Monthly Archives: April 2015

NaPoWriMo 2015 – Take an old poem and write it bottom to top – To Hand an Empty Page

I Come Across an Empty Page

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A woman seated in a chair.

The sun shadows across the floor.

I draft words over phantoms

of other words, other times.

And looking back two and a half

years later I see I made

No diary entries that week.

The days so anguished

when we sat with you.

Benita H. Kape © 1.5.2015

I only looked at one other poem and it seemed not to want to be written backward. This one did, not because it was short, and yes I shortened (but only slightly) in the editing. This poem was written toward the end of 2010. I simply cannot believe we have moved on almost another five years. Maybe I should have titled the poem Days of Anguish but that was just too much.

So I bid a dear farewell to another year of NaPoWriMo. Thank my friends along the way. Bye for now on this front. What this poem shows me is there are no blank pages ever. Somewhere they remain filled in. And that’s how it will be for the next eleven months. Sometimes poems, sometimes not.

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 29 – Write a review – Don’t Do Away With — and team

Don’t Do Away With — and team

 

Prime time slot

that extra half hour

that requires

a body to the garment

more research.

An,   ask the questions half hour.

Make it light.

Make it heavy.

For good causes

give us your money.

And in return we found you reliable.

Reliable reporting…

Some could think that to be a threat.

What was understood to be

a democratic role.

OMG —

A definition of this prime time

slot, a one word alteration —   Entertainment.

Sorry ‘to the powers that be in this TV channel.

I will not be reviewing your so called entertainment.

I do not want to watch a dumb and dumber show’.

Benita Kape © 30.4.2015

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 28 – Write a poem about bridges – Singing to My Dead Mother

Singing to my dead Mother

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What are the bridges

of your remembrance

a word, a song,

a name.

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The bridge you crossed,

a great ocean; going

you said,

to the end of the world

when I say his name.

.

Glad you were, that you came;

and now the bridge of research

has uncovered

a mother at last to proclaim.

.

Too late for the asking,

what are the bridges

of your remembrance;

a word, a song,

a name.

Benita H. Kape © 29.4.2015

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 27 – Write a Hay(na)ku or series – Mrs Browns – One & Two

I quite like my first Mrs Brown but I suddenly found myself going a little beyond the hay(na)ku sonnet devised by Vincent Gotera and adding not just an envoi to the first but going on to do a second sonnet etc.

Mrs Browns – One & Two

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  1. Changeable Weather

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Sprightly

Mrs Brown

walked to town.

.

Town

so crowded

people, cars, people.

.

Clouds

over town;

forgotten, her umbrella.

.

Wet

Cold, shivering

she stumbles home.

.

Sets her fire

Pours a whisky.

.

Envoi –

.

Pours a whisky

Sets her fire.

. 

Mrs Brown

. 

  1. By Royal Command

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Bury

with me

his mother’s ring.

.

Adjoining

her room

the ghillie slept.

.

Hearsay –

Lewis Harcourt

in his diary.

.

Marriage

not unknown

betwixt servant, monarch.

.

His photograph also

In her hand.

.

Envoi –

.

A faithful servant

Loyal unto death.

Benita H. Kape © 28.4.2015

 

ghillie – an outdoors servant, Scottish

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 26 – Write a persona poem – Forthright Candour

Forthright Candour . I have laboured long and hard, and I’ll thank you not to say my legs are not perfect; as if that matters a jot.        Not to them my fame. I play the Iron Lady and the Queen with no thought of such trivia. And Ladies, let me remind you, the only female to have won the role as our Prime Minister. Therefore an excellent role model for your daughters. The Iron Lady and I, who knew the trades, the Baroness in groceries and on Mummy’s side of the family, Grandpa, butcher to Victoria. But, I am no royalist. I believe in fairies and leprechaun, but not God. . I was a girl for  Doing Her Own Thing, mainly Shakespeare at the time, for such would stand a girl like me in good stead. . To Africa then, and back to Shakespeare, that period of rest in the eighties and the book, and back to treading the boards, changing faces with each new role. Calendar Girls, Her Majesty the Queen, three queens have I played in my time: Jane Tenison, detective. Oh, flawed humanity. I have laboured long and hard, won the roles and played with all my strength and passion. I speak for my profession; We English are not afraid of the open expression of large emotions.

  Benita H. Kape © 27.4.2015

Notes: I have always held Helen Mirren in high regard. As she said of her role as the Iron Lady, she may not have followed her political leaning but ‘she was an excellent role model for your daughters.’

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 24 – “in a vien of parody” – from How I Became a Garden Renegade

Path 2 2012

In the picture a recent path laying in progress. Spade and all which I love.

the prompt for day 24;But take a favorite (or unfavorite) poem of the past, and see if you can’t re-write it on humorous, mocking, or sharp-witted lines. You can use your poem to make fun of the original (in the vein of a parody), or turn the form and manner of the original into a vehicle for making points about something else (more of a satire – though the dividing lines get rather confused and thin at times). I set myself a few rules in choosing  Andrew Marvells’ poem (see below). One, to use the form of his poem i.e. 8 lines to a stanza; same rhyme scheme, even his unusual use of semi colons (and yes I used to write like that and feel how that worked.) And of course I stuck with his subject matter, same as I used for my poem yesterday but today I take a different view. It’s not Mr Nobody who made me do it. This time it was Mr Marvell.

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 How I Became a Garden Renegade

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Do I need this, do I truly need?

Apples falling, see here – my nose bleeds;

The measly clusters on my vine

Into each cheeky bird-beak goes my wine;

The nectarines and wrinkled peach

At the top of the tree and out of reach;

Pinball melons, such a farce

Devoid of flowers, devoid my lawn of grass.

.

Meanwhile, I am a depressing mess

Withdrawn, as on and on I obsess;

The mind grown small with the grind

‘Tis terrible such a soul confined;

To blank such wretched thoughts as these,

Of none of this am I relieved;

Give to me no hand on spade

How have I become a garden renegade?

Benita H. Kape © 25.4.2015

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fromThoughts in a Garden

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What wondrous life is this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons, as I pass,

Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

.

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less

Withdraws into its happiness;

The mind, that Ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find;

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas;

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Andrew Marvell

Now I told you all Cretans are liars didn’t I.

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 23.4.2015 – Take a pack of cards etc. – The Luck of the Draw

The Luck of the Draw 001

The Luck of the Draw . Garden, and you are nature’s assistant. This way is pleasure and not chore. You are there as her friend. It is not you or the garden. It is you and the garden. Don’t let your ego think it is you who heals her. Feel the joy in filthy hands knees, maybe your elbows when you’re up to them in it. . And yet as you grip this little ‘feel good card’ from among a whole pack of feel good possibilities don’t be too concerned when talking to the plants on a full day and say; ‘sometimes gardening is s…’. . And because she is your friend and most days are good she’ll be happy if you remind her, . ‘that’s why you and I believe in tomorrow.’

Benita H. Kape © 24.4.2015

Notes: “Day 23 – Prompt And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to take a chance, literally. Find a deck of cards (regular playing cards, tarot cards, uno cards, cards from your “Cards Against Humanity” deck – whatever), shuffle it, and take a card – any card! Now, begin free-writing based on the card you’ve chosen. Keep going without stopping for five minutes. Then take what you’ve written and make a poem from it. (Hat tip to Amy McDaniel for the idea!)”

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NaPoWriMo 2015 – Day 22 – Write a Pastoral Poem – Grass – a post-modern pastoral

Grass – a post-modern pastoral

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yard; such  waste

for dogs and children.

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I’d be happy to have

a warm, milk-giving

Jersey cow. At a pinch,

.

a Holstein-Friesian,

chewing her cud

all day down the yard.

.

But in our small yard

there’d not be sufficient

grass to sustain …

.

a big steamy beast

and she’d cost me the more

to supplement her kai.*

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Grass, ample in my small yard,

only for playful puppies

                        and children.

Benita H. Kape © 23.4.2015

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* kai – Maori for food

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