Sugary childrens’ cereal
shaped like stars
the colour of Mars
(planet not the bars)
so different to
breakfasts of ours
back so many years
may as well have a nibble
OH NO it’s kibble
so embarrassing!
will never tell this thing
but
it has a funny ring
Ok, make it sing
wake up kids, do
Nana ate cat food!
Day 17: write a poem re-telling a family anecdote that has stuck with you over time.
Photo @Unsplash
Interview with Lego Ninjago’s Lord Garmadon:
The demands of arch-villainry just get harder every day. Sure I’ve got four arms, eyes of fire and a heart black as a bin liner in landfill but I need to cut loose sometimes. My local stitch n bitch is the ideal place to unwind and let off steam. And, since I’m nominally Japanese with the ninja connection, I also compose Haiku:
They shout Garmadon!
but this needlepoint will not
embroider itself
Day 15 was to imagine a human side of a villain. (My kids love Lego Ninjago).
Photo: the poet as Lord Garmadon, Halloween 2017
Lush green foliage soaked with mature gold sunlight, hot as summer, but death curls frogs and insects like the promise of cold. The centre of our busy lives lit by mosquito smoke as we say, bone-deep and slow: I love you, it will be ok, oh how I miss you when I’m gone.
So briefly exchange
our most precious insights, to
hold love in the abyss
Day 12: Haibun. I have been curious about this form for a while. Not sure I got it right – a prose poem involving nature that ends with a haiku.
Bad dreams of loose teeth again
running in the afternoon
what time is sunset
and bad parenting (my own)
Unplug from one life socket
insert in another room
switch-glitches, kiss, time-tickses
moving on again soon
Old fears of careless Tom and Daisyness
measuring life in coffee spoons
it’s dark already
but no sleeping in til noon
Off-prompt, playing catchup again
Days and drops of sunlight slip by
evasive
A fine mist of rain
hazy
Specks in my eye, grey smudges on white
it’s only
Time: tiny and huge and
Life: the same
Day 9’s prompt was: write a poem in which something big and something small come together.
draw the hook up
and catch the spinning load
of fluttering flotsam
drain-smelling of rotting things
peer closer though
it is the diminuative sink-sprite, Jetsamina!
her gossamer wings of silvery vagina-slime
and an evil dark-brown-black dress, mucky with hairballs
cat-breath of pilchard surprise
“I will grant you a single wish”
she gurgles in a voice of soap scum
her demesne: the smelly underworld of sewers and stormwater drains
so
I snap on clammy rubber gloves
make my request
a Borrower’s behest
make me like Arrietty (and Spiller)
tiny, special and deft
we’ll ride the effluent together
Damn the rest!
The Day 8 Glo-Napowrimo prompt was to write poems in which mysterious and magical things occur. I kinda like the idea of mixing the magical with the mundane, even disgusting. I get an odd satisfaction from gross jobs like cleaning the greasetraps in the drains… so I was struck by the idea of a local spirit who might live in there. And I adored Mary Norton’s Borrowers books as a child.
Pic: still from Studio Ghibli’s anime film “The Secret World of Arrietty” sourced from https://lesamantsreguliers.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/arietty-mon-amour-arietty-the-borrower/
Woman/ powerful
from: Girl/ vulnerable
White/ powerful (but guilty)
also: Australian/ troubled2nd-classBrit “oh your accent’s not that strong” and I rarely demur
and Gothic/ powerful but a “chosen minority” – remembered hatred from smallminded folk still stings but I enjoy(ed) the provocation
Middle class/ welcome if undeserved
Affluent/ lucky
Intelligent/ powerful because it’s in the accepted way. I’ve come to see there’s so many forms of unrecognised intelligence, it pisses me off this narrow view, I don’t actually think stupidity exists, but ignorance does
(And so very few goths are not white, middle class, intelligent – so)
Tall/ vulnerable but powerful
University educated/ never enough
Mother/ vulnerable – is it necessarily bad?
Londoner/ knowing something
White (again)/ easy
Sister/ love
Friend/ means almost everything
Lover/ undercover
Unworking/ vulnerable; the worst of all
Day 7 prompt: write out a list of all of your different layers of identity. Now divide all of those things into lists of what makes you feel powerful and what makes you feel vulnerable. And make a poem… (edited as I saw fit!)
today I saw old scars and heard
new stories about them
gaps in teeth winking like small sequins
while words trickled through that glistened with meaning I tried to catch
like gold panning
they say the precious dust settles to the bottom because it’s heavy
like truth can be a burden and
hard to see among shifting sands and gravel
and maybe if you eat the whole beach and keep on licking the shore that way
seeking truth
your teeth will grind away and your stomach will ache because
there’s a lot to swallow and a body can’t always tell what’s heavy metal or which parts of what you’ve ingested are the righteous words and concepts in the flock
mistakes can be made at cellular level, muddles, cancer is the body attacking itself or growing too fast in one direction like gold fever can kill
(a lie: that truth always sets us free)
it’s as complicated as a whole ocean of shells
and I’m so busy Living in The Moment
I can’t even remember who I was
or wanted to be — don’t ask me for definitive answers — my garbled utterances are the muddy water in the pan and those flecks and facets of shiny stuff could be any damn thing
I think this is probably yesterday’s prompt: (Naprwrimo day 6) to play with line lengths. I’m running a bit behind schedule but hope to catch up soon…
Photo: Pineapple Supple Co @Unsplash
throw yourself off the
edge and float in the teal sea
we are so tiny
Yesterday’s prompt was too complex for where I’m at, so a short one – it’s still Day 5 in America!
As I slope up that bone-colour concrete path
sticks and gumleaves and sand
the scent of the bush – lemon eucalpypt and banksia
alone for the first time in days
home but not home
that smell in my eyes maybe because they fill with tears
or I’m thinking of him trapped inside delerium
grey-green and olive green and agapanthus green and black-burnt trunks with
small explosions of scarlet tongues and creamed-butter ragged tulle blossoms
following paths I’ve never run before
the warm air holds me safe and not too hot
thinking of how I heard he quietly saved his son once from a precipice
the way you do with family, unhesitating, sure as a heatbeat
those old trees stand tall, smooth barked and guarding
not over me, their roots luxuriate in more ancient soil
can you ever reconcile
a life, a mind, a body, a soul
or illness
or just keep jogging on
Day 4 prompt was: to write a poem that is about something abstract – perhaps an ideal like “beauty” or “justice,” but which discusses or describes that abstraction in the form of relentlessly concrete nouns. I found the example poem by Amy Tudor in this piece so moving I guess I tried to mimic the style, I think it worked well to focus on trees and flowers etc.
I might not be able to link to the prompts each day as I´m mostly working via smartphone at the moment so cutting and pasting and link making is a bit of a faff… but you can always check in to http://www.napowrimo.net
clairevetica 