What he needed from me I have no idea

The places cats won't go. The climbing out onto the banks. The naked man
in the glaring white gap

Hot black dunes in the air—we slept
the chill of closed eyelids,
not April and the magnolias

The trick is to make it personal:
let silence drill its hole,
sleepily indifferent

– Johannes Beilharz

Collated for NaPoWriMo day 22. The task was to participate in the cento contest organized by Danielle Pafunda (who has been posting her NaPoems over at the Bloof Books website). What’s a cento? It’s a poem composed entirely of lines from other poems.
The above poem is composed entirely of lines tweeted today by Danielle through the twitter feed of the Academy of American Poets.
The authors of the lines I chose are, in the sequence of the appearance of the lines: Anne Carson Nox, Catie Rosemurgy, Medbh McGuckian, Henri Cole, Marina Tsvetaeva, James Schuyler, Khaled Mattawa, Daniel Johnson, William Carlos Williams

A shining

Today you will concentrate on your inner life
(rather than celebrating your outer life),

and you will be celebrating the beauty
that lies in the small, cosmic kernel of life

that is inside you. You will once again
feel the power and flow of inner life

into the world surrounding you, as you
go to work on your inner and outer life.

– Iself (© 2011)

Ghazal written for NaPoWriMo day 21.
Maybe a bit heavy on the inner/outer life stuff and in general, and pale with abstraction, but so be it.
Brought about partially by my daily horoscope, which said, “The day ahead should be a pleasant one, Iself. For the next few days your inner life will interest you more than usual. You may not necessarily become a psychoanalyst, but you will be tempted to seek insight into some of life's more profound motivations. In fact, you become a fervent truth-seeker in all areas of your life. It could be an especially valuable opportunity to learn why you feel so shy and inhibited in public. Perhaps this way you can overcome it.”

Celebrity spotlight & other exiles

For you

“Everything that happens is for the best,”
you said on the way from work last week,
and when I read “I thought of you
with the passion of exile”* this morning
while taking the day's initial piss this
was therefore probably also for the best,
as well as reading my horoscope,
which was asking me if I'd thought
of living in another country, preferably
one where the action is in my field,
instead of going dry in the desert.
Add to that the advertisement for
Catherine Zeta Jones' treatise on a
disorder that is “characterized by
high and low moods” and the
recognition that I also must have
this, except that I used to think
it was fairly normal, it all falls
into place, don't it. Sometimes
I have an inkling that I need to take
life in my own hands instead of
standing by and letting it happen.
But what could I do, about you,
for example, other than exile myself?
“Everything that happens is for
the worst,” it could also be said,
because you can't really tell
the best from the worst, can you,
once it’s happened.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for NaPoWriMo day 20 along the lines of “Today’s challenge is to write a poem inspired by something you’ve overheard.”
*I've slightly misquoted this. In The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, a novel from 1918 which I've been reading for the last two weeks, it actually says “I thought of him with the passion of exile.”
And the title, where did that come from? From this:

Rouge

She was a metaphor of rouge. Not only did she eat lots
of beets – “iron, you know” – but also felt like this
warm, creamy, beety mass: rouge. Rouge bra, rouge
stockings, rouge pubic hair, rouge curlers, rouge heart,
rouge lungs growing and deflating, rouge earlobes,
rouge soles – “pet me” – rouge milk, rouge Camaro, rouge
grass, rouge dogs, no rouge spiders, rouge smoky kiss
from rouge lips ...

– Johannes Beilharz (© 1981)

Posted for NaPoWriMo day 19. The task was “Pick a color – something you like, something important to you. Red, yellow, whatever. Now, write a poem that uses the color in every or nearly ever line: a hypnotic invocation of the color.” This made me immediately think of the above poem from way back when.

Made known to Writer's Island as usual. Three big cheers to Writer's Island for hosting NaPoWriMo.

Profile of my best friend

He goes out,
drinks with his buddies,
but never gets wasted.

He falls in love regularly
with complicated women
who somehow like him
but never enough.

He works because
he needs the money.
Work gives him structure.

Occasionally he even works well
because he takes pride in what he does.

He expects this to go on and on
until death do him part.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for NaPoWriMo day 18. The idea was to do a portrait of someone, which I did.

A dream

For P.

A bad dream arisen
from distortion,
not quite the truth,
having been left
with incorrect
impressions not
corrected on
purpose. It took
on surprising
proportions as a
ferocious
animal assaulting
me, like Tipu
Sultan’s tiger
the English soldier.
Such fierceness
my feelings must
have. Perhaps
not for you.
About you –
about you and me,
about being goaded
and lied to.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for NaPoWriMo, day 17. Actually, today's task would have been to reduce a passage from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, but I could not get into it, try as I might. (I tried 4 versions, calling them Curtain calls / Exercises in elimination and conversion.) But I still had the remnants of a dream to chew on, and they went into the poem above. Last night I found out, more or less by chance, that someone I care about has been dishonest with me, telling me things about herself that are not true, the greatest puzzle being the reason for this dishonesty.

Tippoos's Tiger – a life-size 18th century automaton on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Haikuode

to the liquid which
pounces down on us, drenching
to the very bone.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for NaPoWriMo on day 16. Today, the task was to "celebrate that yin yang quality – the eternal twinning of opposites by doing one of the following: write a poem in the form of a complaint about something that is good or you like, or in the form of a hymn to something that is bad or that you dislike. A rant about blue skies, an encomium to rainy days. A curt dismissal of strawberries or beach vacations; a paean to Brussels sprouts, or waiting rooms."
Well, each of these ideas could have set off my creative forces, but rain was first – so there!
Not to worry, though; I'll probably rant about strawberries on the beach very soon.

Laura and Petrarch

A dissonant character sonnet

Deprive him of thrive,
the rugged barbarian,
let her be more alive,
the tender vegetarian.

Let him moan
frustration from shore to shore,
let her groan
with a need for more.

Let him become a little listless,
isolated on a remote isle,
let her develop some bristles
to make him walk the extra mile.

Let those deeds all be done
and soon they’ll be one.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2011)

For day 15 of NaPoWriMo, the task was to write a sonnet. Well, here is mine, with claptrap rhyme and full of helpful suggestions for an ancient couple.

Since I was asked: The rhyme scheme used here follows the Shakespearean or English sonnet, while the meter does not.

Five minutes for no-one

It's grey out there,
and that nicely
coincides with the grey
zone inside me.
It's been a lot like that
after waking up,
it takes me time
to again slip into the world
after the absence of sleep,
the tie to another world,
which seems to have
become rather dull
as I mostly don't dream
any more. I used to
write for someone,
but even that has stopped.
I might drive to work
with her in half an hour,
but not even that
has been decided.
We are that spontaneous.
So let this be a
spontaneous day –
hey, I've got enough
hair on my head
to pull myself
out of the grey.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for day 14 of NaPoWriMo in about 5 minutes, as suggested.

Big, square and

Big,
square,
black and
floppy. Stuck
in a big toaster-
like thing that made grinding noises.

– Iself

Written for NaPoWriMo day 13 on the subject of nostalgia. Can there be nostalgia for 8-inch floppy disks? I suppose there can be, as this fibonacci proclaims.

Blues in D

Woke up
this morning,
had to clean
the place
before leaving
for work
so the cleaning
lady would have
a clean slate
to work from,
raced through
the joint
to remove
scattered
items of clothing
and make
piles of scattered
papers neater,
started the PC
to find that
someone
wants me
to translate
a 30-line poem
into Spanish,
and how much
would that cost,
well it's a good
question,
the question of
being poetic
in Spanish,
I felt like giving
in sight unseen
and for a price
you can't refuse,
hoping the poem
would have a lot of
blood-red corazones
in it.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for NaPoWriMo day 12. The task was to write a 40-line poem in a single sentence, possibly something sounding a bit Victorian. Well, this one ended up sounding more Berrigansian than Victorian, but so be it. The title came last, and out of nowhere. But wait – isn't it the title of somebody's* song?

*It is indeed ... "Blues in D" by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, performed here by Nick Cave and Jenni Muldauer:

The picture of little J.B. in a prospect of machinery

An orange disk shines a beam on a shred of past –
exposing the new sawmill being set up after 1960's fire,
exposing the boss’ little boy.

Is he a nuisance in the way of the workers there?
He’s around 4 or 5,
he watches and interacts,
not always fully comprehending,
not always being able to separate joke and reality.

One day he stands with his back to the gap surrounding the big saw,
a bit too close, takes one step back,
and whoosh goes down his first big flight
onto a springy bed of sawdust,
with the grown men scrambling down there
to see if he’s alive, if he’s all right.

He is all right, he’s still alive, he holds the memory
and now switches off the beam.

– Iself (© 2011)

A straight, artless mirror image of John Ashbery’s The picture of little J.A. in a prospect of flowers for NaPoWriMo day 11.

Holly, it’s folly

Oh what another winner hath landed Holly!
The best thing about him is that he’s jolly.
He ogles young women voraciously
and slurps his coffee rapaciously.
His looks betray that he’s five times your age,
dear Holly, and it takes no sage
to figure out
that he buys his clothes at McDowd.
Those thick, froggy-eyed specs
imply there won't be much sex.
In short, my angel, between you and me,
you are, as usual, barking up the wrong tree.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2011)

Written for day 10 of NaPoWriMo.
Today, the idea was to “try to write a poem backwards. I don’t mean letter by letter, or word by word, but line by line. Start by writing out an old saying that takes the form of a declarative statement. Like “Birds of a feather flock together,” or “A miss is as good as a mile.” That will be the last line of your poem. The next line you write will be the second-to-last, and so on, until you reach the “beginning.” To help you keep your focus, let’s say that the poem has to be an address to someone or something that can’t answer back – a person who is absent, or an animal or inanimate object.”
I followed the rules ... well, more or less. I did indeed choose the final saying first. As to the rest, I kept writing new lines and rearranging them to such an extent that I no longer remember what initially was first, second, third, etc.
The address is definitely to someone who is absent – apart from the name, nothing is said about Holly, even though it's clear that she seems to have a serious case of bad judgement.

Malcolm writes

to avoid seeing Marjorie in person as her condition might be contagious:

“Yesterday you wrote in your letter
that you are sick and not feeling better.

I hope this reply with pickle and lime
will give you a much better time.

In the event that this does not work,
I advise you to go see that jerk

down the street who calls himself healer.
He’ll give you a paper for the dealer

of sweet mint-flavored pills
that for sure will cure all your ills.”

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2011)

Written for NaPoWriMo day 9 in response to this: “... today you are encouraged to write a nursery rhyme. 4 to 6 lines, 3-5 accented syllables per line (don’t worry about making them iambs or dactyls or what…as long as your lines are short), and of course, a rhyme or two.”

As if you'd won the lottery

Don't stand there with that shit-eating grin on your face,
my dear, as if you'd just won the red noise prize.

Let me tell you that a fruit's a fruit and a tart's a tart,
and that Annabelle – well, suffice it to say

that I knew her in school, and all to well.
If you know what I mean.

So don't you feed me that 'J'en sais rien' line.
I seen the two of you parked in my car,

and it was rocking.

– Iself (© 2011)

Written for day 8 of NaPoWriMo.

This was written in response to:
"Today’s prompt is a bit of a smorgasbord, and reflects the fact that we are at day seven. It asks you to write a poem with seven different phrases, ideas, or just plain old “things” in it. These are:
1) an example of synasthetic metaphor — one that describes one sensory perception using adjectives more naturally suited to a different sense (e.g., “a red noise,” or a “a bitter touch”)
2) a fruit
3) the name (first or last) of someone you knew in school
4) a rhetorical question
5) a direct address to the poem’s audience — “Reader” or “mom” or “Michelle,” or maybe just “You”)
6) a word in a foreign language
7) a reference to a game of chance (darts or pool or the lottery or etc).
All of these may seem pretty disjointed, and indeed, they’re meant to be. But these kind of little “projects” can work wonders in keeping a poem both lively and concrete, instead of letting it wander off into a forest of abstractions)."