National Poetry Writing Month 2024
Every year in April I accept the challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days for National Poetry Month. I may not write a poem every single day, but I have a goal to get to 30 by April 30th.
Below are the poems I have written for NaPoWriMo 2024. If you want to read these and other poems of mine, please feel free to check out my poetry blog here. For writing prompts and other information about how you can get involved, please check out NaPoWriMo.net.
If you’re interested in keeping up with my poetry, please also consider joining my mailing list for periodic updates.
Choices, choices (30/30)
Tiny tiny hands in yours, small unbalanced steps and his hair is thin and wispy. He waddles toward the grass, your eyes never leave him, a soft smile on your cheeks. This is how I come to remember you both future past. This is how I forget and remember our names.
Tiny tiny feet splashing in the riverbed, your hands under his arms holding him just close enough. Delight and wonder and awe as he watches the water, as he watches the water, as I watch you, as we both watch him.
I remember the moment he came to be, tornado sunshine sweltering heat, summers of Love caught between our fingers, slipping beneath the sheets. I remember the moment we saw his face together, picked his name together, held our breath and took the leap. Tiny tiny moments with immeasurably big weight. Choices, choices, not fate.
I remember falling in Love, once with you, and once again with the idea of him. And somehow we are all true, all always here, always enough, even as I daydream and spill hope from my pen. My heart is a carpenter, built our first home, his treehouse, our bed, felling trees and shaping wood to be the bridge beneath his feet and we are miraculous: you, me, him, and especially us three.
-
A. Wylde
April 30th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 30/30
Lessons in Sijo (29/30)
Intrigue coaxed me into coffee
so we could share a morning cup
Enchantment had me drink myself silly
so we'd never tire
Serenity stopped me in my tracks
re-feeling all I'd thought
-
A. Wylde
April 29th 2024
NaPoWriMo 29/30 (Day 28 Prompt)
That you don't know (28/30)
If you know, you know.
More importantly, if you
don't know, you don't know
-
A. Wylde
April 29th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 28/30
Newcomer (27/30)
One thing with older men is if you can get them talking
about their house
or their yard, so that one’s not too hard
I know enough now to be dangerous and I think if you
can surprise someone you are halfway to winning them over
and I don’t need friends but I do need neighbors who
aren’t motivated to scare me away
Still I occasionally fear I’ll be found out,
walk away wondering if I pulled it off
was the comment about cement slab just enough,
or ever so slightly too much?
One thing with young wives is if you smile so polite
and know all the niceties to repeat
and not the house, but the home is a
safe enough inroad
I don’t need to be invited to the book club but I
wouldn’t turn down a recipe for shortbread
I can do the baking and making alone,
and maybe it gives us just
one more thing to try and talk around
and it’s always the trying, tiring,
but I keep on trying anyhow
-
A. Wylde
April 28th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 27/30
Limelighter (26/30)
Do you dance anytime that they ask, is it that?
will you rise on command to amuse?
And only the laughter, only the eyes
seem to settle the restlessness in you
brief, fleeting, you exasperate newly
choreography you'll demean then deploy
Do I wait to be wound like a toy, is it that?
do I suspend until I get to put on?
And only the charm, only the wonder
seem to soften the disquietude in me
steady, lasting, I hold back, interlude
games I'll rebuff, then play to win
-
A. Wylde
April 27th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 26/30 (Day 25 Prompt)
Trouble Breathing (25/30)
They say grief is just Love with no place to go
my Love lives inside my lungs some days,
heavy, heaving, trouble breathing
I'm scared to touch it for fear that it breaks
rushes down the drought-dried hillside
and washes me away
and it lands, still
the measure of it, the scope
I Love as big as I ache,
tear as ragged as I run myself
I grieve as much as I hope
and the losses are numbered, ambiguous and opaque
and they turn up in my airways some days
and if grief if just Love with no place to go, I transmute
wine back into water, hold my breath but open my eyes
I choose the feeling, both drown, and
survive
-
A. Wylde
April 27th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 25/30
Frozen, Dormant, Vital (24/30)
Not under the weather, I'm along for it's ride
low when it's lifeless, bright when it shines
& leave it to me to live in extremes
frozen from Hudson to James Bay
dormant the long Bitterroot winter
& home is a place now, precise
vital only in the abiding sun
an uncompromise
a one of one
-
A. Wylde
April 27th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 24/30
Personals (23/30)
Existentialist
seeking idealist for swap
willing to split dread
-
A. Wylde
April 26th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 23/30
Arriving with the Arrival (22/30)
What a gift to have been in the Spring
Waking bleary-eyed in bloom
Rising from the deep dark alongside the blossoms
and every year, beginning again at the beginning
New when all of life is renewed
Wide-eyed, eager, once again a child
Reborn in the present, stretching new limbs,
All of nature in infancy, in tune
arriving with the arrival
-
A. Wylde
April 23rd, 2024
NaPoWriMo 22/30
that Spring (21/30)
My gentle dog turned thirteen that Spring,
I'd listen extra carefully to his exhales as he'd doze;
holding onto him, memorizing what I still held
we sat yearning by the sea on pebble beaches
skipping stones, a day's drive from anywhere we'd ever been
you pronouncing that word like it rhymes with between
me writing strings of word and phrase to amuse you
picking wild camas for the coffee table,
I stitched a patch into each armpit of your favorite shirt
It was the year Thetis lake had that big algae bloom
the year we laid the bedrock that became the path
that marked the way, that led us here
and we were young, wandering, wild
even as we were bathed in bewilderment at the ferocity of it all
I knew enough to hold him closer, listen closer to his sighs
knew enough to leave worries unstirred, admire instead
I didn't know how, but knew I'd get here,
a single stem of skullcap illuminating my morning
peaceful, still, reflecting on that Spring
my gentle dog turned thirteen
-
A. Wylde
April 20th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 21/30
A Lover, a hue (20/30)
Golden, paring back the edge to see if it's only a leaf, and you're pure all the way to the center; maybe most wouldn't recognize such a precious metal, unrefined
Perhaps eggshell, a silence in your strength, backlit by sunlight, crystalline warms the room; fragile, yes, tender but staunch, as if any moment you'll disembark
Daffodil, such a brilliance, not unaware of, but unmoved by the darkness; as though your morning birthright is the bright eye full of radiant shine, you will it
-
A. Wylde
April 20th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 20/30
Lunacy (19/30)
Whatever your torment, however you bleed
if you bellow, wail, curse or threaten
whatever toxin your anger engenders
whatever demon takes root in your gut
whatever your torment, however you bleed
you cannot aggrieve the fair moon
-
A. Wylde
April 20th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 19/30
A Soundtrack (18/30)
There are two copies of my favorite CD, the
byproduct of my parents mixing their collections
just like me
I put them next to each other in the 5-CD changer,
an early effort at the circles, repetition I will come to need
when I read scary stories of horrors that happen to
other little girls I
picture them in that little back bedroom here, I
don't know why I do that
I love green beans and hate the taste of antibiotics,
and I keep getting sick, keep needing
the pale pink, disagreeable
I drag my stuffed rabbit by one ear up the three stairs
split-level, divided, a place I only go back in dark dreams
I open the door, my rabbit still in tow, looking out
at the lawn where I guess
all the pictures would eventually be laid to rest
thrown in spite, melted snow, ruined, lost
I don't remember much, but I do feel it
I remember two copies of my favorite CD in the 5-CD changer
playing back to back, a soundtrack
and when that player eventually swallowed both copies,
scratched them irreparable, swallowed my safety
I don't remember much, but I do feel it
a belly full of horrors,
a terrible, terrible unease
-
A. Wylde
April 18th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 18/30
What comes next (17/30)
In the absence of a plumbers fair wage,
I found a bucket to sit underneath
catching the drops like silent stifled tears
as they runoff from the overflow of my sink
We only notice the magic of plumbing when there is a leak
only notice it again when the bucket is full,
it too overflowing under the weight, unnoticed
as our grief
There are not enough hours in my lilac year,
or years in my lavender life
to pull petals for all the fallen stars we collectively
count from dark skies
Our cries,
our pleading,
our "it doesn't have
to be like this,"
each a single drop
Our whole, unholy loss
Every classroom an enclosure of untamed rage
every bathroom a battlefield, and
our children are so tired
they need rest
We fire and howl for them, our challengers towering
stand few but unyielding on imposing steps,
each of us with a bucket under the sink at home
and another one, here, in our chests,
and I don't know, I don't know!
It hurts and I don't know
what is next
all I know is we were too late
for Nex
-
A. Wylde
April 17th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 17/30 (on death of Nex Benedict 2024)
Supposing (16/30)
Supposing we were both on this plane, the astral mystery of being
supposing it was just us, too, and that's all we both knew
supposing it was daylight, twilight, our eyes playing tricks
supposing yesterday was over, forever, and tomorrow was promising
supposing we opened our eyes again, miraculous
supposing there was nothing stopping us to note
supposing, maybe, that we were wholly ourselves and entirely free
supposing all of that, would you linger on my kiss every morning?
supposing our lives were long, uninhibited, resilient
supposing we'd win and we'd lose, would you share it all?
supposing you picked today, and again tomorrow, and each morning, knowing today what you know and
supposing it was all true,
supposing it was,
supposing it was all true, would you?
-
A. Wylde
April 14th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 16/30 (Day Fourteen Prompt)
Letter to a Lover (15/30)
Tongue still tasting tartly of the postage stamp,
the tiny envelope now sealed, smeared, partly damp
west coast rainy season wrapping us in petrichor, earthy
the soft bubble of the kettle promising warmth, mercy
a hope the size of a pebble in my throat, notes to savor
it's the unruly notion, the untamed hope, forbidden flavors
if truly my intentions were laid bare, I'd be already offshore
I'm the playwright at the gunfight, no knife, I came to explore
sneaking out to the mailbox, lest I lose my own right to choose
small stones underfoot, she'll smell the rain on me, confused
could I return to the corporate, the stale, the empty?
could I unpaint my self-portrait, regress, rescind?
I watch her, spoon in the mixture, stirring the batter
the post man stops by, and she knows somehow
I watch her body with the knowledge
watch her, shatter
-
A. Wylde
April 14th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 15/30 (Day Thirteen Prompt)
On chances (14/30)
tell me your stars while I spin my thoughts swirling
I can keep a secret if I try and you,
your choice is cast in Sterling
locket around your neck is a token, a tale
you know where I know you belong
break their hearts while I kill all my darlings
you can forge a dawn if you dare and I,
I have an affinity for startings
scars all across my chest are trial, warning
I know what you know I possess
cut the tube, silver dressing, intervening
it's Spring now, but your heart's in July
pull the rug, touch the sky, screaming!
trace faith, stretch your wings, we can fly
we know what we know, you and I
-
A. Wylde
April 14th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 14/30
The gaping (13/30)
There are two kinds of healing at least
one in which you heal around the foreign object
grow back skin where previously there was only flesh
a healing in contact with the source of your pain
a piercing
the formation of something new entirely
wrapped together and indistinguishable from
something that used to be some other way
The other is the gaping, you know it well
the gaping
the absolute horror, cover your children's eyes
a vacancy left behind by a pain you're quite accustomed to
the way the edges don't just ache for the blade
but beg, eery screams audible from miles away
the gaping
the endless fingertips tracing empty ragged walls
Drowning in the sounds made by the gaping, I'm tempted
to run to the edge of forever, the wishing for forevers
fighting instinct, the more I am willing to stand at
the gaping edge
the more tenderly I view the wound
the more I recognize in myself the tear
and the longer I can bear the gaping
the more clearly I can see
the gap
Taste of importance, not in seeking
always to press fingerprints to the bleeding
hoping the skin will regrow
hoping beyond hope that this becomes new
the flavor of wisdom instead is
in noticing what this, particular
healing needs
precise, attentive concern
not a rightness, a prescription, a comparison
an allowance, tension softened,
a surrender
a release
-
A. Wylde
April 14th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 13/30
Out there (12/30)
Slow, patient and rhythmic
even predictable
but don't act too small
not small enough to become
encircled
Leave the crumbs, don't
bother to run
but don't stray too far
there's nothing else
out there
Quick, agile and fearless
even foolhardy
but try, you can try again
never a feast without
the hunting
Let them tire, don't
covet the chase
but do more than evade
there's something more
out there
-
A. Wylde
April 12th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 12/30
Ode to my old sweatshirt (11/30)
Vividly, even recklessly you dazzle
the bees would think you Meadowsweet
you sketch and render, portray me in soft light
engender a memory of me steady, complete
And I enjoy you so gingerly, but often
you hold me as your edges unravel
and even as I love you, so do I break you down
it's a mortal path we jointly travel
There, a scrape in your benevolent elbow, and
what a mighty brave face for me you wear
I'll spent my Saturdays darning on the loom
your comfort teaches me the tools for repair
And in your effervescence I am seen, even known
a character beloved, whose old sweater characterizes
paint me a Dahlia, Azalea; your keen glow
even the sullen storm cloud in me it well disguises
We both know this won't last forever, and yet
we cling to Loving Spring anew together again
making promises we can't bear to keep
smarting at impermanence, mending fraying ends
-
A. Wylde
April 12th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 11/30
Unaware (10/30)
I take something from the pulling, yearning
revel in the tacitly moving toward
and unaware, you cannot reciprocate
But you’re no longer
unaware
-
A. Wylde
April 10th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 10/30
Small and fragile things (09/30)
Bitter black sips with Sara, 35 years my senior,
she tells me about the building she bought
back in Winnipeg in the 80s
five lesbians in an old fire station, selling tickets to dances
every weekend to make the rent
and years later on the island, volunteering in the women's book store,
the titles were so many she'd never seen
how Never Again means handwritten letters to her representatives
even now, a single handwritten letter
is worth 1,000 emails, she tells me
and maybe I will write her letters now, grateful
to meet one who helped pave my way
Foamy cappuccino in the capital, stories from the homeland
it's all mother tongue, bachata, the price of flour and rum
my grandmother, hands with the same knots as mine,
veins and tendons raised to the touch, and mine
are still taking their time
she tells me how she left, alone at seventeen
in the middle of her engineering exam, just stopped,
just picked up, just left to become free
and how she sees that same searching,
that same seeking, needing
the freedom
leading me
Water on the sidewalk outside of the bar
the university students are in line still trying to get in,
I meet young Ayla, her confidence reminds me
of the version of myself that hadn't yet been told
what to cut out to be allowed to fit in
she studies music and climate science, remarks on the unlikely pair
but I see it, I see how they mesh
both ripping at the edges to make another living thing hold their
truth, purpose, both begging for reality
to be allowed in through the cracks underneath the door
we don't recognize each other, don't need to
and in a way that's the liberation
Decaf only these days, Alvin gives me a funny look when I
ask for it in the morning at the donut shop
We ride in the truck he's maybe driven all his life, and it looks it
He looks at me funny when I order the non-alcoholic beer at the bar, too, but he still tells me how he spent his son's 21st birthday with him in a helicopter in Las Vegas
Tells me about the advice he gave his young niece at her grandparents house,
that someone who doesn't like her is none of her business,
and not her problem
and I have a niece now, too
I am here and alive, my two feet on the ground
I am breathing the same air as these strange and miraculous beings
sharing these moments, so tender and brief
I am me, with all my own stories, and many to write
I am me, I have a niece
and aren’t we all such small,
and fragile things
-
A. Wylde
April 10th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 09/30
Harmony (08/30)
You're written into the surface of my insides
like so many lines cut into the records we loved
like so many lines scrawled onto napkins and into pocketbooks
such that each note enters and reverberates down
I used to resonate like crystal under your fingertips
you made me hate the sensation
even as you taught me how to feel it
I'm expanded, the final layer of packaging peeled away
what's left is raw, exposed like fresh skin under a healing tear
my universe amplified in strings, in tones and syllables
I learned to find the sound of you anywhere,
I'd hear your song so long after you'd gone
you made me soundproof, stonemason
even as your emptiness rang out
I suppose I expected the stone wall to be permanent
let rest for decades, never once glanced back
and I didn't have time to start noticing the cracks
only one day I did notice--a subtle melody in the air
memory, where suddenly there was a peephole
eyes pressed stoic to the cold grey
even as you were there, peeping back
I tried to lose you by losing the parts of me you'd seen
forgetting all the self I discovered with your help
as though the way you ripped from me took
with you everything attached
I tried keeping you out, burning you down
it worked silently for so long, until something I didn't
notice I'd long been missing stood peeping
lyrics in whispers, creeping back in
So I put my fingers into that tiny space,
pulled out the rubble I could, inhaled deep,
held the smell in my lungs, felt how it found its place at once
came back with power tools, you and I each removing
pebbles, notes, rocks, boulders and sounds from our sides
and what I heard was a score for the life I had grown into
and what I saw in the doorway was something I knew
something I didn't know how to hold, or to want, or to need
but it was something that had to be freed
-
A. Wylde
April 9th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 08/30
The child, the stream, and the Great Plains (07/30)
Serenity, to the quiet child
is waking slowly to Sunday morning song
golden rays streaming in the window
country music and cleaning sounds
swimming in softly under the door, wrapped snug
Serenity, to the stream
is triumphant; trickling onward and back unto
tiny oxbows wriggling into lakes their own
an eternity of design, manifesting
in the simple downward movement of all things
Serenity, to the great plains
is summers exploding into sunflowers
to calm the long, windy winter chill
chirping, crickets, the way that life crawls anew
from every warm hollow, for another chance at being
-
A. Wylde
NaPoWriMo 07/10 (Day Five Prompt)
April 7th, 2024
Under the current (06/30)
Under the current
of the unremitting quest
a whisper for less
-
A. Wylde
April 6th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 06/30
before I leap (05/30)
If it's ever truly too much,
I suspect you won't know where to find me
there's nothing more important in the overwhelm
than making sure the fires takes the house
I don't know how to hold it all, in front of you
but I know how to silently slip out the open back door
If it's ever truly more than I can take,
it feels so obvious to dematerialize,
leave nothing behind me
And even when my mind is catastrophizing,
dreaming up the end of times,
the disappearing act,
somewhere, caught in my throat
crouched in the faceless woodland
I try to swallow to knowledge
of you missing me and I
look, just once,
before I leap
-
A. Wylde
April 5th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 05/30
Misconception (04/30)
Maybe the misconception is that I was ever meek
and the deeper root is that the meekness is ideal
it's as though this fragmented version of me,
underwater, overwhelmed,
is the closest I ever came to
measuring up
There is something tantalizing about the brokenness
about seeing all the pieces, each so individually small
and feeling like they can all just... fit into your pocket
sharp edges fodder for the sculpture
taking any shape you suggest
and maybe the misconception
is that I have ever been anyone
you'd recognize
whole
-
A. Wylde
April 4th, 2024
NaPoWriMo 04/30
Raincoast (03/30)
We walk along the raincoast, wet but warm
a moment stretches out before us so slow, sweet
and we sing songs still trying to become
you draw my eye to the way a yellow cedar's tendrilled fingers catch the sun
another tiny technicolor pinprick ruptures, then erupts
I gesture to the squirrels circling in play nearby
so sweet and clear
I count the rainbows giggling alongside cascading wisps of evaporating dew
and inside my darkest room,
through the newest pinprick, a peephole
I see the beauty of the world
including me
as seen by you
-
A. Wylde
April 3rd, 2024
NaPoWriMo 03/30
Alterations (02/30)
A stitch in time saves nine,
and often nary a stitch will do
dawdling, dragging, tedious is the weaving
thin red threads of our fate
in and out, in again, and out again again,
steadfast, resolute
so goes the repair
What’s left is neither old nor new
but changed
and it’s in the observable bits that we learn to be reminded
in the same way you can still see the healing,
but can’t still see the wound
every needlepoint a singular pang,
the torture of being changed
And when a stranger asks uncouth, tilts jaw to point and jeer
we won’t belabor our vices, demystify,
undress our snags, provoked
only tip the corners of our mouths in quiet acquiescence,
nodding gently; hear tell
we prefer the alterations
freed from flawless,
we get to be real
-
A. Wylde
April 2nd, 2024
NaPoWriMo 02/30
If you're tired, dear one (01/30)
When your eyelids fill with twilight, the afternoon a song
when your mind-machine won't run the program any longer
let them flicker closed in a supple dreamy peace;
If you're tired, dear one, you can sleep
If the motor in your sacrum gets to whirring unannounced,
if the chariot of your body calls for endings unforeseen
let it fire up and run you, any path that you please;
If you're over it, dear one, you can leave
Should you feel the water rise, hear the rumblings at the dam
should you chance upon the sate or the undue
let discomfort be a pilot, let it lead you to the aches;
If you're finished, dear one, you can break
-
A. Wylde
April 1st, 2024
NaPoWriMo 01/30