NaPoWriMo – WHARVED

NaPoWriMo 2015 — XIII: How Many Steps Does It Take

How many steps does it take in the scenario where you’re all out of gas and you need to get to the nearest town when you’re four miles away from anything remotely resembling a gas station and your shoes have holes worn through the bottoms of the soles due to that wear and tear factor you hadn’t considered until the holes were already there and you had to put the shoes on because they’re your only pair and you were actually planning to go to the shoe store but chose to order some online instead, then subsequently agonized over the selection of beautiful footwear, most of which out of your price range (but you browse anyway because you’re a masochist and pride yourself on enjoying the finer things in life, like cheeses, wines and teas) and downright impractical for your wardrobe and lifestyle anyway?

The answer is 1,296,374. That number may be exaggerated, but let’s see you come up with a better one. Jeez, everyone’s a critic.

NaPoWriMo 2015 — XII: Settings: Stun and Kill

Now, turtle power comes in two settings: stun and kill. At this time, unfortunately, there are no other settings to speak of, and we appreciate your patience as we strive to implement more effective weaponry for your diabolical pleasure.

NaPoWriMo 2015 — April’s Over (The Posts Aren’t)

The calendar already reads May 2nd, and I haven’t met the pre-established goal of 30 pieces for National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve been writing throughout the month of April, and my grand total of things written easily eclipses 45.

So, since I’ve never considered myself traditional by any stretch, I will continue to post the pieces that I wrote during April. I will continue to title them the way I’ve titled the first 11 (Roman numerals are just so much fun).

The funny thing about NaPoWriMo is that it makes me clam up and unintentionally sabotage my own efforts. In previous years, I’ve never reached that 30 poem benchmark when it comes to posting them on my website, mainly because April would end and I would immediately go back to business as usual.

This year, I choose to keep on with NaPoWriMo posts, and I must assure you that I have not tampered with these pieces since they were first written (hand-written, all).

I will also make non-poetry-month-related things, since that’s generally my MO anyway.

I’m grateful for your readership, even though I don’t own any grates and my apartment is not full of them by any means. My one roommate has about three dozen grates as a part of his peculiar collection of things that resemble waffles, so there are grates around. But let me reiterate, just because a person does not own any grates does not mean he cannot be grateful.

By no means am I ungrateful. That could imply that I am against the idea of having grates, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

What does all this mean? It means that I’m lucky enough to be able to say these things to an audience, and also that grateful can be a misleading word.

-A

NaPoWriMo 2015 — X: Digress from the Logical Path

If you were to equate greasy rocketmen with my finger’s propensity to bend at a right angle, you would likely lose your audience. Forget about all the logical connections you can make with such a pairing (believe me, there are many!). To adequately explore the significance of this analogy requires an astute willingness to digress from the logical path most folks care to walk down.

If you were to equate greasy rocketmen with my finger’s propensity to bend at a right angle, you would only just begin to realize the true potential of your comparative energy, so branch out!

Some things to be explored would include:

Rats vs. Omelet Pans
Cubic Zirconia vs. The U.S. Constitution
Penn vs. Teller
A 1956 Buick Skylark vs. Your Mom

Do you see what I’m getting at now? It doesn’t take a genius to understand how much of the universe can be uncovered when you compare two otherwise unrelated things.

NaPoWriMo 2015 — IX: His Own Amusement

In the intricate salamander hideaway lurks Slippery Willie, hellbent on picking apart all of my hard-earned plot twists for no reason other than his own amusement. He’s always two steps ahead of me.

NaPoWriMo 2015 — VIII: Hymnals

How many hymnals does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

NaPoWriMo 2015 — VII: Element of Surprise

Boron is an element
of surprise
(to me at least).

Take a caper and toss it
into the lake, and
what do you get? Litter.

Stitch together
a frame of bumblebee polish
to hyphenate round regret
in perpetuity (for posterity).

Jimbo is a very old soul,
but chooses not to show
the beatings he’s endured
just to come back
and take them again.
He’s more enlightened than that.

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