Elemental

Napowrimo #17: something elemental. Let’s be elemental. Fire, earth, water, wind. They touch our lives every day. Choose one that interests you, then take a point of view that is not so much your usual. Observe what interaction you’ve known, or not known, with this element. You might make it personal or take the element’s point of view (how might humans appear to you from that stance?) or wander where you may. Tell us something about your element that we don’t know. Read Write Poem prompt here.

The blind dissonance of fire and ice,
mysteries we meet with throw of dice.

Plumes of ash mushrooming alight,
high winds whooshing with Icelandic

might a miasmic cloud, loft engines
hung by grit, aerial rock particles adrift.

Terra firma cracked across Eastern plain,
a crush of rubble, a pall on ashy faces.

The terrible fire turning ice into flood,
Freezing cold above a river of blood.

Fire, earth, wind, water a day collided,
Earth smashed its fist, the world cried.

Elemental wrath in a blink of amen,
subsiding plates continue mayhem.

Process notes: The world woke up to two calamities in a day, on 15 April 2010. A volcano in Iceland erupted and caused a cloud of volcanic ash to drift towards Northern Europe, resulting in massive cancelled flights. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Qinghai, a Western Chinese province, in Yushu County near Qighai’s border with Sichuan Province and Tibet (populated mainly by ethnic Tibetans), killing more than 1300. Rescue and carnage continues today, hampered by high winds, sleet and freezing cold.

tsunami & sea monster

I was talking to a geologist in the pantry yesterday. He’s going up to Sumatra, he tells me. “You’re going to dig up more corals?” I asked. “Yup, more corals have uplifted, so yea, we’re going to check them out,” he said. There was a 7.7 magnitude earthquake last Tuesday, that hit North Sumatra (Simeulue Island). No casualties, some injuries. (Also the day, 6 April 2010, that a 7.2 magnitude quake was felt from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to Tijuana.)

Scientists researching coral microatolls off the coast of Sumatra have inferred details of past earthquakes along the Sunda megathrust under the Indian Ocean that has caused a series of earthquakes. They’re predicting the next big one as huge as the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami will hit in the lifetime of grandchildren of the coastal communities living in North Sumatra. That last big one took 226,000 lives in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries. It was triggered by a 9.2 magnitude Indian Ocean earthquake. It pretty much took everyone by surprise.

Pause.

When formlessness–flotsam of parts floating through a city road by a tidal wave–overwhelms us, we step into myth. We need a narrative, a story to anchor us. Form is what we need. We write about sea monsters. It doesn’t even matter if what we believe is in fact real. We are creating form. All art is form. Music is the purest form. It is all feeling. Feelings are the realest things we have. Feelings as well as believing in something.

the gentle sea monster warns

Napowrimo #12: secret codes. Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal. Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem. Read Write Poem prompt here.

I’m the gentle sea monster,
stirring from ocean deep,
my brackish breath

powerful. Surf waves, slow
a coming tide. Mortals, you knew
my rapid fury decimating

whole cities. I swallow
everything –trees, houses, cars,
bodies, upended sticks of sorrow.

Seaside mortals, you pray.
You’ve accepted, all has been
foretold, all hell breaks loose.