What is more important than poetry?

As usual, I started NaPoWriMo with a firm conviction that I would write a poem daily in the month of April. I believed that there was nothing standing between myself and success. As usual, I did pretty well in the first half of the month, then crashed in the third week. I tried to get back on track, made a decent effort, then was asked to speak for the local chapter of Extinction Rebellion to a group who would be gathering in advance of Earth Day. Surely I was not the best person to speak, as I have a long history of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, or not saying the important thing at the right time. But XR is a very small group here, and nobody wanted to do it any more than I did, or was particularly better positioned for it, so I said yes. Kyle Gray’s Shapeshifter card told me to transform and unveil my previously unknown gifts. It would take me some time to hone my message and practice it so that I could deliver it in the short time allotted without mucking it up. As I wrote and rewrote, I thought about how I could have been writing poetry instead, but decided that speaking for the Earth is more important. Or rather, that there is no poetry without the Earth. The Earth is poetry, just as I am, and I am the Earth. So (compared to that) it is not audacious to say that this little thing I wrote counts as my poem for a day.

I’m Rachel Creager Ireland, with Extinction Rebellion Austin. You can find us at xraustin.org. I want to thank everyone for being here, because I know there are so many forces both internal and external telling us just stay home, don’t speak up, don’t speak out, go to school, take care of your family, get a job (I have 2)—but if you’re an activist for the earth, get used to people telling you to get a job. It’s like people can’t conceive that a person could work for the earth and be gainfully employed at the same time. 

But I think that’s because we compartmentalize so much. We build these walls in our minds, in our lives, to keep some part safe. Because climate change is terrifying. The problems are so much bigger than we can even imagine. We don’t know how to live without fossil fuels. How can we be human in the face of this crisis? Sometimes we need to compartmentalize just so we can function from day to day. But, similar to an addiction, there’s a point at which the coping mechanism becomes the disease. All this compartmentalization allows us to forget how inseparably connected we are with the earth, with each other, and that what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. Every strip mine, toxic waste dump, clear cut forest, and oil spill is a wound that we all suffer deeply, whether we allow ourselves to be aware of it or not. 

We begin to heal when we recognize our oneness with the earth and every living creature.

You might be wondering why I’m saying these things here at the Texas capitol, now. The reason is that those people who spend their days in that building are suffering from the same wound, the same disease of compartmentalization. And all the lies they will tell us about the immutable laws of economics, and “human nature,” were told to them once, too. And don’t get me wrong, as a healer myself I know full well that you can’t heal a person who doesn’t want it. We can only meet the wound with presence and compassion and empathy. So our job is simply to ask them to recognize their connection with us and the earth. Stop pretending that they don’t know that the climate is changing, stop trying to suck a little more profit out of the current system as it collapses. Stop making excuses for continuing to prop up, fund, and profit from the fossil fuel industry. Some of those people are very committed to building and maintaining walls. But I think you and I know that on this unsustainable path we are on, the walls are going to come down sooner or later, one way or another. It might not be too late to do it the difficult and painful way now, or we can do it the devastating, catastrophic, heartbreaking way later. 

So that is why I’m so grateful for all of you who are here, facing the truth, bucking the tendency to go on about our personal lives as if we’re not in the middle of the biggest die-off since the dinosaurs. Thank you for staying present, for showing up, even though we don’t know all the answers. 

Thank you.

Last, I’d like us all to affirm our connection to the earth by kneeling down and touching the ground. Concrete is fine, energy can move through it, but touch it with your hand, your skin. Take a couple deep breaths and feel the energy flowing through you. This is our source. Every minute of our lives we are bathed in the earth’s giant electromagnetic field. We don’t actually know that we can live (for more than a few months) apart from the earth. Let us be in that truth in gratitude. I’ll start a chant, from Peace Poets, and when you’re ready to rise up, join in.

The people gonna rise like water, gonna face this crisis down.I hear the voice of my great granddaughter, saying keep it in the ground.

Screenshot

NaPo 24 Day 13: Face Time

Missed a couple days and went off-theme, that’s the way art is, you can’t control it.

Face Time

The ceiling fan is like a dangerous halo
behind him and the sounds echo and shift phase
between the living room and the dining room
as he bangs on the piano and sings
about looking for the eldest, who finally answers
from Budapest which is the most beautiful city
they’ve ever seen. City of caves and hot springs
and ancient edifices unlike any in Texas.
He moves to the car with the younger,
we lose connection but the eldest calls back.
I say, don’t go to any private parties. He says
he has a particular set of skills, but none
that could save a young person in Europe.
He could preach a sermon to the kidnappers,
the younger pipes in, her bottle-blonde hair
blowing in the sunroof and we laugh
and they’re gone and I’m alone
with the roses and poetry, the laptop
and books and phone, and my thoughts.

NaPo 24 Day 9: The Law of Eight Beasts

I’m still keeping up with National/Global Poetry Writing Month, though I haven’t taken the time to post a poem every day. Here’s today’s installment of my series on the fantasy world of par-King Laat.

In the lore of the herders, this story is told:

In another world, much like par-King Laat,
but known as Heob, there was a herder
who was strong and worked hard. It was
the time before the Law of Eight Beasts.
Herders were free to lead as many beasts
as they wished. And this herder, whose name
has been lost to history, pulled many beasts
all at once. They stretched the lead to its full length,
and pulled it behind their back, to get more length
through the arm. Sometimes they even used
the forbidden double lead, to pull two lines of beasts
at once. And this was how herders worked,
and there was no conflict for many years.
But one day, while pulling a long line, maybe twenty,
maybe fifty beasts at once, the Unknown Herder
lost control of the beasts, and they broke free
from the lead, scattering in all directions.
Several of the panicked beasts ran right into a veehgal,
causing grave injuries. It had unsightly bruises,
deep scratches, broken teeth . . .
How badly can a beast hurt a veehgal? Well, it was
of the Tasliah breed, which we all know
are among the most proud and annoying, so
it wouldn’t take much to infuriate the veehgal,
and in turn alarm all the High Mages. And after that,
the High Mages and the Lords of Ensrance,
who rule even the High Mages of every land,
all decided that there would never again be
a line of beasts longer than eight.
And that is how we work, to this day.

NaPo 24 Day 5: The Tree

The Tree

Between pulling lines of beasts, the herders
would gather at a central location, under
a certain tree in the realm of Mid. It was
a wide old tree, with high branches that
gifted cool shade to the dusty herders.
No one wondered why this was
the only tree under which they gathered;
and they called it simply The Tree.
They would place trinkets in the thick,
cracked bark of The Tree, little things
they found in their travels. A piece of ribbon
or a clip to tie up a child’s hair. A doll
styled as an old woman. Pieces of parts
of unknown machines that had been broken
and discarded. A rectangular red object
of unidentified material, comprised of
smaller interlocking rectangles, whose purpose
could only be guessed. Tablets inscribed
with the names of former herders who had moved on:
Krolan, Meelan, Raadni, D’rek, and others.
The herders would place these things
in The Tree, and as they did so the objects
became talismans against demons. The ribbons
would bind demons so that they could not
afflict people. The figure of the old woman
became an icon of a grandmother, and every herder
had a secret name for her, usually their own
grandmother’s name. Because demons too had
grandmothers, they must obey her admonishments
not to bother others. The red piece became
a trap that would lead a demon in endless
mental traversing of its angles, never
to find a way out. And so on.
Perhaps it was from the magic of The Tree,
or from the various objects, or in the act of
placing them, no one knew, but they loved
The Tree and their impromptu altar. This continued
until the Elder Nhojthedik came
and removed all the talismans. He did this
because the demons told him to, and
he always did exactly what demons
told him to do.

NaPo 24 Day 3: Demons

Today’s poem actually approaches the prompt, which is for a surreal prose poem. This one isn’t prose at present, but might be better that way. I’ll play with it at some point, but here how it is today, continuing the series about the imaginary land of par-King Laat.

Demons

The land of par-King Laat was beset by demons.
Everyone was affected, though each thought
himself to be the only one, so they were not
frequently spoken of, rarely acknowledged
to be the demons that they were. And if anyone
had noticed how common demon affliction
was, would they even have wondered how
it came to be so? Probably not. Sometimes
speaking of demons would send them into hiding.
It might appear that they had evaporated like
a puddle on pavement in the sun,
but they never really left. RayChel had a way
of noticing things without saying them.
In this way, she was able to observe
the presence of demons, when others
could not see them. Demons had no form
of their own, but they could be viewed
like an eclipse, in the shapes of the shadows
under a tree. Demons did not reflect light;
however they bent it. Thus one sign of demon
affliction was that a person could not
see their true self in a mirror. Another
was that their thoughts could not flow
directly from one to the next, but broke
into many branches that meandered like a
stagnant stream in low country, breeding ground
for mosquitos too muddy to reflect
the piercing light of the sun or to allow
one to see the treacherous rocks beneath
the surface. Or was it the other way around?
Perhaps demons caused a person to think
too much in unnaturally straight lines, as if
everything were not intertwined interwoven
with everything else. Or maybe both were true,
somehow, at different times?
How would anyone know the difference?
Once demons got in, any thought
a person had might be demonic.

Cedar Sage

Today is day 2 of NaPoWriMo, or National (Global) Poetry Writing Month. (Don’t worry, it is not in any way affiliated with the cancelled NaNoWriMo organization, as far as I can tell.) Yesterday I completely forgot it was that time again, though I did happen to be thinking about writing much of the day, as I was hauling shopping carts around the parking lot of an upscale grocery store where I draw a paycheck. One of the nice things about that job is that it requires a pretty minimal degree of mental work, which leaves plenty of brain space for me to think about poetry. And so my theme for this year is going to be stories about that job, but adapted into a fantasy world.

par-King Laat

In the land of par-King Laat there are seven realms.
Most populous is Mid, with wide, shady avenues
and close proximity to trade routes to every other realm.
Birdsong is heard day and night. The aromas of many foods
waft on the air, sometimes savory, sometimes sweet. The sounds
of music and celebration are carried on the breeze
from the region of Dek. Attendants of the realm linger
under a thick-trunked tree, enjoying clement weather.
The dense population does create challenges:
while there are many receptacles for waste, yet
they are often full to overflowing. To the north of Mid
is the realm of Bak par-King Laat. It can be reached by a path
that follows alongside the cliffs of Waxx.
Bak par-King Laat is less frequented than Mid,
and travelers are warned not to tarry there after dark.
East of Mid is the realm known as Portch. Smaller than Mid,
it is a hub through which all trade goods pass. Thus
there is much hustle and bustle, as well as benches where
weary travelers can rest in the light of the evening sun.
To the south, the realm of Faar is a desert wasteland.
Travelers there are warned to know the signs of heat exhaustion,
and to use protection from the scorching sun.
Common wisdom holds that a traveler to Faar might be lost there
for eternity. On the eastern border of Faar is Faar Portch,
a narrow strip that borders a line of cities from Erbyn Matris to Warby Parker.
South beyond Faar, there is another realm
known as Faarkipelago. The rare explorers there
report that it is overall a fair country, but with
a maze of green islands, some with treacherous pits in the center.
Beyond Faarkipelago is a realm known as Hahrt.
Legend tells that Hahrt has a land much like
par-King Laat, but with many levels stacked one
above another. But this is only an unconfirmed rumor.
No one goes there. Thus the seven realms of par-King Laat
are Mid, Bak par-King Laat, Portch, Faar Portch, Faar,
Faarkipelago, and Hahrt.

I’m surprised how much I’m looking forward to this month’s challenge. Who knows if I have 30 days worth of material for this project, or what chance I have of actually writing even half of the days this month. We will find out.

But what about cedar sage? I frittered away so much of the day that I didn’t want to take the time to post a poem. (Have you ever tried to format a poem in WordPress? You have to <gasp> use html code!) I have a child waiting for dinner. I still haven’t done my taxes. So I was going to, instead, make a quick post of this flower that volunteered on my patio. I had thought it was some kind agonizingly slow-growing mallow, but this third spring I’ve been here, it made these striking red blooms, announcing itself to be nothing like mallow, but rather Salvia roemeriana, ie, cedar sage. But then I got so excited about the poem that I posted it anyway.

Happy spring, friends, and happy NaPoWriMo.

NaPo Day 19, Volcanoes

I missed two days because I was busy and tired, and when I sat down to write, I found my sixth chakra shut tight as a sphincter. (That means I didn’t have any creative . . . flow . . . ) So today I was committed to doing whatever it took to . . . squeeze out a poem. I decided to ask one of those trendy chatbots how to write a poem, and it gave me a detailed and very analytical list of steps. “1. Choose a topic or theme. . . . 2. Choose a poetic form . . . 3. Brainstorm ideas . . . 4. Organize your thoughts . . .” Hm. Really? This is not how I work.

So I went to the NaPoWriMo blog and looked at the prompt for today, which turned out to be, essentially, write about a childhood fear. Let’s see. I remember being afraid of volcanoes. Okay. Here goes.

Irrational Fear

In the middle of Kansas,
I was afraid of volcanoes.
(If it were rational, it wouldn’t
be an irrational fear—) Wouldn’t
haunt me as I lay in the dark
calling silently for the respite
of sleep. The orange glow,
the melting concrete, riding
my bike away at top speed
but the flow is always behind,
always coming closer.
I didn’t yet know that fear
is a fractal, the closer
you look at it, the more details
appear. It feeds
on your attention,
grows, takes, comes for more
and keeps coming, like
lava oozing endlessly
from below.

So this poem is nothing to be proud of, it’s actually so bad that I don’t honestly know why I’m posting it. It would take a lot of work to make it good, and I even did a little when I was entering it for this post. So in my disgust I decided to try something a reader did last week, which was to direct a chatbot to write a poem in the style of a particular writer. This poem is so bad, a bot could probably write something better. I boldly decided to use my own poems as the seed. “Write a poem about volcanoes in the style of Rachel Creager Ireland.”

Let’s note right here that when I set up my chatbot account, it managed to dig up a profile pic of me that appears in my Gravatar profile, which is directly linked to my blogs. So I know if our friend Chatty actually wanted to read any of my poetry, they could have. But do you think this poem displays any knowledge of the style of Rachel Creager Ireland?

Volcanoes’ power in poetry

From deep within the earth’s hot core,
Volcanoes rise, their fury to pour.
Their molten lava and fiery ash,
Devouring all, in a fiery flash.

Their power immense, their might so strong,
Volcanoes erupt, with a deafening song.
Their rumbling growls, a warning to heed,
As they unleash their explosive need.

In the midst of destruction, new life is born,
As ash and lava, transform and adorn.
The earth is renewed, by the volcano’s blast,
A cycle of destruction, that will always last.

Oh, volcanoes, majestic and grand,
A force of nature, that we can’t understand.
But in your presence, we stand in awe,
As you remind us, of nature’s raw power.

This is so much worse than any poem I’ve written since middle school. I’m not going to waste my time explaining why I think so, you can draw your own conclusions. Suffice to say I’m not worried about being replaced by a bot any time soon, as a massage therapist or, even, as a mediocre poet.

Here’s a cat pic to make up for showing you the awful poetry.

NaPo Day 15 No Name Needed

This is pretty rough but I’m off to work and I wanted to throw this one up, for once, on the day the prompt was issued. So here it is, about . . . an imaginary person . . . who is powerful and purported to be admirable. Any resemblance to any real person is purely coincidental.

[untitled]
Perhaps his greatest skill
is full utilization of the resources
available, such as the wealth accrued
by mining gems from the earth,
he mines dollars by boring,
harvests children from a series
of remarkable women.
Takes pride in his power
to acquire that which he formerly
could not control, takes pleasure
in expressing his abundant ego
through social media he wields
like a katana. Extracts solutions
to problems by buying and bullying
brainy people, demonstrates the
massive power of denial
by hiding evidence of nothing,
nobody died, stop asking questions
this is one of the most important
men of our time, and will be long
remembered by those who will
colonize ahem extend the borders
of humanity beyond the earth,
like a superhuman paterfamilias
whose fertile plasma sprays
across galaxies, time, and space.

NaPo, Day 10, Voila!

So I’m killing NaPoWriMo this year (so far). Today I used a prompt from the NaPo site, though I took it from a previous day. It has a list of 20 requirements to fulfill, such as invoking every sense, using a declarative sentence that makes no sense, etc. One is to use an example of false cause-effect logic. I don’t know what that is, so I used something that might be it but probably isn’t, in which case it is a false example of false cause-effect logic, or a meta-example of such, which I’m going to say is doing it one better.

Other than that, I more or less I got them all in. Okay, I started out using the instruction rather loosely, and I did the same in other places, not in the right order, so you can see if you can find them all, if you like doing that kind of thing. Enjoy.

Voila!

It was a very large number, 10 feet tall? Maybe 50.
You might even call it a METAFOUR.
I take in the petrichor, the cold tile floor,
crimson gore. That’s Tipper Gore,
in a smarmy red dress with matching shoes,
sashaying up Lake Shore Drive.
Yes, dear, I will get to you momentarily.
That special clink of the pickaxe on iron ore:
it slays (as the kids say), in a picture of a
sad raccoon. Because all raccoons are sad
in daylight, the sleeping raccoon of
confinement tastes horror in her (day)dreams.
Tipper lifts her welding mask and smiles.
“Cricket, I made you a cricket.” I will
hold this in my pointy heart, I will bequeath it
to my progeny with pure verisimilitude.
“Voila, mon cherie!”
murmurs the slumbering raccoon.

NaPo 2023, Day 3, I Am Too

I guess I’m a glutton for punishment, 2 days into NaPoWriMo I decided to quit writing again. Just as soon as I finish this month. Because there is zero potential for this writing thing to go anywhere. I know, I know, it’s not supposed to go anywhere, I’m just supposed to do it because I love it regardless of whether any other person ever reads a goddam word I write. Did Emily Dickinson care if anyone read her poetry? I know if you’re reading this, you’re one of the 5 dear friends who like my poetry. I could just go out for coffee with you and read poetry to you. Which actually sounds like a good idea. I could make a tour of mostly the midwest and drop in on all 5 of my regular readers at Veronica’s Garden and read you my poetry, and we would have a lovely time. And the rest of the world wouldn’t know or care any more or less than they already do.

In any case, every time I decide to quit writing, I immediately know that I can’t. This time it’s simply because it’s NaPoWriMo month. Considering that I have never successfully written a poem every day for a month, you might think that I am actually able to not write. And yet April comes around again and I can’t seem to help myself. Some days. Other days, I can’t get a word down.

Days 1 and 2, I wrote poems that I didn’t particularly care to share. That’s fine, I’ve learned that with daily writing, 75% can be throwaways and I still end up with more good poems than I would any other way. Today I went to the NaPo blog for a prompt. In typical fashion, I didn’t particularly like the prompt, so I chose a similar one that I had used in the past, which I likely found on the same blog, I don’t remember. But the method is to take a poem that you like, and write a response to each line, starting from the end and working to the beginning. My seed poem was “Women Living Alone,” by Stephanie A. Sellers. It is published in the WeMoon 2023 Datebook, a fine publication in which you will also find a wee excerpt of a poem of mine, by the way. “Women Living Alone” is a lovely and inspiring poem which I have now shredded. The result is probably not even worthy to be called poetry, but in a poetically satisfying way it appears to express this weird liminal space that I inhabit, between doing and not doing, being here and not being here, seeking and rejecting, judging and embracing.

I Am Too

I tend to the liminal space between belonging and not
heh heh yeah
which I love, but it has limits
who cares about those asshats
Oh, maybe, maybe not. Here is good too.
And is that really my job?
It does sound delicious . . .
Is there any other choice?
Willl I hear it? Will I know it?
Screw that shit!
Or sleep . . .
Sigh.
Now you’re talking my language. . .
Mmmmm . . .
Ok. I can do it.
Gotcha.
Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo, all around the kitchen!
When the moment is right—
not the path I’m on now—
and I am too.