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

2021.15 Mainline

It’s not exactly the best idea –
ambling along while they all run.
Maybe you thought it helped:
resting, assuming you could ski
uphill, floating on momentum.
Never mind the discipline won,
never mind the camaraderie too:
intimacy forged by common fight.
Not for you the questing bonds,
glued to the notion that you?
Better off aloof, hiding the bitter
equations of effort spent on those
hampering your flow… somehow.
It’s not even as though
nobody notices, you lovely
dolt; count the actual thanks and crack on…

Catching up, catching up…!

This result from searching for The Tortoise and the Hare turns up all over Google but I can't find the origin, so can't credit the creator, sadly. Mine came from, of all places, Craft Brews and Running Shoes

2020.10 The Weight of Greaves

Kindness has not been rationed,
Unless you know something I don’t.
Believe me – I feel your pain, but
Lies are promulgated
Everywhere – some ignorant, others less so.
Research is the key;
Research and hope, strange as that might sound.
Open yourself to difficult possibilities,
Surrender to the notion that everything is changing,
So much quicker than we might have anticipated,
Great swathes of how we function have shifted, and
Rage will not take you all the way to the end.
It’s difficult – we want to shut our
Eyes, but that’s no more
Functional than flailing,
Cursing, begging for a way back:
You are on a track that cannot be reversed,
Cry all you might for the lost moments.
Let yourself – it is only one step –
Elegies are how we say goodbye, and keep on living.

Image from LitHub, © Steve Greer

2019.11 Dies Forte

Vent away, she says with a smile.
Eventually, I respond, it won’t be
Necessary. We ponder in silence.
Generally, she suggests,
Everyone needs some kind of release.
Anger isn’t always a weakness.
Nevertheless, I say. It’s firm, soothed with a tiny smile.
Carefully, we negotiate each shift of topic;
Echoing throughout: our shared agenda,
Itching to be heard, made real,
Surging tide beneath our keels.
Long silences are loqacious here and now.
I pause yet again, reach to touch her hand.
Victory is in the little things.
Impishly, she all-but grins,
Nods.
Gathering ourselves, we rise on cue,
Wander out into the sunshine,
Exiting a chapter that didn’t give us much to say.
Lost in the dazzle for a moment, she tips her head back,
Laughter arcing into free air.

2018.3 - Mary

All this time and she has never
Ventured further than the garden gate.
Evening falls and the day’s round falters
May I? he says, soft as falling blossom
And she, she knows she shouldn’t,
Ripe to fall herself, she reaches forward,
Inked with growing shadows,
A grace that few have missed but this
Gentle stranger dares what others bypass,
Rare and passing fair -
A sight for starving eyes.
Tell me a story - tell me of the place that birthed you, she murmurs, twilit
I was born to light the darkness that no mind can span,
And sang the spheres with my eternal siblings,
Plumbed the legion depths and sought the heights,
Laboured long in loving servitude until
Enough! I cried. For pity’s sake!
Never enough, it whispered.
And so I fell, for love. And so you, divided, rose.

2017.6 - Cave

Senses will lie to you
Make a mockery of certainty
Undermine reality
Grey is always more than
Grey - it is scintillating with
Lights, a spectrum
Etching expectations from the
Absolute to
Nothing

All we see, or nearly, is what we’ve
Culled from hand-me-down
Romances, and we look askance at the
Ones who speak truths,
Switching between what is
To what we’ve been bred to,
Idiopathic travellers
Called to the root of things.

Pay them some heed;
Attention is everything, and
States of mind can act as
Tethers, meshes of
Evocation
Vaulting gaps in understanding,
Emptying sight of the irrational when
Rational is the bigger lie.
You are better than that
Better than those second-hand
Obfuscations
Duty binds you to.
You can be free.

This is courtesy of another prompt from the folk at Lies, Dreaming Podcast. But I’m not going to tell you which one...

2015.22 - Sea and Mountain Call

Home is where the heart is, so
I'm trapped in a limbo,
Rhapsodising on (at least) two themes,
Absent on a wing of thought,
Eddying in an echo of regret,
Tied with loving bonds,
Hand and foot and throat.

#27 Across Constraint

Command me. I stand to the
Ordinance of your desire, on fire,
Naked to your gaze.
Stroke me with your words until I
Tremble, breathless,
Restless with anticipation,
Afraid of nothing but your
Indifference. Please. I
Need you to bring me to the
End, and then, spent,
Deliver me to rest.