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: https://www.patreon.com/posts/snowflake-156049134

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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…

I’m aware that this doesn’t add a great deal to the commentary, but I’m tired and this will have to do… Designed using CorelDraw and my own brain

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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

16 - Ouroboros

#NaPoWriMo Day 16 and that night I wrote a piece of free verse inspired by the prompt “Golden eagles could be returning back to English skies after 150 years” as part of my ongoing (possibly Adrian-Mole-esque) attempts to get a news poem into Rattle, which I’m becoming increasingly sanguine about and just seeing it as an opportunity to do a submission to a friendly place and keep finding fresh, weekly prompts for easy poem-inspiration.

Easy. Right. So the process went something like this (skip to the poem if you’d prefer):

Me: I shall write a poem about golden eagles. Golden eagles are great!
Writing Brain: Uh, yeah. Great.
Me: No, we agreed: golden eagles. The Patreon subscribers picked it unanimously. We just did hours of research and shit.
WB: Mmmh. Not feeling it.
Me: Deal with it.
WB: [stubborn silence]
Me: [tries to tempt WB out with setting up an acrostic]
WB: [tumble weed]
Me: Fuck’s sake, fine. [slumps] Leave me, then. I’ll just sit here, bereft. Like this nation bereft of all those species that got hunted to extinction…
WB: Oh, hello.
Me: What?
WB: Say that again?
Me: Uh. “Fine, leave”?
WB: No, the other thing.
Me: “We are a nation bereft”?
WB: That’s the puppy.
Me: Uh, okay…? [starts writing]

[time passes]

WB: Ooh, we could expand this list of extinct British animals…
Me, cautiously: I guess…?
Me: Wait. Are we writing a political poem instead of a nice nature poem…?
WB: Maaaybeeee…?
Me: Fine, I supposed ecology is pretty political…
WB, absently: Now you’re getting it…

[after a couple of stanzas]

Me: So, just a short one, after last night’s sestina, right?
WB: Oh, absolutely.
Me: Right.

[80 minutes later]

Me: Why is the poem going over the page?
WB: Nearly done…
Me: You mean it’s not finished yet?!
WB: Shh, I’m busy.
Me: [growls]

[time passes]

WB: Hey.
Me: What? Done?
WB: Not exactly. Could you go look up a list of reintroduced species to the British Isles for a kind of rollcall near the end?
Me, throwing hands up: I guess!

So that all happened. And then I realised that my delivery during the recording left a lot to be desired (there was definitely a bit that came across horribly classist, for one), so I re-recorded the last two stanzas. And then did the last one again, because WB chipped in saying “eh, that’s a bad assonance” (you’re a bad assonance!) and rewrote two lines. And then there were bits which no amount of cleaning could fix which needed pick-ups and that’s why I’m a day late releasing this NaPoWriMo poem (which doesn’t even mention golden eagles by name…), officer.

Anyway, remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear the much-belaboured recording of this piece (and the fifteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ouroboros-155915962

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We are a nation bereft –
we swept out all the things we
didn’t think fitted our
image, insisted on diminishing
diversity, this unenlivened
island made bland as butter,
utterly subsumed in
consuming greatness.

No more bears or boars,
these shores cleansed,
carcass flensed; we’d throw you
to the wolves, but that’s not
an option anymore.
The aurochs gone, the great auks
axed, taxed by a species that
sees vulnerability and
bleeds it dry.

Anything deemed too big for its boots
is rooted out and then, ironically,
we go looting elsewhere, and
dare to complain when these actions
have consequences, begging the
question: when does entitlement
get fed up with itself?

I exaggerate, of course:
#NotAllHumans actively stamp out
the damp borders of this
hoarding nation, saying
“Let’s slay things, let’s make this
frayed system more desiccated,”
dedicating efforts to ending
indigenous and migrant
variety alike.

But, gods help me, enough of us
do nothing, and that’s… bad.
So thank heavens for those
closer to the ground by choice,
voices raised, daring their best,
questioning the status quo,
knowing that all this hard
graft might not stem disaster, but we’ll
sink faster in the quicksand of
handing off our responsibilities.

And see? The Fisher King
builds, buck-toothed and broad-tailed
in this ailing nation once more.
White storks haunt lake shores,
scores of pine martens and many tiny ants
gathered and nurtured and handed
back to a land that needs them.
Demanding more than monoculture,
ungovernable greed asset-stripping
this habitat for… snacks,
has to start somewhere.

There are bison now in Kent, and the Isle of
Wight has white-tailed eagles thriving,
driving out the unchecked
predators, invader turned prey.
And hey, I know what you’re thinking:
“This place is more crowded now and
how will we cope with these new-old things
incoming, taking up space, fiercely protected,
who gets to stake their claim,
blame shifting… this way…?”

And I say: reparations from the audacious few
who caught us all up in their hunger have to
happen, so please, bring on the wonderful
thunderclap of wings broader than
I’m tall and I’ll sing you such songs
of old wrongs righted. No longer benighted,
we can be inspired, and wild,
and rightfully just a part, not
monarchs, but citizens, dancing,
balanced again at last.

What’s that, Fay? You decided to draw something you’ve never drawn before for this already very involved poem? Cool. Cool.

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The Ouroboros represents many things, depending on the cultural background you’re viewing it from. Unity, protection, duality, completeness, the trap that is the physical universe, and the end containing the beginning (and vice-versa) being some of them. Up to you which you’d like to apply in the context of this piece…!

15 - Safekeeping

#NaPoWriMo Day 15 and tonight I’ve been writing a sestina inspired by love and connection, after attending the gorgeous Fen Speak open mic (which I wasn’t going to, and then wonderful things happened, so I stayed).

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the fourteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/safekeeping-155744689

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Tonight we are treated to treatises on love
and acceptance, cozied in glorious metaphor.
Tonight we dance under moonlight,
drifting in snow-powdered warmth,
daring to name family in new ways,
old ways, loud and soft together, clasping hands.

How wonderful, to span distances with hands
separated by miles and water, seeking love.
Battered by battling life, we find ways,
even now – especially now – for
bringing brilliance, by-product of warmth
to those in search of light.

It is nice to be reminded, to take flight,
lifted and steadied by multiple hands,
securely precipitous, glorying in the warmth
of spirits who, time and again, choose love,
doubling-down on every indicator
that shared humanity is more important, always.

I am tired, in too many ways,
but my veins fizz with light.
I am unclenching from a score
of near-misses, feeling returning to hands
that long to show my love
in more ways than words, to share warmth.

There are many types of fire building this warmth,
and it occurs to me that ‘nice’ can’t encompass the ways
we feel, the fights we are fuelled by, knowing that love
is summoned through filters across a spectrum of light,
and that this infinite diversity is perfect – ANDs
glittering in this coruscance of connections, the beauty of ORs.

And isn’t that what our perfectly illogical logic is for?
Logs given to the hearth around which we gather, warmth
a gift, shared, multiplying between many hands.
And we are careful to acknowledge all the ways
that flames this large cast long shadows, a twilight
in which we dismantle all the grim things to which we clove.

Take each other’s hands in the dance – it’s what they’re for –
step with purpose and wild abandonment, love and warmth
the inspiration for more ways to light the path, to say We’re Here.

Drawing by me, shamelessly reusing one of the sets of hands from Spectral, flame reference from Wikipedia

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Did I add a Star Trek reference in there? Why yes; yes, I did. Zero regrets. (See also the couple of cheat words I used that a sestina purist would probably scorn.) Am I satisfied with the drawing? Not yet, but, in the spirit of NaPoWriMo, I’m posting it anyway.

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

14 - Count Down

#NaPoWriMo Day 14 and today I’ve written an Abracadabra inspired by the Random Line Generator. The words I was given were clean, taunt, inspect, secret, guard, thick, brush, and vapour, and it’s quite the challenge to fit them into such an already curtailed form. Judge for yourself how you think I did!

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the thirteen preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/count-down-155651088

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“Is it clean yet?” the old man taunts. “Come on, boy!
“He wants to see your face in it, come night.”
The young lad shakes his head and brushes
thick detritus of an age free.
Intent to pass inspection,
he fails to keep his guard.
The secret hour strikes;
he sees nothing
as vapours
claim his
life

Original mirror image obtained from Wikipedia, then thoroughly messed with by me

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

13 - Weathering

#NaPoWriMo Day 13 and tonight I’ve been writing a triolet inspired by loneliness (well… specifically missing someone).

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the twelve preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/weathering-155564589

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“I miss you” seems repetitive and trite,
and yet, it is the only phrase that fits.
Alone, the world is dull, and with you, bright.
(“I miss you” seems repetitive and trite.)
See, when you’re in my arms, the world feels right,
and holding you will smooth my jagged bits.
“I miss you” seems repetitive and trite,
and still… it is the only phrase that fits.

TV room poet’s own

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

12 - Prickling Tributes

#NaPoWriMo Day 12 and tonight I’ve been writing a piece of free verse inspired by Prickly Pears – a tribute poem to all the performers tonight.

Normally, I’d tell you to remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the eleven preceding it) there. HOWEVER, I promised a recording to the performers, so you get it here too (and I’ll just have to come up with an extra gift for the Patreon subscribers to make up for this not being exclusive…).

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fayroberts · Prickling Tribute

We are safe, sound, and wonderfully colourful, loving the brilliant wisdom of glittering sensitivity, lifting each other, comfortable challenges, deft and considerate.	Intro
Do or die is not today, burning down expectations, searching out the dangers, mistaking the ways of working, turning lurking in perfection into freedom.	Kate
Sinners pay for the mistakes of making noises, canonically confetti-strewn, and construing duty as a reconstruction of a stumble.	Gareth Barsby
Clap out the chaos, refusing to inflict infantile isolation, reject rot, recognise the wild sanctity of humanity, games making fiction a breathlessly empty treachery.	Vayl
Let’s teach each other constructive alignment, pedagogically, paradoxically dodging OFSTED, bodging observations, repetitively dictating today’s duration, even though it feels endless.	Pip
Open a correspondence into a lifetime of idealism, downing a cocktail of positive experiences, reeling and rocking, mocking the inevitability with a grin.	Ash
Consumption of society’s norms can be filling, drilling into the bedrock of toxic assumptions, dumping constructions, rolling the stones over and over to the conclusion of inevitability.	Sandra
Unprompted preparation paves the way for a final trip, flipping memories over on the grill of reality, the musicality of island tides gifting something undefinable, measured in its loss, sweet as Paradise.	Phynne~Belle
Triple-time gifts us dancing experiments, bending shackled minds to wander and wonder under the bedrock echoes of the resounding repetition of loneliness, serendipity abandoned, surviving unforgiven.	Joycey
Fresh words flourish in fertile space, stretching restless frustration into a new cage, hemmed in, digging into resentment, then switching optimistically, gathering new meanings, leading to graceful patience.	Tamika
Paradoxically, we walk in contradiction, begging for attention, twitching in syncope, drifting in focus, opening minds to the ‘craziness’, not lazy, but blunted, shunted into a category that clatters at the periphery.	Ashley
Cued up, we examine bigotry under a magnification of narrative that serves only the kyriarchy, wicked and wilful monochrome, honing the agenda of apathy, the gift of those who spike the path mendaciously.	Phoenix
We’re a patchwork of fingerprints, beauty painting a palimpsest of history, gifting us a view that inevitability depends on compliance and forgetfulness, the weft of deft love and clear eyes against the warp of greed.	Suzy
We carpet bare memories with prettiness, mess swept under the fashionable patterns that distract from the demons inscribed into the grain, blame bobbing down the rivers of sweat buoying complicity.	Bethany
Colour flourishes up walls, adorning imaginations with grace and clipping, trimming situations with disappointment, impressing lines into blank pages, the ages connecting, washing up against our shored stories.	Lee
We have opened many windows into compassion dashing, sweet, spendthrift and multiplying, kindness a warm gift that benefits every member of our shared continuity.	Gareth Bartlett
Automated text tells a layered set of mixed messages getting tangled in parallel meanings, gleaning more than nonsense, the strangest guest of humanity, sentience being a lucky dip.	Clive
And finally, functions summoned by departed friends send us into a litter of plastic bagged eternity, wildness lined with polymer, bone-deep, changing our definitions, prinked colours murmurating across the canvas of the mind.	Beth

Thanks for the inspiration

Poster of the event because why not?