Sarah D's NaPoWrimo 2022

  A little hope (Cento)   I saw you in green velvet, wide full sleeves as the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden. I'll only stop to rake the leaves away. The sorrow of riverside blossoms inexplicable.   What house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting, carefully stepping into a season of fever. I'm still in the forest, darkening wishing I were 'nicer.'   Maybe, Rose, there is always another story, lift my heart as spring lifts up- a yellow daisy to the rain, as if the moon had flowered.

  The gifted They said that 'gifted' was not another name for cursed - in Perrault’s tale, the fairies bless, like Disney- I prefer Grimm and the wise women, one mother spurned, carrying her mouthful of spite, spitting it at the foot of the bed where my mother lay. And yes, Grandmother cursed me, yellow fairy of the hair and fingertips, leopardskinned and redmouthed, smoking, likely, as she recited litanies, long lost to family lore, dialect obscure- be careful who you invite to your feast; it’s not as if I blame much, but there's this- the years might be much easier without these gifts, clever and glittering as they are, and handed down, and if I made a list; my moods, my bones, my shivers, the ache in everything, the nag that finding magic brings, years of spinning in a dusty room, garnet on my finger, like a bead of blood, where the lover kneels quietly by the bed, so that the act of summoning is enough, and gifted is a word for what we lost.

 

#1 Concrete poem, LBD  

  Countrymen Sometimes, unbelonging is violence- in modern dress Shakespeare, a Welsh man smashes leek into an Englishman's mouth. There's soil in his teeth, and his mouth stops- his words stop, he will never speak well. He will never speak well, or learn about old empires- they only know they're winning when you cry- when you cry salt tears upon that volume, a book on colonialism with gilt edges. One part was guilty, the other me was good in battle, a hundred wars, white flag ship, slouch of names that slough and bleed, like old names often do. I plan to prick my thumb to get the right blood- sometimes, belonging is violence

  the hardboiled case of the detective of dreams Sometimes, this life, this case, this prompt, it's as hard to understand as the flatpack instructions with a bit left over, unlabelled and unknown. That part looms large, a happy snaps out of focus photo, your thumb after that bee sting . The detective wakes up in the morning and their mood is as grey as 1983 in Birkenhead , the sun this grey dishwater rag. There's no breakthrough really, the revelation stalled as a broken horse. The fall guy stutters a confession,a busted tap, and any detective knows the case is really all about yourself. A spare room, full of files- unsorted and unloved, the terrible subconscious of Marie Kondo's nightmares

    the world comes down much like how the old gods shrank, so they were no longer mountains with their shoulders above the earth, much like the gods shrank, the pools of their eyes no more oceans; no more the goddesses and gods forests, trappedlocked in one twisty tree that one can choose to worship or ignore on the way to the mall, trampling the earth god's skin, the temple just a lovely shell, the hollow places empty, new and quite cool cruel clevernesses, but semi sceptic health fanatics, genuflection into swipe mes, scarce monthly outlay of mothlike prayers, mystery-intolerance - much like this, is how it feels, you'd think

Aisling Our Lady of Bedford, how is life in reference to everything else, your equidistance from the brightest stars of London, and the superior convenience of Milton Keynes? Your keep in ruins since the twelfth, your horizons small and so far from the sea. You walk barefoot across the brickworks. You render yourself landscape without the bare truth of hills. Your litter, glass and glitter, non recyclable. You have lied about two paradises, neither of them real. You are poor to good, like all of us. Yet, I have lived here for my children's lifetimes, I have seen my feet turn lily white in your river, I have slept to the chant of your grey birds. I have cut out your patch of stars, and sewn them to an evening gown I won't wear. In summoning you, your streets turn song.

  Join Carpentry of the soul isn't easy to master- it includes latheing and sanding, smoothing pieces to order, whittling you down, and if you don't fit, at least there's the dust, and the ghost of the tree

  Andy dreams he repeats himself/ Andy dreams he repeats himself   I'm the Prince of boredom, I flower flower flower, I car crash car crash. The critic says we're magnified into a theme of variance/ invariance,- care don't care about flower flower flower, about car crash car crash   We succeed at failing to repeat well, while repeating about flower car crash car crash flower- like the two Marilyns like the one dead Elvis, like the love that makes us repeat ourselves, turning returning till it makes us sick- life's all flower flower flower, life' s all car crash car crash   like silkscreened poppies, a repetition beyond pain, making numb, a series of watery red electric chairs. Say the word enough enough enough it becomes ridiculous enough , and it's a flower flower flower, though it hits like a car crash car crash car crash.

  Anon   She had a dog exactly like a sealion, sleek dark in the water and sometimes, she called it in, but it never came back. Sky punctured by stars.   I haven't seen her since; these hundred years, apart from once, cold calling, I rang her number and she answered as a different woman: I'd know you anywhere, I said, and asked.   On the wall of the gallery, Perseus swings his heavy, mythological sword- Andromeda, impassive, is also the monster, ink blue, iridescent.   When I called her that last time, she never answered any of my questions, not a one, not even her name. The animal swims on, to the deepest constellations.  

  Meat   Eat me bloody because, iron. You don't have the stones to kill in person.   Your hands are lilies. I am here to let you know   I liked the rough of grass and the air in summer. I am known in cuts, and cuts make me less- sirloin, rump and chuck.   The dark red of wine. But, use your sharp teeth.   When I was a cow, I never knew this- now I do-religion. Imagine me as transubstantiation.

  Day 19 the Sitcommers Stale smoke in the rooms of writers hanging like cumulus nimbus-any joke will fly at anyone’s expense. The walls shake as the doors are closed. The table is a prop and the food is faked. She’s afraid of the voices of the chorus, canned and loud. She didn’t even mean to tell a joke So, it’s goodbye from him and it’s goodbye goodbye from him; and it’s names appearing on the screen over their faces, so, and so as so and so, introducing, guest stars trailing dust like fading comets. If the sky was a screen, if the mind was a set, if the audience was paid to laugh. And the whole cast, waving till their arms ache- do you ever feel like that? Years of rep and repetition, rictusing that grin. And your nylon dress of flames and your dad's suit won't fit, but he’s really a good man- and it’s good bye from you too, child star, starchild. And it’s goodbye from him and her, and her and him.  

  Day 18 Five answers to one question When will you be happy? i when the deer come out of the rain and the trees, and stay awhile, watching me- there is no rhyme nor reason to this almost love but I don't care, the pale fawn of their flanks, the trees part of this delicacy like the bright blue butterflies that are everywhere, like the oilslick crows that now now allow me to touch their feathers and the tiger I wrote my first poem about slips into the leaves, and there you are ii when every little worry, every niggle is addressed and every achy trouble put to bed when there is no sharp intake of breath or lurch of stomach when I think of you, future. iii when every day, is a cold mist dawn with the sun promising itself and a green world or small city to explore, a cafe and the first taste of everything, following a guidebook bible iv when I fulfil my clairvoyant ability and see in a secondhand crystal ball my kids' brilliantly ordinary lives to come, upside down and quite clear-

  Day 17- Dog The first dog she knew was a wolf- he guarded the baby's cradle, head on forepaws, tick tock pendulum tail- what a big commitment, many thousand years. At three, a spaniel placed its soft little rubber teeth over her hand, and pressed the points in until the skin indented. They asked the parents what will you do to train the puppy, human or dog? Later, the dog brother, who stands as tall as her hip. He moves through the tall grass in rough black and white, he rests his head on her knee. She cleans the blood and feathers from his mouth. No one knows his true name but She 1

  Day 16 a mix of prompts NaPowrimo - curtailed sonnet Poetry Society - curse May you be famous, famous for nothing so they recognise you on TV, may you be good, but guilty of something, so you worry about what might have been, may you be bitter when they want sweet, may you be clever but have to try, may you be hungry but too full to eat may you ask how, but be told why, may you never write a poem in rhyme without it trembling on its feet, may you always run clean out of time.

  day 15 poem about something I have no interest in There is a lot more to aerial chainsaw ballet than the course info makes out- I abseil from a tudor oak, taking its branches one by one, my feet dangling, then touching the mottled trunk There's branches in my hair, the blossom makes me want to sneeze out details of the operation. They say that trees don't feel, I wonder. Keep saw away from the body- it's good every now and then, to cull the dead wood clean. Don't operate whilst drunk. Tomorrow, I learn the principles of feeding limbs into the woodchipper- I'll wear white silk gloves as if this was a magic act, act cool and matter of fact as a movie villain. And you will listen hard to hear the birdsong in the trees