more napowrimo #1

I'm doing NaPoWriMo too! Second year. I'm hoping it's something I'll continue.

Also, with this poem, I had to look up who Carl Solomon was. He's fascinating and I totally recommend just finding something online about him and reading it. With the poem, I'd definitely like to edit it and maybe expand more. But take a look!

Anyways. Here we go!

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the songs...

Reasons Why - Nickel Creek
October Road - James Taylor
Cal Solomon Blues - Dear and the Headlights
Movie Theme - Beck
Letter to My Son - Bloc Party

the poem:

there are reasons why he never wrote to you,
you have to know that.
why the postman never traveled through some snowy rural town
or down an october road on the east coast,
or wherever he disappeared to,
with a letter in hand.
no, he didn't write, but you have to know
that there were always reasons why
and you never understood
until a few years passed by
and you were older, wanted to be called Cal,
Cal Solomon Blues,
because everything changed when you learned of his death.
You wouldn't admit it, but you knew those blues well
like the familiarity of some movie theme
or that folk song your mother would sing in the kitchen.

after your stay in the institution,
you scrambled through her attic months later,
only hoping to find a box of molding cardboard
in your father's handwriting
labeled: "letters to my son"

NaPoWriMo #1

I am going to try to do NaPoWriMo - http://readwritepoem.org/ - and write a poem a day this month. I might not always follow their prompts. Today's involved incorporating random song titles into a poem. Shuffle gave me:
One Pure Thought - Hot Chip
Nevertheless - Christine Fellows
Destination: Overdrive - Chromeo
Chrissy Kiss The Corpse - Of Montreal
Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand

Here's what I came up with:

Kiss The Corpse

She had given up the idea that one pure thought could save him.
Given up on salvation, resurrection. Instead, she opted for
a tarry mascara halo around each blue eye,
a waxy smear of red on each pursed lip.

Nevertheless, she didn’t do it out of cynicism.
She did it because we are already close to death.
We are each tumbling towards the same destination,
the boy in the coffin just traveled in overdrive.

She couldn’t take him out of the church, where she knew
he wasn’t happy. She couldn’t take him out to that diner
they liked, to the world of spilled strawberry milkshakes
and the blood of rare hamburgers.

She didn’t do it for shock. She did it
because she couldn’t save him.
She left a red smear on his blue lips.