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.

2022.15 Disambiguation

I had a friend give me a word to write about/ from. I’ll tell you the word at the end.

Whatever you are, to me you are colour.
‘Fancy’ also springs to mind;
neat yet flamboyant,
carving out a quiet, bright,
comfortable niche in a dull world.

I imagine you bobbing along,
exchanges pithy, but ultimately
sure of your path, rolling sweetly,
collared in certainty, a tart
barb kept for special occasions.

I have never seen you in flight,
or, well, not for long;
a brief splash of brash hues,
and then settling, cupped
in the current of congeniality.

And it’s been a while – the world
has changed, and so have I, but you
are a dart of nostalgia – the scents of
summer, old books, the warmth of
my father’s hands, badges,
plans unpeeled in the shade of a hot day.

You are ambitions ringing tender
memories, Saturdays spent stinging,
singing softly, watching river banks
for telltale wiggles, picking wildflowers,
and waiting.

I could have done a collage of different images associated with this word, but settled on... creating abstract art? Got to love that NaPoWriMo experimentation vibe!

The word was mandarin. The disambiguation section of Wikipedia for Mandarin lists well in excess of twenty different associations with the word. So I guess I reambiguated it.

2019.2 Ishqbazi

They call it husbandry.
He watches the coterie tumble and
dance, flirt with air-currents,
a smile on his lips,
even as he trains them,
directs their pairings,
with an eye for their offspring’s fortune.

He exhorts them to lean into
the best of what their God gave them,

discarding the careless practices
of his fond but feckless forebears.
Each feather is a treasure,
ribboned ankles a flash of pride
in the heart of his court.

Ringed with gold, fed only the best,
they test the Charkh and the Bazi,
fling themselves into contention with
gravity, pull praises from him,
trust to the truth of his love.
And even after their brief twirls are done,
they grace the zenana, pecking painted grains;
perfect specimens forever.

Pigeons feeding near a golden pigeon cote on a hillside, Mughal, Kashmirmid – 17th Century © The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

Ishqbazi means “love-play” and is what Emperor Akbar used to call pigeon-flying. This is either adorable or slightly creepy. Probably adorable.

Charkh means “a lusty movement ending with the pigeon throwing itself over in a full circle”

Bazi means “lying on the back with the feet upwards, and quickly turning round”

Zenana “contextually refers to the part of a house belonging to a Hindu or Muslim family in the Indian subcontinent which is reserved for the women of the household.”

2017.29 - The Beginning Is Always Today

We are greeted by the voices of women
And the visions of women
We step into a forest of arms held wide
And fists held high.

We enter a riot of colours
All the shades of defiance
All the textures of acceptance
All the shapes of love.

We are told to be bold
We are granted permission
We listen and we are heard
We watch and we are seen.

Here are the dreamers of worlds
And the builders of dreams
Here are the wall-shakers
Here are the bringers of light

We have encoded resistance
Into an insistence to be heard
And we have changed the shape of conversations
In the realisation of worth.

And by one man’s metric,
We are nasty. A degeneration of
Our one true station of servility;
Civilisation’s demise in four syllables.

Sad.

Listen: if the tower must be dismantled,
Brick by brick, to be rebuilt as kilns
And hospitals, and libraries,
And bridges, so be it.

If the walls must be torn down,
Again, we’ll lift our busy fingers
And strong hearts to the task,
Talking all the while.

And we will break silence with song,
And fear with laughter,
And dark grey fences with pinks and browns,
With violets, whites, and greens.

And we will plant flowers on your
Place of rest, and remember.
And we will walk on,
Dancing into the dawn.


We’re very near the end of the month, which is exciting (and, if I’m honest, somewhat relieving, and also sort of sad: I’ll have to make up my own excuses to write poems…). The last Sunday of every month is usually Allographic’s open mic, but this month we’re teaming up with Nasty Women Cambridge to help them celebrate the end of their exhibition in aid of Corona House (housing single, homeless women with a Cambridge connection), Cambridge Women’s Aid (providing dedicated and specialist services to women and children affected by domestic abuse), and Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (offering support to women and girls who have experienced rape, childhood sexual abuse or any other form of sexual violence).

What’s that got to do with this poem? Well, glad you asked. I went to see their exhibition on text art resistance, and came away with my brain buzzing and my heart dancing, as I was pretty sure I would. I wanted to write something for the exhibition. And that’s definitely how the poem starts, but it becomes more about the general Nasty Women movement and I am so looking forward to performing this to a bunch of other footstomping, outspoken, resistant, Nasty People of all genders on Sunday evening. The title comes from one of the pieces which, in turn, is a quote from one of my literary heroes, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Boom.

2017.18 - Balloonist

Trust me, you said,
Tying a bright red ribbon
At the halfway point.

Around us seagulls,
The soar of day,
Full-throated clouds.

I worry about weights,
About being too close
About the lack of tension

The sky is not quite blue
The earth not quite green
And we are not quite...

Trust me, and I,
Clasping the length
Of my courage, watched.


I do not play table-top games, but my partners do. When I, sleeplessness hungover from driving one of them to the airport at 2:30am, asked the other one (similarly hungover) for a prompt, I was shown the vision cards from Mysterium. Some shuffling later, and here we are. (We may well see another one of these before the month is out!)

2017.14 - Generation

Uppity.
He’s never called that –
Cocky, bold,
Decisive,
Maverick and rule-breaker;
Never uppity.

My brass neck
Sets off shrill alarms,
My mettle
Detected;
Unnatural, they call it –
Brazen, unholy.

I’m a steed
Of a different stripe,
Stand hidden
In plain sight;
Pierrot makeup, broad back,
Prized for my fine skin.

You should know:
Underneath it all
I’m angry,
With reason;
I won’t smile for the telling,
See, I’ve learned too much.

I won’t kneel,
So don’t hold your breath;
No trophy,
Owned or sold,
Obeisance be buggered –
I’ll walk my own path.


Elaborate set-up: using a different random word generator, I generated five words (uppity, brass, zebra, known, obeisant), then plugged them into Google image search. Scrolling through some weird and wonderful results, and jumping some links, I came across:

Since I’d also come across 

 and 

along the way, the scene was set for the theme. I then trawled Wikipedia for poetry forms, and found a Shadorma. My only regret is that I can’t seem to find out who the ladies in the first image are, so, if anyone can enlighten me, I’d be very grateful!

#6 Statute

I don't usually do intros, but this was inspired by visiting the Louvre in Paris recently, and seeing, among other things of beauty (we mostly stuck to the Classical statues - you can't hope to "do" the whole museum in a day), the Venus de Milo. I don't usually do set forms, but NaPoWriMo is all about the challenges, so this is a terzanelle, or approximation thereof.

Love appears to be disarmed
And where she points is empty
By powers absent we are charmed

Antiquity has lost her sentry
Her guards are lost or sleeping
And where she points is empty

By night came thieves in dark and creeping
By day with flags and trumpets bold
Her guards are lost or sleeping

We revere them, sere and cold
Visit them in crowded dreaming
By day with flags and trumpets bold

White or black or gilded gleaming
We come from all across the Earth
Visit them in crowded dreaming

From them we seek to fill some dearth
Love appears to be disarmed
We come from all across the Earth
By powers absent we are charmed