ole pathetic song of the pained and suffering Artist who may never live up to my potential due to failing to simply complete one simple project. Possibly the one key challenge I've needed to launch my career to the top and bring all of my life's purpose to a head for all of the world to see and I could finally be given the recognition I've deserved since I wrote my first word in kindergarten. I think the word was "Mommy".

Between various text conversations, food breaks, talking and laughing with my soon to be ex-boyfriend breaks, find the best classical piano playlist to write to breaks, and I'm too tired to do anything but won't take a nap because I have too much to do breaks, it has taken me about 5 hours to get to this juncture. I'm ready to wrap it up now so maybe I can follow this up with an example of my growth to share with you following this post.

Something happened, like other moments I've had the privilege to experience, more than ever in the past few years, a moment I like to call an "Aha Moment". A notion I have been mindful of for the past week or two, that although there is such a thing as failure, it can not apply to one's life. By definition, as I understand it, success and failure can only truly be measured by one's self. In essence, I began to believe that I can not fail in life, which also meant I could not fail at any project or task no matter what the constraints were I strived to uphold. And with that being said I was lead to the realization that many of the rules, guidelines, and limits I believe are required for me to meet in order to achieve successful completion of works was often no, ALWAYS, created, governed, maintained, or abandoned unnecessarily by ME.

Like a clap to a roar these thoughts became new feelings, those feelings led to actions that lead me to the most beautiful proclamation I could make during such a challenging time in my life.

"I can not fail the 30/30 Poetry Challenge."

If you're reading this and justifying that I had already failed the challenge by missing days or if you're out there rooting for me, hoping that I continue the challenge, hoping I find a way to make up the missed poems and finally feel accomplished, then you are exactly who I wrote this for! I'm so happy you found my words simply because you are who I feel comfortable sharing my story with.

My journey has afforded me many lessons that have been uniquely presented to me, for me, by me and the power that I have within me, which is so bright, so strong, so great, that I am learning in small doses how to utilize it moment by moment.

I do not mean to imply that you see what I see, feel what I feel, or agree with my opinions. I just want to share with you and hope to have the pleasure of receiving feedback, starting a conversation, or if nothing else, checking my stats and being honored to see that a part of me has been read by anyone else besides me.

So, since failure is no longer a factor, everything I've written from this paragraph, on, is being typed by me on Sunday, April 9, 2018.

I have read this blog post over a few times and I think that this may be one of the closest pieces of writing I've done here that resembles the vision I had when I started blogging.

In conclusion, I have 2 final pearls I'd like to share with you. The first is that this post WILL be posted even though it's officially my 3rd day of writing it since it's now 1:17 am.

The second will be the next poem I share as I continue to participate in the 30/30 Poetry Challenge. The poem will be the pearl that has grown from my development that no matter how many days I write a poem for the challenge, no matter how many poems I write in April, and no matter if I decide to carry my writings for the challenge into May, June, or 2019, when my last poem is written for the 30/30 Poetry Challenge, then and only then is when I will have completed the challenge, and for that I CAN NOT FAIL at completing the 30/30 Poetry Challenge. I have already claimed my success.

"Life Sucks and is so Beautiful"
- Warner Bailey

Day 2 30/30 Poetry Challenge

I'm in love with the prompt from http://www.napowrimo.net of day 2 of the National Poetry Month 30/30 Challenge (30 Poems in 30 days!?!?!)

Taking a cue from our craft resource, an essay by Katie Rensch on the poetic “I”. we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that plays with voice. For example, you might try writing a stanza that recounts something in the first-person, followed by a stanza recounting the same incident in the second-person, followed by a stanza that treats the incident from a third-person point of view. Or you might try a poem in the form of a dialogue, which necessarily has two “I” speakers, addressing two “you”s. Another way to go is to take an existing poem of yours or someone else’s, and try rewriting it in a different voice. The point is just to play with who is speaking to who and how. Happy writing!

When I first saw you we were young

I thought you couldn’t see me 

Young and dumb

You were the first to make me cry

You were the last before we died

The moment I knew

That moment I shared

I shared it with you

My last moment was our moment

I died alone with you

You looked at me the moment we died the same exact way you did when we were young

I could never look at you like that then

I couldn't look at you at all

Young and dumb

I've hurt you so many times

I wish it were me alone who died

In your arms

Or by my bedside

I said to myself when I first saw you

I want to grow old and die with that one

That one was you

I died alone with that day with you

I was there

The day they met

I was there the day they died

You should have seen the look in their eyes

-Warner Bailey 4/2/18