This will not be a ballad sung for Ouida Keeton, nor a song to be strummed for the history books,
only some words in the form of some verse to remember what always shows true:
the human spirit sometimes hides something much worse that what, at first look, seems like it would do,
and sometimes, one gets what one deserves, and sometimes, one's just passing this world through
inspired by #nwp Write Across America via South Mississippi Writing Project
Listening In At Leontyne Price Musical Park
When Miss Price sang us that 'accomplishments have no color'
the air accompanied her as chords on a stage, her voice, an operatic echo
of streets hummed as aria; the city, as orchestra; this park; as chance for change
inspired by #nwp Write Across America (SMWP) https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/c324b4c832bf9e9f1db8174bcf94c402/laurel-virtual-writing-marathon-smwp/index.html
Eating ain't the only thing we dig in to at Miss Pearl's on Oak and Magnolia
We marvel at the woman behind the counter, too, the gumption it took
to imagine a diner at seventy, and to see it through, too,
so we're not just nibblin' on catfish, we're celebrating what it takes to make one's way
from there to here
inspired by #nwp Write Across America (SMWP) https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/c324b4c832bf9e9f1db8174bcf94c402/laurel-virtual-writing-marathon-smwp/index.html
Squiggles Break My Art
I ve kicked this po em around somuch the words have fa... ...ll.... ….en
a p a r
t
Paintingwitheditmarks, computer squiGGles break my
(he)ART
Inspired by George Ella Lyon via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L8OKN2gmbE via #nwp
Words Bring Us Through
Where are the notes when you need them the most
the tongues of strings that have no name but still, sing:
cancion, oran, kanzunetta, laul, canco, abesti song
Rest, then, for when you least expect it to: Words bring us through
Inspired by Dan (Zev) Levinson prompt of language and his “Sundailed” via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouEmIT8mbpw for #nwp
Circular Revision
Awake with the birds, singing
No
Wake with dawn breaking to the songs of birds singing
No
Be awake; Listen! Birds sing this day into being
No
The day sings you awake
Yes
Inspired by Shirley McPhillips and “Uncommon Education” via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5qzl7v7Kzc for #nwp
Every time you lose something — no matter what it is — you find something else… – Patrice Vecchione
Lost/Found
Sometimes I wonder which reader found it – that small notebook of scratched stories, pieces remembered only after discovering an empty pocket at the train terminal where I remained, suddenly reminded, how ephemeral is ink, and paper, merely temporary
Inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2fiEv_bKh8 and “Finders Keepers” by Patrice Vecchione and the call to write about something that has been lost via #nwp
With a Kiss From Hippocampus
Dipping fingers inside these fluid lands, inside what we don’t understand, so we go where the flow takes us – it breaks us – this tumbling turmoil off rock and ridge where such creatures live, where monsters like this exist – this fall, it breaks us – it takes us, it makes us humble again, for we might yet comprehend how every drop that comes apart from gravity’s kiss is also a drop where worlds resist the pull, such as this, this water, this rain, this, it takes us, this falling, this calling, it draws us to wonder, again, forward, towards bliss
Inspired by https://youtu.be/G2MbsnA157E and H.K. Hummel’s discussion of her prose poem: The Fable of the Sailor and the Kraken – and invitation to write about mythological creatures from #nwp Story of a Poem series
Writing Rails of Ghost and Bone
That day we were walking through wooded trails, lost but never alone, when we came upon the remains of rails, the tail end of the past clutching the earth with taut iron fist
how could we resist the sudden urge to grip the hammered steel, slumbering on stone, and wait on the day for an oncoming rumble of ghost and bone?
Inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSoAtx60v4E and t.l. sander’s poem “This” and the invocation to play with language and poetry
And it's hard to choose the words that will be your own — from 'A House Called Tomorrow' by Alberto Rios
The child begins with confident marks, blue ink dripping off brush
Her audience revels in the way her words become art and her art, their story
the way the child ignores them all, their advice, drawing only what she knows
as she always will, if only given a large enough canvas and enough room to write
#nwp inspired by Deanna's Advent Poetry https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1COKCPmzuEXAjqNTBHw0NhHYHo0rOiW9X5kMbV9MHOEs/present?slide=id.g77aca2baa9_0_0