Today I’m antisocial

"...clever handwaves / from the keyboards of the networked"

Their fingers are rattling on computers in warm kitchens
and on the sweaty number pads of smart-phones
I am aware of the brave souls of housewives
sprouting chirpily on Facebook updates
The chatty words of comments pass me by
along with clever handwaves
from the keyboards of the networked
and the YouTubes of the earnest
with political concerns
I don’t LIKE the humorous quote
that hovers in the status
or the photo-add that creeps
down the sidebar of the timeline.

© November 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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Sometimes life goes by so urgently, you don’t have time to check Facebook or read the newest blogs. A few days of that and you sure feel out of it—antisocial even!

This poem grew out of Adele Kenny’s “Fill in the Blanks” prompt and the T. S. Eliot poem “Morning at the Window.”

November morning

Our flooded walking path after one of last year's November storms

This cold sulky morning
Earth is her true Monday self
the last urge to impress
with sun and warmth
quelled in October.
Now days are at the mercy
of how bitter, irritable
nasty and vile she will get.
No need to tone down tantrums
because tender May or June are about.
In the company of old
October and December
she lets it all hang out.

© November 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

Shopping

Shopping

Tis the season to be shopping
at the mall to
find the
sales
clicking online
fill the
mails
either way ex-
pensive
tales.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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Here is my today’s poem for my personal poem-a-day challenge for November. I haven’t quite kept up, I’m afraid, with poems missing for a few days. Maybe I’ll have time to fill them in before the end of the month…maybe not.

At any rate I’ve had a lot of fun doing these. For ideas I’ve gone to web sites and my files for writing prompts and tried new things. This, for example, is a zeno. What’s a zeno, you ask?

It’s a form invented by J. Patrick Lewis, (the 2011 U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate). I first found it described on a poetry stretch prompt on Miss Rumphius Effect‘s blog:

“I call the form a “zeno,” so named for Zeno, the philosopher of paradoxes, especially the dichotomy paradox, according to which getting anywhere involves first getting half way there and then again halfway there, and so on ad infinitum. I’m dividing each line in half of the previous one. Here’s my description of a zeno:

A 10-line verse form with a repeating syllable count of 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1. The rhyme scheme is abcdefdghd.”(Read entire post which includes several examples  of zenos written by Patrick Lewis.)

parallel community

brown flits across path
hedge sparrow on an errand
black-capped chickadee
flips pine-tree acrobatics
instant later disappears

starlings group frantic
lift and land in unison
as if organized
by a choreographer
while I stay on the outside

living parallel
to seagulls, robins, flickers
watch them from below
I’m nonentity in their
rarified community

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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This is poem is written and presented for the Tweetspeak prompt “Look Up, (and Don’t Blush)” which challenges: “Could you find a poem by looking up? If so, post your link on our Facebook Wall by Wednesday, November 16th, for links and possible feature here, at The High Calling, or at Every Day Poems. “

Siren Mall

Siren Mall

Come on down
have a good time here
come, love the store
Shop with confidence
buy more, save more
Buy two or more
save the tax
Get exactly what they need
(first 5000 get a free poster)
Visit
Listen online
Phone
Leave us a message
be smart with it
bring it on
call today
I insist
Your future’s looking bright
Take the test
Switch
Pay
Book
see store for details
Learn how
Get rid of your cash

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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This is today’s poem for my November Poem-A-Day challenge.

Prompt – from “The Time Is Now” Poets and Writers email for November 10:
“Record the text from as many advertisements as you see or hear throughout the day–on your way to work, while listening to the radio, grocery shopping, or doing anything else during your daily routine. Use one of these ads or parts of several of them as an entry point to a poem.”  

To get raw material for this poem I scribbled lines on a scrap of paper as I listened to our local morning talk show while doing my housework. I also hauled out my little transcription recorder and recorded a few ad segments. I later transcribed them (partially) then pieced together “Siren Mall.”

Autumn Haiga

Summer’s memoirs
written on fallen leaves
colourful stories

Scarecrows riding high
another season’s work done
pose and party time!

Currant prunings
last garden harvest
preserves for the eyes.

Plain green juniper
primping for autumn
with red berry baubles

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These are Saturday’s poems for my poem-a-day November. The prompts for them were a few photos I have taken recently.

Mid-sixties

Mid-Sixties

“Don’t be sharp or flat, just be natural” – Willie Stargell

pleated skirt
Everly Brothers
Brylcreem hair
angora
your message in my yearbook
…such a clever line

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, I’ve challenged myself to write one poem a day this November.

I’m using a variety of prompts for that:
- Poetic Asides (where Robert Brewer posts one a day through November with the invite to enter your best collection in his chapbook challenge).
- Adele Kenny’s blog
- Poets and Writers prompts
- Poets Online Archive … and others

With permission from art-makers like David Bayles and Ted Orland (“The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars,”) I will proceed with realism.

I’ve decided to share some of my pieces here. The poem above is my poem for November 2nd, inspired by Robert Brewer’s prompt for November 2nd: “For today’s prompt, use an epigraph to kickstart your poem.“

autumn’s digestif

Fall Mums

Hostas are deflated balloons
their flowers droop on stick stems
like streamers come undone.
Lilac’s thinning yellow leaves
are a desolate platter of crumbs.
Border of begonias is brown
and soggy as used napkins.
Dead blossoms on dahlias, geraniums
litter the fading canopy
the crumpled wrap and faded ribbon
of summer’s gifts.
The hung-over garden sleeps.
Even the orchestra of bees
has gone to bed.

But look, there in the corner
a liqueur of blossoming Mums
the kitchen staff
must have brought out late
though summer’s party is over
and the guests have all gone home.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly (all rights reserved)