Frost
surprises
on fewer
mornings,
beneath clarity: a sky of
blueness mirroring springtime,
in a slew of white
feathered streaks.
Birds trill, trees bud,
cyclamen leaves peek.
Lambs shout to their ma’s.
Soft, soft, the
wood pigeon calls.
Oh, and the daffodils,
the daffodils,
the glorious trumpeting
daffodils.
As my tea steams
in the chill morning air,
I look around
and beam,
at work
waiting
to begin.
Mysterious fevers in Malvern,
fever in Worcester, burning her up.
The brave, sombre child,
did not understand why mama went away.
She came home frail, damaged, loving, yet
unspeakably sad.
Mama lost his brother.
The other.
The one who would have been his friend.
His best friend. His closest friend. The boy who would
look out for him. Be there for him. Always.
His love in the womb extends from the tomb.
Mother’s loss and tears stifled.
She was told, ‘get a grip’ and ‘move on,’ as if to forget
were possible.
The tiny child ~ innocent ~
a babe, never in arms.
No grieving for lost babies then,
they shuffled them away and
burned them in kilns
so no-one would miss them.
The mother suffers a lifetime of loss,
with an idea of how siblings feel.
We learnt these things painfully.
Today such babes are mourned,
buried. Time moves on and
we talk of tragedies.
Not so back then.
We look after our feet
to keep walking
and our skin
for comfort and care;
an observation,
in wellness defined …
think of yourself,
don’t ignore your mind.
The fragile mind,
full of vim and vigour,
deserves our attention too.
By and large
it keeps in good health,
yet a day may dawn
when almost by stealth
it no longer functions in
quite the same way.
They dole out meds,
maybe something is said, that
tilts the balance,
tips the windmill,
turns the head,
away.
Napowrimo, Day 17, and the prompt is to write poems of greeting. While over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, they’ve asked for a hello / goodbye poem too
Greetings!
I’m from Ibble-Wibble
you might have heard of us
the Ibble-Wibblers have a song
and it is sung like this:
Ibble, wibble, wobble, way,
A silly poem I write today,
Ooty, scooty, mooty, moo,
If I can do it, you can too!
For Day 15, Napowrimo’s prompt is to write a pantun, not a pantoum, a pantun. The pantun is a traditional Malay form that consists of rhymed quatrains (abab), with 8-12 syllables per line. The first two lines of each quatrain aren’t meant to have a formal, logical link to the second two lines, although the two halves of each quatrain are supposed to have an imaginative or imagistic connection.
Hand lotion soothes away the cares of the day,
Smoothes and eases, makes skin comfortable,
Children sleep and dream their dreams away,
Safe, someone there, should nightmares trouble.
Day 14 and Napowrimo wants a persona poem – ‘that is, a poem in the voice of a particular person who isn’t you.’
A ‘poem in the voice of a superhero (or a supervillain)’ was suggested. ‘Comic book characters are very much like mythological characters — they tend to embody big-picture values or personality traits. Good or bad. Loyal or disloyal!’ Greek myth it is, then.
Voice and Flowers
I am proud and I hunt.
You may have heard,
I found my Nemesis,
or rather, she found me,
me, me, me, me.
That wretched Echo
kept following me,
me, me, me, me.
I found it beneath contempt,
so I shouted,
‘Who’s there?’
And she, a mountain nymph,
of all things,
replied ‘Who’s there?’
like she didn’t know me,
me, me, me, me.
Well, no-one told me she’d
been cursed
by Hera,
couldn’t do anything other
than repeat,
repeat, my words.
She was following me,
me, me, me, me.
And now everyone hears her
forever,
as they see me,
me, me, me, me.
I rest beside river banks
a pale flower
that peers at its own
beauty.
Over at dVerse, Brian Miller is our host for ‘Poetics‘ this week and asks us to write about monsters …
Maybe the monster’s ‘scary or hides under the bed until all the lights are out.
‘Maybe it’s human. Maybe it’s not. All I know is that at the end of this … there is a monster,’ says Brian, ‘Is it hairy with big teeth? What does it eat?’
He Calls
The temperature rises,
crows caw, ground thaws, the moon is full.
The Lenten moon of winter.
Hark!
A bark.
He calls.
Teeth. Filthy, dripping teeth.
Werewolves change form beneath
the Full Crow Moon of winter.
Eyebrows meet at the bridge of his nose,
he grows bristles under his tongue.
No tail, swinging stride, a gaze to paralyse.
He strips off his clothes, his man clothes,
piles them by the roadside,
pees around them in a circle, satisfied,
he turns, howls, bounds to the woods.
Tears the flesh from recently interred cadavers,
drinks the blood of wounded soldiers.
He’s a corpse returned from
the grave
to fornicate.
She’s out all night. Doors and locks
spring open at her approach.
Wolf-women acquire
a dreadful desire for human flesh,
devour their own children
and those of others.
Day 13 at Napowrimo and our prompt for today is simply to take a walk. ‘Make notes — mental or otherwise — on what you see on your walk, and incorporate these notes into your poem.’
What do I see on my walk today …
empty crushed cartons line the lane,
the wind brings them here to irritate
country dwellers. Cold chip wrappings,
crisp packets, foil, soggy, crumpled plastic bottles.
But wait, further on, up the bridlepath,
through the crooked gate away from the road,
here are newts, grass snakes, a toad.
Up past the marsh bog a vixen appears,
over the mead, to the hedgerow she jogs.
And there, in the hedge, once the danger has gone,
a rabbit comes nibbling; skitters along.
Buzzards overhead, a pair, no three,
they’re looking down at the pheasant,
the rabbit, and me.
The pheasant croaks, cries, as if to warn
the rabbit, who runs through wet grass to …
[hold your breath!] Escape,
just in time as the buzzard dives.
Missed him!
Napowrimo Day 12 and we’re asked to, “write a poem consisting entirely of things you’d like to say, but never would …” so I’ve immediately thought about a poem I posted in 2012, repeated below:
The Lecturer
I don’t need you to lecture me
I don’t need you to hector me
I don’t need you to point out
The error of my ways.
I’m capable of thought myself
I too have learned my lessons
I detest your abject misery
Your supercilious nays.
You don’t know everything my dear
You don’t have dibs on knowledge
You cannot force your views on me
Hey, I too went to college!
You make folk feel uncomfortable
Because you don’t let go
You lecture, hector, make life hell
The one who always knows.
Half-hooded eyes flit the room,
from under his trilby,
weighing up the showgirls,
looking at the
diamond-patterned legs
that go up to their armpits,
attitude: bored.
Other trilbies nod as he enters,
they are waiting impatiently
shuffling their spat-covered shoes
pulling at their waistcoats,
buying last minute beer and chaser,
voices rise as the room becomes fuller.
The band, nine men strong, riffle
through the cream-coloured music sheets,
black ant notes visible from the bar.
They too are impatient.
From the back of the stage, shouts:
‘Get your hands offa me, I’m going on.’
Ears wag toward the stage curtain, but
the rejoinder cannot be heard.
She swings the curtain back dramatically,
see how it swishes as she makes her entrance.
Her eyebrows arch and we
can’t help but notice,
under the makeup,
bruising.
We know who gave them to her,
she will kill him one day,
then the man in the trilby at the top
of this story,
remember him, half hooded eyes
that flit the room?
Well, he’ll be onto it when she does it,
the cynical hard-boiled type,
always there first.
A repost of a poem from last year for A2LSM who is interested in form in poetry.
The Awdl Gywydd is a Celtic (Welsh) poetry form that complicates the end rhyme scheme by interlacing an internal rhyme throughout the poem on the second and fourth lines of each stanza. The end rhyme scheme is as follows: a,b,c,b… d,e,f,e, etc.. however, the internal (cross-rhyme) can be placed in either the 3rd, 4th, or 5th, syllable position. Awdl Gywydd: Raku
Crickle, crackle, raku glaze,
Shattered craze of crafted pots,
Bisque ware fired in burning kilns,
Potters film, peel-off slip shocks.
Excitement lifts temperature,
Glaze is sure to be red hot,
Post fire unpredictable,
Flames a miracle new pot.
Raku ware is the type of Japanese pottery seen in the form of tea bowls in the Japanese tea ceremony. This type of pottery is tricky to fire relying on a complex process that many potters find exciting because it is unpredictable. Raku is more generally recommended for decorative purposes as it is delicate and can crumble if not properly glazed. To find out more about raku click here.
For today’s Napowrimo, because it’s the 8th, we’re trying to write in ottava rima — an Italian form that, in English, usually takes the form of an eight-line stanza of iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c.
heh-heh … here’s my last ditch attempt:
Murderous Pigs
Gimlet-eyed pigs, gory and glorious,
known to be keen on anything to eat,
they move toward their prey, victorious,
for pigs will eat fine fair friends [and their feet].
A fat man climbs the hill, laborious,
the pigs they squeal dulcet death melodies,
puffing man falls, the pigs become wilder,
murderously biting the bones they fight for.
With thanks to Kira who introduced me to the poetry form, Naani. Naani is one of India’s most popular Telugu poems. Naani means an expression of one and all; it consists of 4 lines and overall there should be between 20-25 syllables.
The hub showed me the Doc Brown video at the base of this blog yesterday. It made me laugh and is the inspiration for my Naani.
Naani: Heart Tea
The first cup in the morning
Is the best
My confession is
I truly love the rest
For the seventh day of NaPoWriMo we are prompted to write a poem in which each line except the last takes the form of a single, declarative sentence. The final line takes the form of a rhetorical question.
Tweet (Tweet)
She’s sorry for the Tweets the ones that do not meet the political correctness of today.
Called ‘a mistake,’ written in annoyance, deemed ‘inappropriate,’ [half-baked.]
With clairvoyance, they would have been avoided, she knows this, come what may.
All of us have done things in youth that we regret, she mustn’t evermore expect to pay.
She will now ameliorate, take critiques and relate to the media attention of the fray.
If it were you or I, perhaps we too would cry, she’s faced it.
Is there any other way?
… and here’s how I would prefer it to be formatted:
She’s sorry for the Tweets
the ones that do not meet the
political correctness of today.
Called ‘a mistake,’ written in annoyance,
deemed ‘inappropriate,’ [half-baked.]
With clairvoyance,
they would have been avoided,
she knows this, come what may.
All of us have done things in youth that we regret,
she mustn’t evermore expect to pay.
She will now ameliorate,
take critiques and relate
to the media attention of the fray.
If it were you or I,
perhaps we too would cry,
she’s faced it.
Is there any other way?
He knew.
He thought he knew, there would be
sabotage.
It opened up,
a black hole with white frosted spikes.
He did not witness
the evil taste, the smell
of the tainted
saboteur.
Instead, external aggression by
ships dragging anchors.
‘There’s more than one way,’
they said,
‘this is not a mirage.
‘Wait, it cannot be avoided.
‘excuses will be exposed.’
‘The present determines the future, but
the approximate present does not
approximately determine the future.’
‘Your time may come
‘to witness sabotage.’
