after the shock

water tumbles stones,

shells, metal, glass -- sand glistens

a roar of silence

my heart and prayers to those in Japan -- and to those who love them.

through friday, for every comment i will contribute one dollar to relief efforts; another dollar for every tweet or blog or fb link. peace...

The Asparagus are Up... Celebrate with Poetry

April showers bring May flowers... Lousy poem, wonderful sentiment.

Around the third week in March, I start to scan the earth carefully, looking for signs of upheaval and rebellion. I especially watch the asparagus beds; their arrival is the harbinger of Spring.

On March 29, two days earlier than last year, I spotted the first spear thrusting bravely forth. Two weeks before the first meal - yum. This week, the lilacs have budded, forsythia blazes, the currants have set green knobs, along with the hydrangea, and the plum trees are covered in soft white blooms.

April is National Poetry Month. I am joining a few other intrepid poets at Poetic Asides and will pen (or try to) a new poem or some facsimilie every day. For this first week, I'll post my scribblings here daily (and remember - these ARE first drafts. Very first drafts!).

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APRIL 1 - Newton’s Principia
(or A Young Boy’s Lesson on Gravity)

He flies free beneath shocking blue brilliance,
on cider-tinged air, quills quiver and twist.
Crimson stains white, the world roars its silence;
bodies of mass fall, clenched into tight fists.

(In a rondeau redouble, the first stanza is very important - the next four echo each line in turn, using a proscribed rhyme sequence. Very tricky. But very fun and satisfying.)

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APRIL 2 (Prompt: You are someone else)

The Boss of You

Another interminable day
in the nosebleed section of heaven.
Some omnipotent manager
I, my mignons messing
with my catseye marble.
I whip out that ole white magic,
transform bullets into gumdrops,
quell tidal quakes,
heal old folks aches,
banish traffic snarls,
and let junkies yearn
for something more
than pill-fashioned euphoria.
These miniscule problems
at last retired,
I head down to Molly G's,
throw quarters in the juke,
straddle the stool,
and share a tall
frosted one.

----

APRIL 3 (Prompt: a haiku)

Ceaseless, snow drifts down,
shimmers pure on starless pine -
a choir of silence.

----

APRIL 4 (Prompt: giving thanks)

My Virtual Salon
(Or thanks to Al Gore for inventing the Info Superhighway)

Electrons pulse,
weaving invisible ribbons,
a maypole twisting
all of us together,
we writers,
disparate and desperate
for commune of words.

A miracle, we find each other,
crawling through blogospheric interspace
from our physical centers -
the wilds of Kenai,
Orcas Island, swinging Joisey,
Beantown and Trigger Town,
Carolina on my mind,
Hon City, Geneve
across the pond,
and points in between and beyond -
to arrive here, NOW,
a virtual salon.

(Thank you, dear writing friends, my nudgers and compatriots).

----

APRIL 5 (Prompt: Worries)

Monday morning before the garbage truck comes

and the mockingbird sings,
I lay in the too-warm room,
your breath a steady,
irritating reminder
of nirvanic slumber
that eludes me.

Instead, my head
waltzes, thoughts
baraging my brain
like so much clutter
the whirring truck
will soon pick up -
the library books,
no bread for lunches,

and what's for dinner anyway?
The client meeting,
and calls for freezing rain
to snarl the overlong commute.
Forgotten birthdays
and unpaid bills,

the perfume on his collar
(not mine) slide into static,
white noise to accompany
tomorrow's appointment
with the radiologist.

----

APRIl 6 (Prompt: Chronicle the Day)

On My Father's 70th Birthday

Rain pelts the window.
In the grey-drear of this morn,
the only light the soft blue
emanating from this screen,
the words come slow,
really not at all,
and silently I blame
my nine-year old
padding down the stairs,
too early, to sit beside me,
as he does every morning.

Soon, the others stir,
the day passes in the smudge
of daily chores
that bind us a family
and divert from my inner life:
groceries, then lunch,
and a mystery ride to the country,
the smell of apples and rosemary,
the phone call home before the evening stroll,
the tinny murmur of a movie,
the goodnight story
and the house, at last, stills again.

My son, tucked under flannels,
dreams while I do battle
with words that still come slow,
because the ones I need to write
are too close to let out.

----

APRIL 7 (Prompt: ramble)

Lexington Market, Baltimore

Five days a week I take the metro to work,
never quite knowing what I'll see or hear,
for this is the West side, the quasi-gentrified
parcel of space where smack deals are a norm -
an interesting sociological observation.

Today emanated grey and dreary,
unlike last Thursday, the last day
I went into the office,
and even though that day
the sun blared bright
and, for the first time in what seemed eons,
a spit of warmth cradled the cracked sidewalks,
everything around me screamed desolation:
the toddler wailing as a woman, cussing,
cigarette dangling from her mouth,
dragged him through the intersection;
the sparrow pecking at drying vomit,
a beautiful orange-flecked beige,
spewed under the large urn potted
with petunias; the rat, smashed
flat against the cobblestone of the street,
hapless victim of some larger monster;
and always, the spent needles, the flaccid
condoms, chicken bones and peanut shells,
and the smell of stale urine
following me as I ride the escalator up, up, up.

It wasn't until rounding the corner
of the behemoth building that everything
slowed, relaxed; men and women, most emaciated,
walked in groups of twos and threes,
faces plastered with beautific smiles.

Methadone will make you happy.

Now, the day done, I leave my work behind;
the rain spits down, not heavy enough
to haul out the umbrella but enough
to be a nuisance to my shellacked hair
and Italian leather pumps, and I marvel
at the sudden cleaness of the quiet, empty streets.

Sole

A walk through a forest warmed by the sun.

Sole. I like this Italian word, for isn't the sun a 'soul' of sorts, and the 'sole' thing we yearn for through winter's never-ending bleakness?

An excerpt from my four-stanza haiku Sole to celebrate the advent of Spring.

puny shoots of hope
valorous, thrust and strive through
frozen ash, clay, rock

My soul found some peace today... hope yours did as well. Linda

Brainstorming, Barnstorming, and Breaking through the Block

Writer's Block. Like carpal tunnel, another malady of those who make their living with the pen, but worse; a severe constipation of the brain. There are times when the page stares blankly at me, mocking me. But usually my block is more along the lines of I know what I want to say - I can see and hear the entire scene in my head - but I can't find the words to describe it. That sort of resistance is easy to fix: exercise the right brain with rock-and-roll or a sweeping symphony, go for a run through crunchy, ochre-colored leaves, peruse the local Mona Lisas hanging in galleries, or pull out the watercolors and just do it. Myself, I withdraw to making tiny glass beads, little universes of Murano glass twisted and twirled in the heat of my torch, interspersed with slivers and gobs of silver wire and leaf.

But what happens when the ideas simply do not generate? When you, the writer, face a well sucked dried from a drought of inspiration? Brainstorming is one approach. The idea behind the concept is to generate ideas in an environment of suspended judgement. in other words, the right brain pontificates without that left interrupting. In a group situation, the ground rules for brainstorming are simple:

1/ avoid criticizing ideas.
2/ the more the merrier - the emphasis is on quantity, not necessarily quality (sort of like NANOWRIMO, now in full swing).
3/ be free-wheeling. No censoring here, simply spout.
4/ listen to other ideas and jump on their band-wagon.
5/ avoid any discussion of ideas or questions.

Now brainstorming is a Jim-dandy approach for folks who work in groups, but we writers are often a solitary, curmudgeonly bunch. We work... alone. So how to generate ideas whilst sitting holed up in our unheated cabins in the furthest reaches of rural-dom?

My friend Jimmy reminded me of the OBLIQUE STRATEGIES card deck created by Brian Eno, musician and producer extraordinaire, and his friend and collaborator, painter Peter Schmidt. Back in my college days, Dave, a fabu guitar player, turned me on to all things Eno, including introducing me to his OS deck, which he himself used to generate song lyrics. Eno and Schmidt intended the cards to help them get into the creative ways of thinking that they found increasingly difficult to attain. In other words, Oblique Strategies helps to jog the mind to new thoughts and ideas. Voila - creativity!

So what's in a deck? Depends upon what edition - there are five of them. And the format; the 'hard' decks contain words, phrases, and questions, and some editions were illustrated. There are on-line versions as well, using the same texts created by Eno and Schmidt but featuring art by others. The first OS said "Honor thy error as a hidden intention" (What a great philosophy). Other sayings:

State the problem in words as clearly as possible

Try faking it

What to increase? what to reduce?

Only one element of each kind

To get your creative juices flowing, head over to Brain Eno's random OS generator (and check out the very cool site, too).

And Elizabeth Friedman has figured out how to generate random haiku based on OS cards (but this is cheating the creative process, no?)

In other words, a provocative writing prompt. And fun.

How do you generate ideas for your writing and other artistic endeavors?

Hope this keeps your mind in the flow... Peace, Linda

Dabbling in Haiku... Sole

sole

frigid, in its frost
impervious, the earth’s scab
resists assured change

gleams, feeble muted,
stroke the forgiving surface
to summon rebirth

puny, shoots of hope
gallant, thrust and strive through ash,
frozen clink, clay, leaves

unfurled, leaves emerge
tenuous, exultant in
brilliant joyous dance

Linda Simoni-Wastila

My first love is prose, not poetry, but I enjoy the play of words on paper, the shadows and rifts that interrupt the vast white. Haiku is one form, so simple in appearance, yet so difficult in practice. Sole, Italian for sun, is inspired by the cold, white bleakness of winter that fades into promise of life. It follows the 'traditional' 5/7/5 meter, a bone of contention argued by many haiku purists (visit Poeticasides for more on haiku and other poetry styles).

Myself, I like the constraint imposed by haiku, the challenge of writing within parameters rather than having my thoughts catapault in free verse across the white page. But in the end, do rules matter? The faint trace of an image imprinted on the mind is what a poem hopefully leaves...

To capture the spirit of the ku... most elusive.