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Yearend Challenge
Today I challenge myself to write 100 poems by midnight 1 Jan 2024. During this challenge, I will forego alcoholic beverages and drink ginger-lemon tea instead. All poems will be blogged and sequentially numbered. Daily poems are expected; numbers deprioritized throughout the week must be made up on weekends. Minigoals: 12/4 20; 12/11 40total; 12/18 60t; 12/25 80t; 1/1/24 100t.
Most poems are expected to be quatorzains, though not required (it merely follows the evidence as my forte).Poem 1
Happiness is such a huge idea,
But what is it, specifically? Is it
An emotion? A mindset? A heart tuned
To the favor of fortune, God, nature,
Or specific higher powers unnamed?
Is it pleasure prolonged? Joy unbridled?
Perhaps merely security ensured?
Such a broad range and deep is happiness.
Joy is much simpler, I think. And as such
More readily attained. What each is worth
Certainly must remain a subjective
Case. How attainable each certainly
Must depend on mindset, for even those
Sorely traumatized have sought and found both.Poem 2
Despair is the dragon. Has it always
Been? In childhood, dragons seemed plentiful
As wasps and spiders – all the scary things
That sting and burn and bite. Now adulthood
Spills in on tides of years and washes clean
The earth of most such fears. But despair, dark
And cunning serpent that it is, curls up
Within the deep shadows of unconscious
Mind, the turbid depths of the heart, and lurks
Await . . . death visits to rob us of dear
Ones, and the beast arises to devour
First our pretty red hearts, then our grieving
Minds, takes hostage confidence and poisons
All . . . how can we slay this dragon within?
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Picking Back Up…
From my apparently unrecoverable blog bitterhermit.wordpress.com
The 1000 poem project was completed some time in 2013. Time to start another challenge. Perhaps a bit less ambitious? My day-job pays the bills, but sucks the soul out of me; I write in fits and starts these days. We’ll start with a hundred-poem challenge and see how that goes.
Top of the Hour
blurry eyed too close to waking
allergy season – not a favorite time of year
coffee calls, and I waft in on its aroma
content in the kitchen to wake slowly
14Sep2023
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challenge poem 39
this may be hard for some to understand;
though it seems, it is not suicidal
ideation: there is sometimes with me
an urge, a strong impulsiveness, to die,
not for the sake of forsaking life, no!
but because curiosity and longing
pull me toward that which comes after life
has gone its course – much, yes, because this life
has shit itself and savagely bitten
my easy heart to morsels, but far more –
so very far more – because I yearn for
understanding beyond this frail flesh we
so brazenly and temporally dwell. see:
it’s undiscovered I seek, and unwritten.dmpitchford 12/24/23
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poem 40
it’s undiscovered I seek, and unwritten;
yet over decades have I learned certain
patience. Life is not forever. O, gods,
no! life is far too temporary! we
are born to trauma and to trauma
ebb and flow – and yet, oh yes, and yet! Life
and wonder and love and joy and pleasure
fill our horizons like gardens, orchards
of plenty between seasons of longing
and days of drought. curses lie heavy on us
what seems eternity, and yet in every breath
a promise of perpetual animation!
could we but hold it in our heart to feel
this perpetual moment . . . makes all life real.dmpitchford 12/24/23
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poem 38
in the fever dream I am time-blind
wandering from confusion to disappointment
is this my reality? I beg
either confirmation or denial
yet none has grace to answer! though judgement
they have in every shade and tenor. what
sentence they pass, I remain unaware
despite the dreamscape changing horizons
from ashen-dead skies to that peculiar tint
of blue true to Kentucky indifference
just before the significant heat or cold
of ice or lava daze. even what follows
too often confused with prescience
to honestly describe as dire consequence.dm pitchford 12/24/23
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Challenge Poem #37 Dico! Ergo sum!
I fucking said it, therefore I fucking am!
I exist because my voice calls out. Shout
that you are! Oh, my people, my loves, my
glorious friends, call out! The stars long for
your song, that sweet timbre of your yawping
scream of life! let no day pass without you
sing to your own soul and that nearest you!
whisper if it please you, but put sweet breath
behind it like your most fervent prayer
because it is! And take into your heart
and lungs the song and breath of those you love
and savor, savor sweet or bitter, each
moment, each breath, each dawn and each midnight,
for death awaits us all every moment.dm pitchford 12/24/23
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Winter Walk: challenge poem #35
must be a dry land
when right as rain means goodI’m a wandering pilgrim
walking wildernesses bright as hell
winter rain feeling wrong as sin
judged by loss and stung by death
stagger through this barren month
fiery as arctic aurorasin search of a new flower
to gift my morning-eyed lover
and salve her shattered heart
where we spread the ashes
of our hearts’ daughter
at the foot of the flood-plain willowdm pitchford 12/23/23
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For C: Challenge Poem 33
at the end of that summer
we went to Chicago
drove up from Springfield
in your olive Ford Probe
stayed at the Carpenter House Hilton
if you’re a poet in Illinois, you told me,
you have to do open-mic at the Green Mill
I did not read, but Mark Smith
left me a great appreciation
for Carl Sandberg, reciting from rote
The Right to Grief
even here, twenty-odd years later
I am reading Chicago Poems
thinking of the Navy Peir
that literary vest I purchased
with the seam taking the space
between ‘pen’ and ‘is’ in the idiom
‘the pen is mightier than the sword’
that morning we left – the walk on Michigan
we woke to What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor
hungover a bit or more until sobered
by the reason traffic was so heavy
down to the British consulate – where
we first saw the headline:
Lady Di Killed in Race with Paparazzi.dm pitchford 12/23/23
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Challenge Poem #22
Connor’s question hit me as a surprise
had no idea the lad was a poet:
“how to mature as a poet?” he asks.
First, says I, you have to prove a poet.
poets have to have grown a unique voice;
until you do that, you’re just a kid playing
with words. from there – assuming you get there –
well, first of all things, you must write. never
look away! write. write more. write of every
thing. write more. and read. read more. read every-
thing. read fiction, prose, essays – all those things
that most interest you, and then least. read works
by the greats, and by those whose names never
you’ve heard. read friends and peers and anonymous
bloggers – and not just what you like! NEVER
look away! write. and then read. read more. read
works that tear your eyeballs out and smear them
across the page as though erasers to vanish
all the secret evidence of your most hidden crimes.dmpitchford 12/9/23
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Jenny: Challenge Poem #21
Jen, I’ve left you. this note – goodbye, adieu
if you need a friend, don’t bother to call
I left your number on the wall, wiped it
from my mind, my heart, my phone and allJen, you have too much love for just one man
as you’ve proved again and again – what can
a man do but give you to the world, Jen?
I left your number on the wall, dropped it
from my mind, my heart, my phone and allnow you’ll be the sun in the sky for any
who take down your number and drop a dime
they’ll turn to you in droves, Jen, call and call
I wrote your number on the wall, wiped it
from my mind, my heart, my phone and all.dmpitchford 12/10/23
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challenge poem #20
No harbor for delusions,
I have only a fly-by-night operation
where all such things
pass throughdmpitchford 12/10/23
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Challenge Poem #19
Too much the peacemaker
she says this in snide tone
as though it were an abomination
she aims for triggers
I no longer host
and so I see the truth
denied all these years
sorry, mum, you don’t get to
hurt me any more
even witches can’t come back
from cremation.dmpitchford 12/10/23
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