Tag Archives: Two Sylvias Press

NaPoWriMo 2018 Two Sylvias Press prompt for April 5

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Running behind yesterday, so for today the April 5 prompt, which was to start with a personal issue or problem and relate that in some way to nature. I remember fields in Italy in August, masses and masses of sunflowers, and the way they turn always to face the sun.

Winter Imagines Spring

 

Each day the air leaches moisture
draws deeper lines into my face,
the left cheek mapped in dark
spots like small brown
lakes, dry as desert sand.

I imagine a farmer’s field gone
to seed in autumn, all brown
branches and faded flowers—
summer’s beauty just a memory
their petals ground to dust.

Yet, come Spring, see
how the streams freshen. Snow
melt-water cascades
down mountains, pools
in the dry lake beds, the fields
turn green with seedlings, their
faded blooms cast off as new ones
form their tiny buds.

By August, the field is alive again
with yellow petals and dark centres
of each sunflower as it turns
its head with the hours
to catch the sun.

from wikimedia commons under creative commons licence 2.0 Maremma Toscana Date 25 June 2005, 10:57 Source Maremma Toscana Author Giovanni from Firenze, Italy

Carol A. Stephen, poem for April 5, 2018

NaPoWriMo April 3 2018 Two Sylvias Press Challenge

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Today’s Two Sylvias Prompt calls for various things to appear in the poem including a well known college, an old typewriter, a vintage album. And a few more items. Here’s my attempt.

 

April 3. In a few days, I’ll be seventy-one.

 

Still a poet in a small Ontario town.
I remember my first poem written
on a green Olivetti, circa 1960,
(the same kind Leonard Cohen used)
long before typing lessons on an IBM Selectric
with its blank keys and cranky hum.

The Olivetti travelled with me when
I went to U of T, sat centred on my desk
near the radio, blaring tunes from
Rubber Soul, or R&B from Otis Redding.

As I studied I fingered a half-heart on
a chain around my neck, the other half
kept by my steady guy.
As each memory flickers past,

I glance outside, eyes light on the second
spring robin, perched on a speed limit sign across
the street, 40 km limit. No-one pays attention
to the bird or the sign.

A man down the street wields a claw
hammer, forces a For Sale sign
into the still-frozen ground.
A sure sign it must be spring.

Carol A Stephen April 3, 2018

NaPoWriMo 2018 April 2, 2018 Two Sylvias

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As well as the NaPoWriMo.net challenge, I am also following one from Two Sylvias Press.  The prompt for April 2, is to write about superstition, existing or made-up. Here is my attempt for the day;

Cross Your Heart, and Circle Left Three Times Around

  

Very superstitious writings on the wall*
Fear of things that aren’t there at all

what will happen one day if
your ducks aren’t in their row?

The devil works your idle hands
each time you type those words

you bless yourself with spellcheck
(it really is absurd)

the way you step along the path
and over every tiny crack

It isn’t broken backs you fear
it’s unprovoked attack

from Twitterverse and
Facebook page, the endless stream

of his outrage, the Mad King’s smile
on his orange face, the nearness

of his tiny fingers
to that red button.

Carol A. Stephen
April 2 2018

 

*first line from Stevie Wonder’s Superstition