Just because I haven’t enough writing commitments on my plate, ha ha, I’ve signed up to National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). This means I’ve set the intention to write a poem every day for the month of April.
What you’re going to see here every day for the month of April 2012 is a poem that I’ve just written, all raw and unedited (gulp).
Maybe this should be called Naked Poetry Writing Month?
When I write a poem I usually do a quick first edit, then I leave it for a week or so and revisit it and give it a good going-over with my red pen. (And sometimes that’s not enough to make it decent.)
But National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) doesn’t afford me the luxury of that time.
So prepare yourself for some self-conscious naked poems this month.
Of course I’ll still be posting ‘rescued’ poems every Tuesday. That won’t change.
Okay, so here’s the first offering, inspired by the name of a book club mentioned over at L L Barkat’s website Tweetspeak.
Rumours of water
oozed along
long-forgotten river courses
trickled through
gaps in creek-bed memories
flowed silently towards
dry-boned cemeteries
eventually torrentialled
through the shrivelled awareness
of grain-dusted farmers
of thirsty settlers
of leathered drovers and their
scorched bullock teams
in the parched plains
going nowhere
from nowhere;
the promise
of drought broken
more welcome
than breaking bread
than breaking through
the dam of reasons for being
in this god-forsaken place.