2022.17 Piping

This one I lay squarely at the feet of @PoetryOD, with her prompt of the picture below of @Sk8Liborius:

The nave is now a hymn of curves,
the altar tagged with loving lines.
This space has claimed what it deserves,
the nave is now a hymn of curves.
The belfry rings with rolling swerves,
and through the air Survival chimes.
The nave is now a hymn of curves,
the altar tagged with loving lines.

Sk8Liborious is a passion project preserving the oldest Neo Gothic Cathedral west of the Mississippi and transforming it in a community arts hub

There was going to be a whole thing where pigeons were mentioned, but that may need to wait for another poem. 😄 (I was also going to call it Labour of Love or Libor of Love, and then I remembered that, for some reason, I’m sticking with single word titles this year, so...) This form is one of my yearly traditions: a triolet, which is – you guessed it – available in the Concrete and Repeating Poems Spreadsheet.

2022.16 Revenge

Content warning: circular thoughts, sleep deprivation, implied despair and self-neglect.

Does it ever stop? Is stopping an option?
I am propped up on cough drops and not enough sleep,
deep in the shifting miasmas of clinging nightmares,
bearing up because I keep being told I’m strong.
But this is a sickness nothing can lance;
chance would be a fine thing.

I’m tired, that’s the thing.
Just tired, and resisting the obvious option,
because anyone close enough would see at a glance
that this creature needs more sleep,
wreathed in the creeping realisation that strong
isn’t enough to stop the nightmares

Because they’re mighty, these nightmares,
and I’m tired, that’s the thing,
of living up to the myth of strong,
wrong-footing myself until the only option
is push until I’m dropping, beyond the need to sleep.
Any more of this, and I’ll need an ambulance.

But there’s something like a dirty little jubilance
as I slalom the persistent nightmares
by the simple expedient of dodging sleep,
deep in denial until I’m too tired – that’s the thing,
mocking any sensible option
after all: I need to prove myself strong

Rapidly repeat a word until it loses meaning: strong strong strong strong strong,
upright, mighty, solid, persistent, grim, ringed with vigilance;
hero or villain - those are the options,
because not enough sleep means the daytime bleeds nightmares
which I’m too tired to not flinch from, that’s the thing,
and still I stop here, not sleeping.

Repeatedly censor a concept until it loses meaning: sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep...
But the gravity well of softness is strong,
and I’m tired, that’s the thing;
twitching from the rigours of hypervigilance,
becoming one with the nightmares
harrowing down my option

And the thing is – I’d probably think clearer with more sleep,
give myself better options instead of mocking the concept of strong,
striking a balance between me and the nightmares; it may be too late.

This one’s taken a couple of days to write, and I’ve enjoyed adding more repetition than usual to an already repetitive form (sestina, as taught to us by our dear, departed friend, Caron Freeborn, available, like its kin, in the Concrete and Repeating Forms spreadsheet). I wouldn’t say it’s factual (for one thing, the cough drops line was purely for the sake of internal assonance), but it’s true enough.

2022.12 Excavation

Do you ever set out to write one thing and then it twists out from under you in a wild knight’s move and you’re suddenly somewhere completely different? Yeah, me too…

She takes a deep breath, leans forward, says: “It’s not as if–”
then stops. She has that frown, a glyph of sweet concern, “You see, we–”
stops again. It’s not that I don’t understand, we want
the same things, it’s impossible not to gather every effort to the
fight, but while we’re deliberating ethics, other are reaping the rewards
of being more ruthless, scattering tactics like caltrops; fragments of
rage at being bereft of significance, of vigilance missed, of being
suddenly unhitched from what they considered their destiny. No longer loved
just for their existence, they’re scrambling to make sense, jealous of what we
are gathering, finally: the birthright of humankind. “But do you have
the right?” she asks, “Really?” My turn to frown and she points to
one side, where something pants, ready, waiting to submit–
No: subject us to division, derision for peace each line of its manifesto.
And I go cold at the sight of its manic rage, the writhe and seethe
of it, and I am struck, utterly, way too late, by the mortifying
realisation that all of us are in this for a longer haul, an ordeal
we never needed to bleed through. But some folk lost their proof
of our humanity and we must hunker down for the sake of being
safe harbour for those who come after us, but for how long? That’s unknown.

Image taken from a Hard Times piece about Scrooge McDuck and bitcoin

I think I’ve been hanging out with too many Young Folk, who talk in demi-memes culled from Tumblr (and sometimes TikTok), so I’ve only known the quote I’ve used for this Golden Shovel form in fragments (often misquoted to boot). Luckily, Google found me what I needed from my partial phrase, and I spent an unconscionable amount of time testing it on a new tab of the Concrete and Repeating Forms Spreadsheet, which is expanding massively this year, for some reason!

Quite why I went from “I will write a Golden Shovel poem, and it will be a light and possibly mildly flippant take on love and affection.” to Somewhat Political from Line 4 to Practically Apocalyptic from Line 12 is beyond me! Such interesting times we’ve living in…

2021.13 Cross

“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I look ahead, pick my subsequent words with care
“That must be quite rare.”
“Yes.”
“What happens if…?”
“What do you think?”

I sink into recollection:
My mother tiptoeing for fear of tiny squeaks
My brother freaking at distant rumbling
My cousin clenched tight at the sight of feathers,
Everyone weathering their own storm.

“Normal’s overrated,” I say, airily,
“I dare you to find anyone with nothing
“slumbering in their unconscious.”
“Precisely,” she says, quietly,
leaving me to guess at the
practicalities, how long it takes
for exclusion to be second nature,
wince for this mistake.

The @allographica prompt for Day 13 was to pick some inspiration from the random phobias finder and honestly? Did nothing for me. So, having established that there are individual names for irrational fears of any letter of the alphabet, I did this weird, almost certainly unfinished, deliberately broken lipogram, using the Repeating Forms Tool, on the grounds that the challenge is about writing something, not something perfect, especially when you’re running behind!

Image from Medical News Today