A Golden Shovel of Fire
After Pablo Neruda
On my last day, I will be a wild-haired
crone, a shriveled dragon spitting fire.
I will stand on street corners, not jumpy
or cold, in my Goodwill gumboots and
layers of flammable wool, blind
to gawkers, to compromise, to handouts, but
ablaze with a conflagration of couplets to Medicaid, and still studded
with enough reason not to torch the food bank, with
enough pride to look young poets in their mocking eyes,
crackling sassy,
half-remembered sonnets, tardy
but embroiling metaphors and
charred rhythms unpredictable
as the sun, golden
as a dying star.
On my last day, I will ignite my successor, an image thief,
a highly combustable, thin-as-kindling kid made of
pine or fir, the soft wood
of forest infernos, a not silent,
bellower of outlaw
flames who can keep the poetic blaze alive, a cooker
of carrot cinquains of
odes to onions,
one not necessarily a renowned
bard or bardette, or burning with merch, nor a sapphic swindler
of staggering greatness, or a scorching sorcerer or sorceress of slam cloaked
and branded in
sizzling Shakespearean sparks.
Day 5: Todays NaPoWriMo challenge was to write a “Golden Shovel,” a form invented by Terrance Hayes in his poem, “The Golden Shovel,” in which the last word of each line is a word from Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool.” If you read the last words of each line of Hayes’ poem in sequence, you’ll actually be reading Brooks’ complete poem.
A lover of Pablo Neruda, I stole all of 28 words from the first 10 lines of “Ode to Fire,” found in Odes to Opposites, and wrote them down as end words. The challenge, huge but enormously amusing for me, was then to write the rest of each line. If you read only the emboldened end words of my poem (after reading the entire poem, of course!) you will find that together they comprise the first 10 lines of Pablo Neruda‘s original poem:
Wild-haired fire,
jumpy
and blind but studded with eyes,
sassy,
tardy, and unpredictable
golden star,
thief of wood,
silent outlaw,
cooker of onions,
renowned swindler cloaked in sparks.
Watercolor by the author.
My favorite poet! You’ve done it again!
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Thanks, Kari. And you, love, are my favorite writer of all things canine. 🙂
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Well, I found you! 🙂 How creative and clever you are! – “taking” the end words from Pablo Neruda’s poem and creating your poem!!! I’m impressed 🙂 btw, I read it “golden star thief” rather than, “golden star, thief of wood” 🙂 You “outlaw” you… 🙂
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Hi Christine, and thank for hunting me down! I can’t wait to read more of your mystical magic.
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How wonderfully stunning! Love your words and images and flow. Thanks for sharing these beauties.
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I’m delighted that you’re enjoying my poems, Victoria, as I am yours. So good to walk this journey with you!
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Susan, I love this!!! Am just facing the challenges of this poetic style. You rock it, Sweet Pea. Thank you always for your shining star along my path.
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Cj, thanks, love! If you hadn’t posted the info re: NaPoWriMo I would not have taken the challenge. YOU ROCK, plus it’s great knowing that you, too, are writing poems each day. Gracias.
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Amazing!
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Wow, thanks, Pam!
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I love this one! LOVE it!
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Thank you, madam!
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I love it too, R. And your painting is of such a wild woman! A sort of metaphor, no doubt!
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Ha! You guessed it, R. Thank you.
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the painting for this post captures my imagination!
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It was fun working on this painting. Sort of like it painted itself. Maybe it’s a portrait of my muse. Tee hee! Thanks for stopping by, Boosie.
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