November is the noirest month

Notice! Orca Literary Magazine, for which I read “slush”, is now accepting reprints of poems, short stories, flash stories and CNF. We still have a few free submissions open for November, if you’re thinking of sending something out soon!

I have just finished typing up a poem I almost, with a slip of the finger, titled “Odd to Noirvember” – “Ode” is what I was trying for, but “Odd” may have been more accurate. The project to write a poem for each day in my thirty-ninth year continues!

Continuing to use Rattle as a source of prompts, this week’s prompt over there is “Write a poem that features a shadow.” This is also the first week of the delicious film-time of year known as Noirvember and it seemed 100% natural to put them together.

Today has been very gloomy here in the South Okanagan, I’ve had my desk lamp on for most of it as it’s been raining on and off. I decided to embrace this chance to don my thrift shop-found trench coat. (A bit on the big side, but its got a brand name, its in great shape, even still has its original belt, and the pockets on the thing are amazing. I found a pair of leather gloves in them this morning I had forgotten I owned.) There are relatively few days of the year here when this coat is marginally appropriate, I’ve got to make the most of it. It’s even water proof!

I remembered to pin my poppy on the lapel – you can also purchase a customizable digital poppy from the Canadian Legion here in advance of Remembrance Day on Nov. 11th

No, I didn’t customize mine, I couldn’t decide how.

I made a short trip to Calgary in October and that interrupted my poem-writing a little bit, however, I’m mostly caught back up on it now – I’m short only two poems so far.

Thank goodness for haiku.

Have I been able to discern any time of day written to quality of poem produced pattern over the last month?

Well, there have been days I’ve forgotten to note the time when I wrote the poem. But I think it’s fair to say I’m best at poetry either in the morning, not too long after waking up, or in the evening after supper. One night not too long ago I was literally falling asleep with pen in hand, that is perhaps best avoided. Sometimes after a walk I can come up with something, but that has better results if the walk is in the morning compared to walks in the afternoon.

Another of the poems from last month has turned into a short story, although it’s going to be a hard sell. I can now say that just about half on the poems I first write in long hand are proving worthy on transfer to the computer and further revision. If I keep going at this rate… wow, that’ll be a lot of poems to sort out in another ten months!

Here is a poem I wrote last month in Calgary:

Calgary (III)

The good-looking guy I passed

about my height

something about him

on second glance

proves to be a dude

using cowboy boots in the long

standing and approved

(posture-improving) (height-enhancing)

manner

I admire confidence

empathize with the kind

you buy and

try to pull on.

Kilmeny MacMichael