Sarah D's NaPoWrimo 2022

 Reviews 1. Reviewing the reviewer I. The book lover The character in the novel, described as 2 dimensional, overrode his Freudian conditioning – this is an Edwardian age Austrian novel- and pulling at the corner of the page, dragged it back like a bedsheet and crawled out naked, stood in the room before the reviewer and started to argue. The reviewer, a millennial 21st century man, revisiting an old classic, was not prepared for the immediacy of this guy  -stood right here, not budging.  I am not flat and a puppet of the author, I think you’ll find I’m very much flesh and blood, he said,  and with that punched the critic smack in the face The reviewer of books sighed – it was the third time this week and if it wasn’t punches, it was tears. His sleeve still bore tear marks from where he’d tried to comfort the sparky but ultimately cliched gen x protagonist of a hot new author after he’d mentioned the predictability of the set up. To be honest, he felt like a protest ...

 Day 23 Pompeiish I. You don't wear a hat. Wear a hat Your penfriend doesn't  finish school Till 7 But takes a long siesta Ii. I plan  My journey.  Someone told Me dust.  I recall The terrible sun on white walls In any town Iii. Anyone else Watched the landscape on an Endless horizontal - Me and travelsickness  Look ahead Iv. At the house Of Aulia Lucretia,still, Her dark eyes watching V. The place On the hand drawn list with pictures, Next to the pyramids To Angkor Wat to Macchu Pichu Nearer Vi. Thinking about The silkyness of ash, Difficult to clean Vii. I was wondering about History and where Geography Ends. Geology laughs  VIII. The happiness of sun in the corner, The tailless lizard civilization IX. Item no 9 On the itinerary Is always... X. All dogs lie Like sleeping dogs at midday. Though they are sometimes Awake and they May bite. Xi The Americans debate Whether it would be better To dive straight into The volcano Or to wait. XII. In the house ...

 I'm ambivalent about Dickinson and took ages to choose a poem and when I did I didn't like my effort.  So, I did a golden shovel instead, which took absolutely ages.. Here's the original:  Tell all the truth but tell it slant —  Success in Circuit lies  Too bright for our infirm Delight  The Truth's superb surprise  As Lightning to the Children eased  With explanation kind  The Truth must dazzle gradually  Or every man be blind —  The player of chess, the speaker of Latin (The last word of each line spells out the poem)    It is too hard to tell  you everything, dear reader, all  references drift, all the  things that mean something. A truth is truth  itself, and yet a lie, but  still, the joy is in the tell    Like when the poker player puts it  down, the winning card, a half slant  on the table -  See, the success  of sleight is sleight itself, a way in,  a tec...

 The name of this first rose was Emmeline, yes, like the suffragette , a rose with double petals  a pinkyellowwhite thing  The one you planted was Mercy Tall and slender, granting us One mere flower at a time The thorns barbed outward This rose, by the way Is called Sad . The darkest red burned blue at the edge Plant at the garden's end, feed it with silence

 Cleverness Day 21 Cleverness. Cleverness , I think We  Think Too much Of you And that You'll save  Us But  In  An  actual  Apocalypse I'd rather Have  Useful Practical Skills Than Know About Arcane Deities Of pre Roman Italy, For Example Though I suppose There's Nothing Stopping  me Right  now From  youtubing All these  skills I never  mastered Oh well, my last  point was  all too shruggable In a nuclear Zombie  winter When we're hungry Like  Cormac  McCarthy  characters At least  Cleverness Would be  Trying To take  our Minds Off it, Explaining  Why the sky Will  Be pitched black

 An artefact Day 20 ..future misunderstood artefact Under the artificial topsoil in the new gardens of new Liverpool, a drone crew find this artefact - they treat it as a find; they take the thing apart, made of a soft fabric, decayed in parts, but whole. ‘The skin of an animal’, another expert says, 'Honestly the ghoulishness of these people was astonishing' Inside, as we have heard, are many things needed to disguise the human flesh. A tube of ruddier grease, a vial of black , a cloud of dust. Interestingly the core device nestles in the heart of things-.lifeless and screen dark. This says to us the person loved it, but was not enough in awe of it as yet, perhaps a little careless We find the fingerprints on various surfaces, reflective and non-reflective, fascinating - so much stored in the spirals and the sweat on the skin ,whole books, to use the archaic, they weren't sure how to read as yet, in full. Last, for some reason unknown, down among the powder and fluff, a no...

 Vvitch Once she was caught And the magic apparatus taken away What they reduced the witch down to  was this- a creature 2 foot tall Behind museum glass, Twig-haired, crow featured, Branchy arms out-stretched -  The puppet villagers stood  stiff and posed in the next display So that witch could never catch them She had no broom, she didn’t need one- was all a creeping under tall trees and a muttering under breath, the sudden rush of the mortals, a cursing of dead roses’ ash When you weren’t looking, I may have shuddered, just a little to see so powerful a thing so powerless,  translated badly, stark and terrible,  from our ancient dreams