NaPoWriMo, Day 3

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to write "a list poem in which all the items are made-up names." Maureen recommended made-up band names as a possibility, so I ran with it. I didn't want to do a mere list, so I tried to build a story around it.


Sage

I first saw her in the Crucified Octopus Coffee House.
She wore a Lutefisk Rage t-shirt.
I worked up my nerve to approach her
and when I did, I asked about the shirt.
She told me that Lutefisk Rage was a punk band
from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota and said
that I bore a slight resemblance to their bass player.
"I hope that's a good thing," I said and she just smiled
and said her name was Sage.

I asked if I could buy her a coffee and she smiled again,
so I took that as a yes. The barista who brought
us our coffee was wearing a Political Fellatio
t-shirt. She said she had bought it at their concert
last September, when they were touring with
Ernie Plays With Guns as their warm up band.

Sage asked me what my favorite band was
and I said The Martian Beatniks. She said she
had never heard them, so I invited her to my place
to listen to their music. "I hope that's not
inappropriate," I said. "I mean,
I don't know if you have a significant other."
"It's fine," she said. "I broke up with my boyfriend
last month because he was mean, the sex was lousy
and he had quit bathing and brushing his teeth."
"Ugh!" I said.
"Really!" she said. "Besides, he had terrible taste
in music. His favorite band was Annie Spans the Canyon."
"Oh, shit!" I said. "I'd rather listen to geese in a washing machine."
"I've never heard of them," she said.
"No," I said. "That's not a band. It's just an expression I made up."
"Oh," she said. "Still, that would be a cool band name."
"I guess it would," I said.

She liked The Martian Beatniks a lot and ended up
spending the night. I made breakfast in the morning --
coffee and Cap'n Crunch, if you consider that making breakfast,
and she told me she had tickets to the Another Dead Fish
concert Saturday and asked if I'd like to go.
"Hell yes!" I said, and we've been inseparable ever since.

I knew she was serious about me when she took me
to meet her parents. There was a Roadside Corn Flakes
concert poster on their living room wall and her father
was wearing a Minister Goat t-shirt.
She took me aside and whispered in my ear,
"You'll have to forgive Daddy. He's such a square." - Jeff Barnes

NaPoWriMo, Day 2

Following (sort of) today's NaPoWriMo prompt, I tried to write a poem in three different voices, but I did it in haiku form. I am not entirely happy with it, but the prompt didn't really spark much in me, so this is what I came up with.

Haiku Triptych

I hate cold Easters!
It's supposed to be springtime
and now we've got snow!

You love complaining!
No matter what the weather,
you're never happy!

Their only pleasure
is sparring with each other.
What a strange marriage. - Jeff Barnes

NaPoWriMo, Day 1

First off, I would like to thank Maureen for featuring this blog on today's NaPoWriMo posting! I am greatly honored! Thank you, Maureen!

Well, we are at the first official day, and the prompt is to write a poem about a secret shame or a secret pleasure. Maureen mentioned bad movies among the secret pleasure. They are been a secret (okay, not so secret, to be honest) pleasure of mine for years, and I came up with this poem about one of my favorites, Plan 9 from Outer Space. I hope Ed Wood, bless his memory, would have enjoyed this for the tribute to him that it is. Thank you for all the entertainment, Ed!

Who Else But Ed?


Who but Ed Wood could take two brief film clips
of an aging, ailing Bela Lugosi
and from this craft an alien invasion

spearheaded by a drag queen actor
who looked bored by the whole thing
as he sat behind his wooden desk
amid curtains and junky 1950s
radio equipment, giving orders
to his two inept crew members

all in a plan, the ninth such,
to take over planet Earth
by reviving the dead
and building an army of zombies

led by a chiropractor slinking around
with a cape covering his face
presuming to fill the late Lugosi's shoes,
with his zombie wife, Vampira
in her too sexy for burial dress,
and Tor Johnson, the Swedish Angel,
whose face was so scary
it became a popular Halloween mask?

Who else could get a Baptist church
to fund such a venture in filmmaking
in exchange for baptisms of cast members
and the promise of huge profits?

Who but Ed Wood, decades after his death in obscurity,
could have us watch so raptly in our darkened rooms
black and white television images
of Los Angeles under siege
by flying hubcaps, pizza pans and paper plates?

Who else would make us wonder
if this ninth plan by an advanced alien race
was so lame, what the first eight plans
might have been? - Jeff Barnes

NaPoWriMo, early bird prompt

Tomorrow (April 1st) marks the beginning of National Poetry Writing Month, known informally as NaPoWriMo, in which I have been participating for several years. The idea is to write a poem every day in the month of April. The poet who owns the NaPoWriMo website is Maureen Thorson, and she give an optional prompt to follow each day (and she always makes clear that the prompt is optional). On March 31st she also gives an early bird prompt, for those of us who want to hit the ground running, I guess. If you want to see what the prompt is, please check out the website.

Following the prompt as best I could, here is what I came up with:

I Had a Life Before You

I had a life before you
but I can remember it
only in brief instances,
like a fragment of nightmare
recalled for a split second
late in the afternoon.

It's mostly like
trying to recall something
that happened before I was born,
so far removed is it
from the realm of my cognizance.

Each day you give me
the life I had long ago believed
was beyond my purchase.

Whenever I reach for you,
clasp your perfect form
and bring you to my lips,
you fill me with all the goodness
you have inside you.

And it is never decaf. - Jeff Barnes

Haiku

Can't see the river,
only fog under the bridge --
relentless March rain. - Jeff Barnes

Haiku

Plastic eggs dangle.
An Easter tree stands in snow.
Second day of spring. - Jeff Barnes

Graham Gardyloo

Graham Gardyloo is an odd sight to behold.
His head is a 20-pound pumpkin.
On his chest he has a set of drawers
that he keeps all of his junk in.

His legs are high-rise apartments
whose tenants all are ants.
You can see them though the windows,
for he always wears short pants.

His feet are pontoons with retractable wheels
so he can travel by water or by land.
He's got a saxophone for a nose
which he blows when he plays in his jazz band.

He's got bungee cords for arms
and suction cups on his fingertips,
candy corn for his teeth,
and red licorice for his lips.

His eyes are 50-watt light bulbs
that guide him along at night,
so if you see him coming in the dark,
don't let him give you a fright.

Graham Gardyloo is the only one of his kind,
at least as far as he knows.
He doesn't know where he came from.
It only matters where he goes. - Jeff Barnes