23 - Ars Poetica

#NaPoWriMo Day 23 and I wrote a piece of free verse inspired by the prompt from the official(ish) NaPoWriMo site of “ars poetica”, which is a poetry standard I didn’t have a name for before reading that – I always called it ‘metapoetry’ – writing poetry about poetry, or, more specifically here: writing poetry about why I write poetry, or what I think it is. Behold!

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the twenty-two preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/fayroberts/posts/ars-poetica-165559094

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This is us – naked, yet wearing masks,
asking you to hold hands with our
solipsistic scribbles, dip toes
into the straits between outcrops,
pop across the water for sustenance, or style.
(We’d bid you stay, but there are others to explore…)

We’re waving flags so you don’t have to,
or maybe because not to do so would
render us even more helpless –
if we stop outlining the world, will it
live up to its threats and tip over?
(Silence feels deadly at times like this.)

And, either way, maybe we’re only
semaphoring ourselves, leaving clues
in the gaps for Future Us to dig
fingertips into, nod wisely over,
then clamber onto the drystone foundations
(build higher, further, faster).

In the end, I know I’m doing this
for all the reasons above, and for
the dopamine release of seeing my words
click into place behind others’ eyes,
the fun of stacking and tangling sounds
(and because I struggle to perform a drawing…)

Another drawing done by me as a strong No Thanks to GenAI images; imperfect, but mine.

22 - Disambiguation (a rhyming infodump)

#NaPoWriMo Day 22 and I wrote a clerihew inspired by a prompt the Porcupine (disambiguation) page of Wikipedia, which is pretty much fully down to my Prompt-o-matic Spreadsheetatron™ telling me to write a Clerihew (okay, I cheated a bit in the first stanza; don’t tell Bentley) about Porcupine, except it was me who decided to expand it to a five-stanza series by picking things that intrigued me from the “It could mean these things” page.

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the twenty-one preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/fayroberts/posts/disambiguation-162117475

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The rodent that’s called Porcupine
has quills on its sides, rump, and spine;
whether it’s the Old World family of Hystricidae,
or the New World (totally no relation) family of Erethizontidae.

The Porcupine Caribou
is an exotype not found in the zoo.
This subspecies of reindeer is super-migratory,
which makes them a nomadic-existence-inspiring quarry.

The slow-moving Porcupinefish
has one easy-to-grant wish:
it mostly wants to be left alone,
which it hints at by making itself spiky and overblown.

The HMS Porcupine
could be any one of various ships, numbering nine.
The first one was launched in 1743,
and the last one torpedoed in 1942 in the Mediterranean Sea.

Porcupine homolog (Drosophila)
is a human gene whose mutations are associated with focal dementia hypoplasia.
The protein it encodes
is not an easy thing about which to write odes.

On the grounds that anything is better than getting GenAI to vomit something up, I drew this nightmare fuel fusion of images associated with all five things described above

21 - Envoy

#NaPoWriMo Day 21 and… yeah, so this one kind of gut-punched me and delayed everything else, and then I was overthinking the visual imagery, which stopped me from recording the audio version of this and, while I finished all the poems within April 2026 (technically, if you live in California), I’ve only recently started getting the spoons together to make the posts. Anyway, Day 21 and wrote a piece of free verse inspired by the prompt “Temples and Prisons”. The publication which supplied said prompt state that they “are open to traditional forms of poetry, as long as they provide a sensory experience and avoid cliches and emotionally loaded language,” which I think pricked me to some of the lines that follow.

In fact, there are quite a few obscure references in this, so jump down to the end if you’d like to see them first, or otherwise ignore. Please note content warnings for assault, and implied parental violence.

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the twenty preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/fayroberts/posts/envoy-162005431

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So here I am, locked in memories,
seething behind a scarp of bone,
not as alone as I’d like to be,
breathing (just breathe), pleading
for Lethe. It doesn’t come.

I should start at the beginning,
sins brimming over in media res,
desperate to avoid the kind of ploys
employed by the terminally metatextual,
mental guests overstaying their welcome.

Impressed yet? Or should that be etched?
I’m sketchy on the specifics, but acid
clambers up my throat, and oh yes –
etched is definitely (technically) the
better word.

Le mot juste, but there’s no justice,
just us, right? I am a bran tub
of unsorted clichés wrapped in
ill-fitting identities, overlapping
map references and… stuff…

Breathe some more. In. Out.
He used to clout you, side of the head,
bed not a refuge like it is now;
cowering angers him, but defiance
winds ire up into the crack of leather.

That’s not cricket, is it? Thwack!
Howzat? resounds and
I’m out, reeling, feeling misalignment
chime down my ganglia,
a ladder to clamber, but… wait…

The ritual glitches, high priest teetering as I
finally see him clearly, outlined in jumbled
metaphors and a score of
awful imagery: this bleak wee bastard’s
weak. No titan he, just greedy Tantalus…

Put him away, find a grey rock to
lock above his head,
shed the presumption of his power,
shower the lingering shame off
your body and stretch. Deep breaths.

Drift outside to see the sunset,
let lingering warmth invest the
dreadful, hollow spaces,
chase sounds that won’t echo
over and over, soft surfaces absorbing.

We weren’t meant to live
in mausolea, cold marble
crafted to showcase only the past,
fastened into shackles dragging
at our heels.

We need to know our
starting points to map the next
steps, and I wish I had an apt
and natty end, could
send you off tidily, but… this is it.

Painstakingly drawn by me using Krita and a Huion tablet

Notes:

1. Envoy (also: envoi) generally means a (diplomatic) messenger nowadays, but there are a ton of historical and literary meanings: The mesage itself. The concluding part of a literary work, esp. a short stanza concluding a poem written in certain verse forms (e.g. the ballade or sestina); (occasionally in extended use) an author's concluding words, dedication, etc. The mission or errand on which the messenger is sent. Letter of envoi (envoy), from the French lettre d'envoi, which can mean a letter intended to accompany another (especially diplomatic) document (basically a covering letter), a letter formally opening communication between individuals or institutions, or even a letter advising of the dispatch of goods.



2. The Lethe is a river from Ancient Greek mythology, where the dead go to drink to forget.



3. Le mot juste is a French phrase which we use in English to talk about the right word at the right time.



4. And Tantalus was a Greek king condemned after death to never be able to quench his thirst or satisfy his hunger, as justice for what he served up at a feast for the gods (purportedly in one version: his own son).

Jump back up to the beginning of the poem.

20 - Post-Truth

#NaPoWriMo Day 20 (technically 25, but hey – what’s a little writer’s block between friends?) and tonight I’ve been writing a piece of free verse inspired by the prompt “Donald Trump is rushed from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner after gunshots fired”

Talk about fresh inspiration! This only happened an hour ago! And just in time for me to dash this off and submit to Rattle!

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the nineteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/post-truth-156566308

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Chaos layers on confusion;
contusions are few,
groups of suits,
unsuited to action,
stack under the boards.

And he looks… bored, while
scores of silk-clad reporters
pour their accounts into
news desks from vantage points
anointed by shiny shoes.

Writer’s block unstoppered by this,
I slip the headline into the
discord, grimly nod at
insomniacs echoing my
disquiet: is this real?

Can we trust anything we read?
Greed has cast doubt on
the clout of journalism,
that prism has cracked, and
not all hacks are even human now.

Will this turn out to be an accident,
an act of defiance, an
alliance of those who serve history,
a mystery twisted, or an ideal
diversion from the traditional roasting?

Who knows?

“Post-truth-era 03”. Photograph from the POST-TRUTH ERA photo series by Heikki Leis. Glass negative, 2017, via Wikipedia

19 - I’m Not Done

#NaPoWriMo Day 19 (actually, finally!) and today I’ve been writing an acrostic inspired by the prompt of “Loneliness”, thanks to my bodged-together-at-the-beginning-of-the-month Prompt-o-matic Spreadsheetatron (which I may or may not make available to the public once this month’s done and I can take a short breather). I live alone at the moment, and I make no apology for the slightly obscure/ punning nature of my nodding title.

But it isn’t the 19th anymore, Fay! I hear you say. Ah, yes, well... that’s because, Imaginary Interlocuter, I got too in my head about how to do an audio version of this, and have been blocked for days as a result.

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear said recording of this piece (and the eighteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/im-not-done-156565304 (but if you’d like to get hold of the recording for accessibility purposes, just let me know).

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It’s not how others think of it, apparently;
Nothing like the terror and tedium they
Seem to imagine. Drifting in echoing emptiness,
Unable to cope with only my own voice? No:
Loneliness is rarely something I experience
Alone. Solitude is soothing, safe, sufficient.
The thing that absolutely breaks me
Is being cut out in company, unfit puzzle piece.
Ostracised, voice drowned; that’s confounding,
Not this blessed peace (with the means to reach out).

Photo by Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC BY-SA, via Wikipedia

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If you’d like to write your own acrostic, why not make use of my handy-dandy shareware spreadsheet that can help get you started? https://bit.ly/poemrep

18 - Snowflake

#NaPoWriMo Day 18 (technically 19) and today I’ve been writing a pantoum inspired by too many conversations that I suspect many of you will find… familiar…

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the seventeen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: [Patreon post]

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I ask him not to use that phrase;
I am polite, I do not shout.
He tells me that it’s just his ways,
I don’t know what I’m on about.

I am polite, I do not shout;
we must be careful to be safe.
I don’t know what I’m on about:
his arrogance begins to chafe.

We must be careful to stay safe,
and not upset the "normal" folk.
His arrogance begins to chafe…
of course: I cannot take a joke.

Please don't upset the Normal Folk.
(He tells me that it’s just his ways…
of course: I cannot take a joke.)
I ask him not to use that phrase…

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If you’d like to write your own pantoum, why not make use of my handy-dandy shareware spreadsheet that can help get you started? https://bit.ly/poemrep

17 - On losing my Saturday and part of Sunday to a sodding migraine

#NaPoWriMo Day 17 (technically 19) and today I’ve been writing a haiku inspired by exactly what it says on the tin, as an emergency measure because, what with that and the epic editing process for Ouroboros, I’m now super behind.

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the sixteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-losing-my-and-156046560

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It’s no joke in Spring;

no-one’s prepared to cope with

atmospheric shit.

Migraine Brain by me. I didn’t even both looking on Google this time.

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If you’d like to write your own haiku (in English), why not make use of my handy-dandy shareware spreadsheet that can help get you started? https://bit.ly/poemrep