Poem of the Day

kvetch

Today's word is

kvetch

A perfect word for today.  I'm still working on yesterday's, I'm passing out at the keyboard again, and I can think of a thousand different ways to whine.

I think I'll stop kvetching and go to bed.  See you tomorrow, hopefully with poems.

*****

extirpate

Today's word is

extirpate

Man, this month it's been nothing but good words, with lots of luscious verbs like this one, but I've been too tired, busy and stressed to make use of them.  I've been remediating whenever I could find a minute, but it's really not how this is supposed to go.

Dang that whole having a life thing!  It's so interfering with my blogging!

*****

Wednesday, 7:09 p.m.

Ah, yes, it is so delightful to fill in blanks.

joy --
so easily extirpated
completely extinguished
by a thought
unless you labor to keep it

sorrow by contrast
engraves itself
with the ease of a sharp point
following oil across fine silver
straight into your flesh
sometimes with a flourish
then dissipates slowly
if at all
and always leaves scars

flout

Today's word is

flout

Well, I filled in a couple of blank entries today, and now I'm starting to feel a little better, a little more on top of things -- a little less like someone flouting the rules of her own game.

Still need a poem for this one, though.  Thinking...thinking...

...sleeping...

*****

Wednesday, 7:05 p.m.

Ah, it feels good to fill in blanks.

flout the deadline
flout the decree of limitations
flout it with your laughter
and your blush

flout the sentence
what have you done to deserve this
and who are the jurors who sat your trial
and decided

the authority does not make itself
known to you
not through this but with gifts

this other thing
this trap
this edict
this is not authority
but an educated guess

flout it

comport

Today's word is

comport

Honestly, I am not comporting myself well with this exercise this year.  So behind.  So very behind.

It's like I'm blogging in name only.  Oh, the shame.

*****

Monday, 10:45 p.m.

Okay, less like shame all the time.  Getting there; filling in some holes.

supposedly well
and stable
ordinary, respectable,
she leaves her house,
her correct address in the right neighborhood
for her age and income and marital status,
a seething, roiling mess,
every hair out of place,
every tail untucked, every white stained,
inside

she doesn't really know how to comport herself

she'd stay home all the time if she could

talking to you, telling you what to do
it frightens her
she's never sure

she pays you
or her firm does
to follow her orders

you assume the fact of her authority

that assumption,
it's written on your paycheck
and you reiterate it back to her, to them all,
with every endorsement
every payment of every bill

every yes you say at work,
every no
they come from your agreement
that this woman will always
be right

and you think she's in on the agreement
but she's not

she would be if she were who you see,
the suit,
the immaculate silks,
unmarked nails, heels, brow,
but she's not

she's a tornado

she's a hurricane, an unmade bed,
dirty, starving, and afraid
inside

no one would believe it

she believes nothing else

aggrandize

Today's word is

aggrandize

A lovely, innately expansive word, both generous and mean at the same time somehow.

Enjoy.

*****

Monday, November 19, 10:41 p.m.

Yup, still filling in.

you aggrandized
those moments
just by your presence in them

I will grow old

I already grow old

I already begin
to forget
my keys
my shopping lists
my days
whole eras of my time
but out of tens of thousands of moments
not the five or six with you,
never the five or six with you

they shine

I think I'll know
your face
your voice and hands
when I no longer know
my own name

I hope no one gets hurt

hector

Today's word is

hector

Another great thing about this exercise is that it's entirely voluntary.  No one will hector you into doing it, except maybe yourself.

I shall be beating myself over the head with a baseball bat until I come up with a poem using this word.  Oh, wait, that might prove counter-productive, mightn't it?

Never mind.

*****

Friday, 1:33 p.m.

Scream until your face turns red.
Hector 'til your voice hoarsens.
It will change not one thing.

Wheedle, charm, beg.
Sing a siren song.
It will change not one thing.

Try lust, try smiles, try generosity.
Try anger and explosive demonstrations of emotion.
Try being something you're not.
It will change not one thing.

But if you are lucky,
you will be able
to make peace with the fear.

gesticulate

Today's word is

gesticulate

Oh, man, Dictionary.com keeps pitching me beauties, and I keep not being able to do anything with them.  How annoying!  It's partly because I'm exhausted and overextended, of course, but after I get home from dropping the new (used) cat off at Angell Memorial for a week of radioactive thyroid treatment today, some of the things that have been swirling around in my head about the past two words, and now this one, may coalesce -- or I may have to go grocery shopping first.

No promises.  How 'bout you?  Have you been making anything of these words?

*****

Monday, November 19, 10:56 p.m.

Still filling in the blanks.  Here's another I finally wrote down.

tail gesticulates
with pointed grace, conviction
and outraged justice

a little liver
some cream, some pets, a brush -- you
sing another song

ameliorate

Today's word is

ameliorate

I use this word all the time.  But in a poem?  We'll see.

It's a little legalese-y, isn't it?

*****

Thursday, 9:59 p.m.

When in doubt, go haiku -- or haikuish.  That's what I always say!

request to the trees

ameliorate
sorrows of a dry August;
keep your leaves awhile

redact

Today's word is

redact

Ho-hum.  Another day, another terribly unmoving verb.  Well, let's see what we can do about that.

*****
Thursday, 5:22 p.m.

I thought this was such a boring word, and yet I wrote two poems using it, one all in a gigantic reactive rush to something I read on someone else's blog, and one in a contemplative bathtime moment where the water may just have been a little too hot.  I'm only posting one, though.  That other one just isn't nice when I take it out and pop it into black and white.

And the heart skin chafes
and the blister bursts
and everything you've been not saying
comes spilling out on the floor
where you both look at it
and start to cry
and then the blaming starts
and evil cruelty which is all about vanities
competing for high ground
safe ground
ground above the mud
and rocks and shards
and all those chances to hurt
and nothing can be hidden anymore
and very little can be seen
and nothing can be explained
and nothing that is said now can ever be redacted
and you won't know what that will mean
like what happens with testimony to which the prosecutor
has objected but which hangs there anyway
right there in the stuffiness
in the airlessness
in front of the breathless jurors' faces
and every witness is also a juror
and opinions are thick
and knowledge is thin
even your knowledge is thin
and there is drama
and there is criticism
and there is support and betrayal
and the witnesses and the jurors are guilty of both
and it always surprises you no matter which you see
and in the middle of everything that flies
are still you two
crying and fighting over the broken thing
that's still there, and still broken
and you look at each other and to each other
and you don't know if you should just kill it,
just toss that broken thing away
and you dare each other to be the one to do it
so it won't be you who failed
you who caused
you who broke
and you both caused
and you both broke
and you are still there
still standing there looking at it
and it's going to take both of you on the ground
scrabbling with whatever glue you can find
and a commitment to imperfect results
and all the risks they imply
to the understanding that holes and cracks
don't cheapen but enrich
and you didn't do it to each other
you just did it
together
and that pain you feel
that's just your humanity
reminding you this is all real
irrevocable
and going to be forgiven

equivocate

Today's word is

equivocate

Sorry to be doing this so late in the day.  I did spend a good part of my writing time today catching up on previous entries.  I will plug them in and one for this word, too, after I go spit something out on my other blog for the NaBloPoMo thing.

Ta.  See you soon.

*****
Tuesday, 1:11 a.m.

Actually, what I wrote for this word is just too stupid to publish.  Since I've published a lot of blatantly stupid things here in an effort to just do the exercise and keep it going, you know this one  really, really must be stupid if I refuse to post it.  And I do refuse.  So.

I think I'll try again tomorrow.

*****

Thursday, 5:17 p.m.

you can equivocate
and think you are getting away
with something
but you will still be choosing
and everyone will see what you have chosen
and it will take your choice away

you can't hold your breath forever;
you can breathe in or you can breathe out,
and yes, there is a third choice;
you can create the third choice
of not breathing at all

and yes, a two-sided structure
can never be as stable as a three-sided one
but make sure when you throw up a third side
that it's really a side you're building
that it's really construction not undermining
that it's not just a hole you're digging
or a grave