Month: April 2017

The Spinning Ones

Photo: http://bookdome.com/fiction/Grimms-Household-Tales/The-Three-Spinning-Fairies.html#.WQXN7PmGPIU

once again I rally them

my shining ones, my friends

she tells me that in twenty years

we’ll still be laughing til there’s tears

and magicking the world aright

like we did those moonlit nights

she says that I can let it go

permission to go slow

something I can’t grant for me

but when she speaks, I obey

she sometimes tells me I’m still Jerry

always missed, do not worry

invoke me with my name

on lips, in heart, the page…

and so we go around, around

casting spells and hauling found

fortunes, jokes and sparkling things

while endlessly the earth does spin

 

Today’s prompt was to write a poem about something that happens again and again (kind of like NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo). When I get down, my wonderful friends pull me up again tirelessly.

This is the last day of April and the final day of GloPoWriMo. I made it! I’m going to take a short break and get back to you shortly with a poetry-month wrap-up! 🙂

Photo: http://bookdome.com/fiction/Grimms-Household-Tales/The-Three-Spinning-Fairies.html#.WQXN7PmGPIU

Absolution

A woman on the street was circling, circling

her shoulder bag dropped down around her waist

she had spittle on her mouth

a frail and old person

scraggly white hair, a stained windcheater

broken,

and yet I was too afraid to help

bad possibilities zinging through my mind

of being hit, attacked, screeched at, misunderstood

at the heaviness of a human body collapsing on me in relief

the time it might suck from me

I walked by

with tears in my eyes.

doesn’t absolve anything

lazy coward me

she stopped circling, the spell broken

by me?

no way to know how the light gets in to a fissured mind

I told a friend later and got upset again

silly, scared me

still hoping for absolution

which she gave

‘you’re a kind person for even noticing. You wouldn’t be crying now if you didn’t mean well’

but I didn’t care enough

I could have given her a tissue to wipe her face

‘did you even have a tissue? I bet you didn’t even have one on you’

I just shook my head and sighed

the secret shame of soft, 3-ply folds in my bag,

putting me to the lie

knowing they were there all along

just like

the least I could have done

was

offer her one

 

Off-prompt for the penultimate day of NaPoWriMo! 

Photo: https://unsplash.com/@raffiklopes

Skeltonics in the closet

everything is shrinking

or is it just my thinking

something about drinking

haven’t got an inkling

maybe Skeltonic verse

is par for the course

guess we could do worse

don’t call the hearse

yet

that Hemingway cartoon

crashed like a lead balloon

did no one see

or do they all hate he?

but I got 320 followers

so could not be jollier

and

with two more days to go

in this NaPoWriMo

think I’ve done O (K)

and to finish will be yay!

 

Day 28’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem using Skeltonic verse. Don’t worry, there are no skeletons involved. Rather, Skeltonic verse gets its name from John Skelton, a fifteenth-century English poet who pioneered the use of short stanzas with irregular meter, but two strong stresses per line (otherwise know as “dipodic” or “two-footed” verse). The lines rhyme, but there’s not a rhyme scheme per se. The poet simply rhymes against one word until he or she gets bored and moves on to another. Here is a good explainer of the form, from which I have borrowed this excellent example:

Dipodic What?

Dipodic Verse
will be Terse.
Stress used just twice
to keep it nice,
short or long
a lilting song
or sounding gong
that won’t go wrong
if you adhere
to the rule here,
Now is that clear
My dear?

This year’s poetry month has felt like more of a challenge to get through than last year, with my other writing commitments bubbling away in the background, so I thought I’d just go for rather silly doggerel today.

Not actually sure if it’s skeltonic or not.
Think I usually write like that.
What-ever. 

The image is a detail from one of  Sir John Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations I grabbed off the internet  … I think those pics are royalty-free these days anyway. ?

To write and to rewrite

 

Why sit and admire

Hemingway

it’s not just the lines and lines and lines of

shining, razor prose

the way potato mashed through the tines

of a fork in Africa

while a man who hunts a lion

shows himself a coward

-I know I’m not that

because

I gave birth two times

something he could never define

and 

rearing them

takes nerves of steel sometimes.

Last year I thought of Rollins

and in some ways they’re the same

these hyper-masculine, clear life-purpose,

tough, take no shit,

big-game giants

can I

feel myself aligned?

go, rewrite

 

Off-prompt for NaPoWriMotoday. 

Richtiger Inhalt

 

the small room of my mind

is closed for maintenance

today

 

Today’s prompt: write a poem that explores a small, defined space – it could be your childhood bedroom, or the box where you keep old photos.

I have wanted to use this pic for ages! The sticker says – correct inside, wrong package. ha ha ha … might be more like the other way around! 

Medieval manuscripts

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I saw the little figures
looking cute and medieval
elaborate costumes, so delightful
an ancient ritual
marginalia in excelsis
hello summer!

I wasn’t too sure about today’s GloPoWriMo prompt: “to write a poem of ekphrasis — that is, a poem inspired by a work of art. But I’d also like to challenge you to base your poem on a very particular kind of art – the marginalia of medieval manuscripts.” But then I went into town to see the preparations for Sechseläuten and realised I was looking at this stuff IRL pretty much. 

Home again

My post-London tea stash

 

Steam
In shower
Mixes with tears
Wash them all away
Goodbye

London
Once again
Messed my mind
It’s always a bittersweet
Encounter

You can never go home again yet I am here

 

Today’s GloPoWriMo prompt was to write a double elevenie. What’s that? Well, an elevenie is an eleven-word poem of five lines, with each line performing a specific task in the poem. The first line is one word, a noun. The second line is two words that explain what the noun in the first line does, the third line explains where the noun is in three words, the fourth line provides further explanation in four words, and the fifth line concludes with one word that sums up the feeling or result of the first line’s noun being what it is and where it is. There are some good examples in the link above. A double elevenie would have two stanzas of five lines each, and twenty-two words in all.

I’m not sure I did this right – is a proper noun OK? Oh well.. Plus, it seemed weird to not add an extra line, since it’s “day 23” of GloPoWriMo, so I did. :0

The Cynical Supermarket of Ethical Superbrands

https://unsplash.com/@mariamolinero

Welcome to Ethical SuperMegamart

buy a jar of organic Conscience-Ease

bring your own cotton bag

much easier for dump pickers to use

request a knobbly carrot

love its ugly

but purchase some eco-friendly skin care

so you yourself don’t get craggy

at the counter

offset your food miles with

money!

today there’s a special offer on

moral superiority!

no added chemicals

except those that make up every single—

no nasties, we mean, of course

don’t be so cynical!

no antibiotics in the meat or veg, because…

superbugs and… vaccines?

oh, don’t even go there

it’s scientifically proven

to do what it says

that’s good, you’ve assuaged

my confirmation bias

ahhh

all these ethical choices

sold by the pound

worry alleviation

in one convenient location

 

Today’s GloPoWriMo prompt was to write a georgic in honour of Earth Day. Your Georgic could be a simple set of instructions on how to grow or care for something, but it could also incorporate larger themes as to how land should be used (or not used), or for what purposes.

photo: https://unsplash.com/@mariamolinero

Overheard

I’m going darn the West End, they’ve got the last pair on hold for me

silver-haired lady in leopard print leggings on the bus

I don’t think Helen really trusts me

plump girl in a navy pantsuit walking down the street

The Doctor said I need to rest and eat more vegetables. I’ve been on crutches for 8 weeks. No dear, I’m on a bus in Camden

plummy-voiced older gent with red nose who got off and lit a cigarette. He wasn’t on crutches

Hei hei hei. Hei hei hei

Chinese lady on her phone on the bus

Shh shh shh

guy with Tourettes’ on the bus

Was hast du da?

familiar language overheard in a London playground

Can I just put you down here for a minute?

skinny-legged dad on the street in footy gear with his kid, the kid also in footy gear

 

NaPoWriMo prompt for day 21:  to write a poem that incorporates overheard speech. I am running late again so the speech is the poem. I had more but my brain’s too full. It’s weird being back in a place where I can understand most of the incidental conversations around me!