NaPoWriMo #24 – In Vain / Daddy’s Girl

This is my twenty-fourth post for National Poetry Month 2010
• one free verse poem
• one tanka


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• This poem that follows is inspired by Marie Gauthier’s NaPoWriMo day 23 prompt at readwritepoem to find and use a colloquial phrase — and by the current frustration I am feeling trying to deliver on my promise of at least 1 poem a day for 30 days. This day I am blank – my muse is being quite difficult. So for inspiration I looked to a poem I’d written 3 years back about just such a situation of writer’s block. I wrote this new poem from those 3-year-old bones, sparked additionally by Robert Lee Brewer’s NaPoWriMo day 23 prompt at Poetic Asides: exhaustion.

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In Vain

•

the virginal glare
of the backlit void
taunts me

the tiny pulsing cursor
throbs like a migraine
in the blank white field

untouched
ignored
impatient

no burden of remorse
no weight of mystery
does it bear

no sting of anger
no wink of mirth
to reflect

nothing sensual
or sensitive
to share

no coin of phrase to save

just empty screen
tormenting nothingness
30 in 30
pressing down

dissonance spills through my open window

the scatter of rain
stir of wind
rustle of wet leaves

muffled keens
bursts of barks
distant yelps

the edgy din
of dripping
prowling
april night
intrudes in damp insistence
to fill my head
and leave not one small space
for wit
or insight

all in vain

there is no spark

in this soggy midnight
left high and dry
no muse in sight
only exhaustion

nothing clever
or profound
in the air this night

chilled
slack

uninspired

• • •

 

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Daddy’s Girl

•

shy knock at front door

lovely daughter descends stairs

who is this brash boy

shake his hand or run him off

daddy’s decision is tough

• • •


• poem and tanka by: rob kistner © 2010


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…see what other coin of phrase you might find at readwritepoem

5 thoughts on “NaPoWriMo #24 – In Vain / Daddy’s Girl

  1. Not bad for writers block, not bad at all…
    Daytime where I am, so no dental nightmares for me… just yet. I Hate dental surgeries.
    Whatever daughter wants – daughter gets… ‘My sub-machine gun is bigger than your shotgun’.

  2. Oh that blank screen with its winking “I”… it is evil isn’t it? But I’d say you turned the tables on it.

    As for the tanka, that’s the chief reason I salute fathers of daughters, and thank the heavens I have sons.

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