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

---

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

---

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.

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).

---

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

9 - Maximal Drama!

#NaPoWriMo Day 9 and, owing to ill health and another day of sleeping for what turned out to be 14 hours(!), I’m catching up a little frantically today, knowing how difficult it gets if you let it slip and keep saying “Oh, I can catch up – it’ll be fine! So, given an interesting combination to work with by my Prompt-o-matic Spreadsheetatron™, I’ve been writing a piece of alliterative verse inspired by Max Devrient. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of him either, and it took getting an automated translation of the German Wikipedia page, which is (unsurprisingly) packed far more with information, to find out enough to make this piece, where I decided that “alliterative” in this instance meant “all the words have to begin with either M or D”. (If you’re keen to find out more about this fascinating chap, this page is quite the treasure trove, including some delightful photos I wasn’t sure if I had the rights to use!)

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the eight preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/maximal-drama-155321764

---

My mother made me
delve deep, destiny’s
metric demonstrated.

Disappointments dog
men mirroring me.
Dented masks; dull drips.

Dynamic mastery
marries, denied divorce,
making do, multiplying.

Deflected, movies magnify
my dramatic definition,
monk making much money.

Deep down, darkness
deals death; daughters
dispense desperate doom.

Diverted, my midwinter
directs, monarchs match
my merits dutifully.

Döbling decorated,
my moniker delineates
driving. Magnificent!

Max Devrient as “Zawisch” in Grillparzer's “King Ottokar’s Fortune and End” at the Vienna Burgtheater, courtesy of Wikipedia

6 - Douché

#NaPoWriMo Day 6 and today I’ve been writing a piece of free verse inspired by the “official” prompt yesterday to write about things we dislike, “… particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.” Challenge accepted!

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the five preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/douche-154960772 (and it has sound effects!)

---

I hate taking showers,
growling at the necessity
for nakedness and standing,
and my skin sheds anyway,
take the grime with it!
Stupid, itchy, blithering,
witless skin. Shut up!

I’m in now, glowering at
flat, white surfaces, shivering
in the chill of an unplugged
updraft from somewhere,
staring at familiar objects,
objecting all the while,
grinding my teeth.

UGH! The water hits my
griping feet, sleet-cold,
growing violently hot,
scotch bonnet sensation
grating, turning skin from
blue to red, and I hop and
test and flex and grimace.

I sweep the grudgingly correct
temperature up my shuddering
frame, blame society’s weird
propriety and turn to get drenched,
wrenching a comb through
tangled locks and cursing,
nursing each strand free.

I go through the soaping
motions, swaying in the heat
beating against scalp and
shoulders, moulding my
mouldering bits by ancient ritual
into a different me, free of
crust, chemically sweet.

Then my timer chimes, the
real world flits in, reminding
me of outside responsibilities,
a grief of gravity claiming
this blameless mer-wraith,
making me desist, persistent
in its insistent linearity.

I hate quitting showers!

---

Portrait of the Poet as a Wet Little Guy

I went searching for a Creative Commons picture which responded to “grumpy shower”. What I got was a swamp of GenAI nonsense so, on the grounds that doing it yourself badly is better than using GenAi, behold, an original!

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.

2022.15 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.

2022.9 Tenebrae

A #Mothra, courtesy of Beth Hartley, via Poetry Non-Stop’s prompt for the day (inspired by an image from StormHour):

There
is a
beauty in contrasts:
opposites propping each other
up, providing a backdrop, swapping
light for dark, and vice versa,
all the while building to a crescendo,
dipping in and out, weaving a foundation for
loud that only works because the quiet came first.
And now that sudden hush as reality creaks, waiting, breath
held, for the cloudburst, the ecstasy of finally just letting go...

And oh, the relief, as all the loud and bright and
dark, soft and jagged, haggard and hopeful, tangle, the way
they’ve been waiting to, the way they were made
to take up space, even if just for
this one moment, this breathing, heaving respite
from holding still, from tamping down.
from that difficult frown of
hiding from the neighbours.
No matter now.
Just breathe.
There.

Image: Shower Over Jodrell Bank by Mark Boardman, via StormHour

I find Mothras difficult, it turns out, because my brain has mastered syllable counting at a pretty much unconscious level these days, but word-counting doesn’t fit my rhythmic nature! Or something. Anyway, it was nice to give this a go. Why not try it on yourself via the ever-present Concrete and Repeating Poetry Forms Spreadsheet?

(It was also very pleasing to discover the multiple meanings of tenebrae...)

2021.6 Web

It’s the precision.
Moonlight stepping strand to strand
delicate as	her hands deft on the keys
dark glitters on the edge
the edge of	hands gather notes like a
	“Charmed to meet you.”
	“Where did they dig you up?”
exhaustion saws at the edges of him	Smiles
He is soft-ragged, a breath
Moonlight like a sarabande
Strands echoing in
Where?
It’s dark and there’s only his breath
but there’s a tune somewhere beckoning
why?	“They should have left you there”
This isn’t my story	tell your own
kind	“I’m not kind. I’ve never been
	heartbeat dropping heavy through his ribcage into his guts	“What did she say?”
Nothing.		There’s nothing here.
It’s been days.	How long has it been?
Time is snatches of breath between
Sleep doesn’t		“I’m sorry.”
	“I won’t give up. I
Can’t see anything but	you.
There’s dust now.	“You know what they say about dust”
Dusk was her time
Shifting between states
But it’s night now.
The precision mocks him again, all straight edges in unfiltered light	“Say it again! Say those words!”
	Face screwed up like.
	“Face it, I’m no-one’s idea of
Heaven
His laugh caws from him, splatters down among the straight lines	Destination unknown.	“Dehydration, in the end. Simple. Well, not simple.”
		“Why didn’t he say anything?”
It’s funny, really.	“Now, there’s a word with a lot of meanings.”
Always.
He tries to cough. There’s nothing but himself.
Pain is a distant thing. He Drifting.		“Nothing to be done.”
Caught.	Diminuendo.	“I’m sorry.”
	You said that already.
DC al Fine

This came from the Day 6 prompt, but that’s all I can tell you, as I pretty much just wrote the images as they turned up while listening to the playlist, then arranged them like this.

Image from Smart News; I've not been able to find an attributed source.

2020.14 Baking. Grounded.

Inspired by the Silver Leaf Poetry prompt for Day 16 (“Write a letter to an inanimate object”), but actually following an exercise by @tina_sederholm where you address a person as though an inanimate object, I decided that, for once, I would write it to someone I actually liked:

You are a terracotta flowerpot,
Sturdy, not particularly large at first view,
But surprisingly capacious.
You define yourself by the things that you produce,
Acting as though your largest,
Longest project, green shoots sprouting
In all sorts of glorious (and troublesome) directions now,
Will naturally overshadow you.
Multifarious nutritious things
Owe their starts to your solidity.
Even when you appear empty, you resonate
Potential, making a glorious chime
When something strikes you,
However gently.

You are, by dictionary definition,
Porous. Absorbing many things.
According to Wikipedia,
Terracotta is only named for practicalities
(Pipes, tiles, pots, things to take the weather),
Never the things to touch the
Potter’s wheel, to dance and whirl,
Then sit still forever, martyrs to dust.
Sometimes glazed, sometimes rough,
Surprisingly tough, taking a variety of shades,
Sometimes brightly painted,
Other times revelling in your natural hue,
You exude brightness, even in the darkest times.

You have known earth, and water,
Lay quietly for a long time.
You were brought into the air,
Given shape by clever, loving hands,
Come to your first strength
By going through the fire,
Your colour coming from the iron you carry
In quietly busy hands.
I once told you about your steely core,
Your blush proving that
As much as your ringing tone.

In your time you’ve rescued
Many living things that would otherwise
Have choked or starved,
And doubtless will again, and again,
Lending your strength and curve
To preserving and lifting the burgeoning
Into something wonderful.
There are many plastic imitations out there,
That do their best,
But they are not you,
Would never survive what you have,
And – you hope – will never need to.
And when it comes to the next fresh, green thing,
Sometimes flowery, sometimes fruity,
That you bring forth,
I look forward to telling you:
It’s beautiful.
Because it will be.
Because it always is.
Because you are.

Image source: The Worm That Turned

2019.7 Amphibious

We were looking for ourselves,
Flicking over pages
Bright with gold –
The certainty of the light,
The heritage of those born to
The winning lineage,
All straight lines and shining faces,
Sword-girt, sunlit,
Indomitable,

We sped, too, past the dark,
The depths of the woods,
The unlit caves,
The places where the cold
And dispossessed lure
Innocence to be consumed,
Transformed into dinner or symbol.

Nothing fit.
We saw only funhouse mirrors
Fracturing us further.

It took a while;
We didn’t see you,
Stepping between the rays of sun
At the forest’s edge;
Standing on a bridge
(or under it);
Inhabiting the banks
Of the pond.
We saw you transform –
Small to large, smooth to hairy,
Vulnerable to scaly.

We were taken in by the suggestion
That only one state was the
True one.
We watched them break the spell,
Return you to your
Rightful shape:
Goose to brother,
Mage to dragon,
Fox to wife.

And we, who loved the liminal,
Found our eyes drawn, repeatedly, to you
Who, settling, unsettled us.

And, decades on, we finally re-write,
Breathe easier,
Gift the selkie back her skin
The swan maiden her shift.
The faun runs again in dappled shade,
Chain about his slender neck,
And the frog settles into the
Churning cool of the Springtime lilypond,
Raising his voice in chorus for a while
(just for a while),
Astride the twilight margins,
Until the palace beckons once again.


I’ve already reached the point where I’m asking for prompts from anyone nearby. In this case, my partner, clearly casting an eye about the room, said frog (did you look at the stuffed frog on the bookcase? Shh!). This is where my brain went.

2019.6 A List of Things

Things That Bring Smiles

You breeze through the door;
You rock sideways in your seat,
Bursting with rockets.

Things That Won’t Leave

That sparkly bath bomb;
Grand National 2010;
Hair dye fingerprints.

Things You Don’t Remember

How I take my tea;
Open crisps: invitation;
That Grand National.

Things That Wake Me Up

Slammed doors – car or house;
My name, a kind hand stroking;
You suppressing tears.

Things That Send Me To Sleep

A kind hand, stroking;
Your voice shares that well-loved book;
Crackling woodfire.

Things That Bring Tears 

Too much compassion;
Sister Act: that one high note;
July’s final gasp.

Things That Spark Poetry

Injustice; work stress;
Family; love; eavesdropping;
Pivoting seasons;
Memories of home; the sea;
At the right time: anything.

Already falling behind my self-imposed target of two per day for the rest of the month, but I continue to strive with this Pillow Book-style poem (thanks for the prompt, NaPoWriMo), done as six senryū stanzas and one tanka, because that seemed appropriate for the original material.

2018.18 Three Card Draw

IV The Emperor



Every element is carefully selected, from the rams’ heads to the shades and shapes of his draperies. He is bulked and bulwarked, encased in ridged, rigid materials from crown to spurs. Everything is gorgeous, from gorge view to gorget, and preparation is everything; thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, he is unfond of surprises.

He waits, gripped in dread
Battles the creep of ageing
Less feared than fearing.


6 of Wands, reversed



Dread Emperor I have…
Dread…
(Dread)

So, my liege, a funny thing happened
On the way to the battle
And.

No.

Bravely caparisoned and thronged we strode
High were our hearts and strong our voices
Many who cheered us along our road
Blue were the skies with a myriad choices.

Cut to the chase. I think he’d…
He needs to.
I’ll.

Fear now follows fear
A new day beckons the land
The wall has fallen.


8 of pentacles 



No matter what occurs, the sky never actually falls. It calls: blue, grey, white, star-sparkling, or rain-blessing. The sky knows its own business; a kind of competence that only the masterful possess. Gaze focused, intent on craft, this one spins out protection, carves calmly the shape that turns back indignities into equality, perfectly balanced.

Empires creak and fall
Wisdom rises to artful
And work still goes on.

2017.25 - Living

Sofa
Sits foresquare
Against the radiator,
Sagging, ragged, lightly stained.
Memorial.

Person
Taps syncopatedly
On the sofa
Staring at life sideways.
Poet.


The NaPoWriMo challenge of a few days ago was to write a double elevenie. It feels very much like it took me longer to untangle the description of the form on the site than write this. I feel insufficiently challenged. However, I have written a new poem in a new form so… there you go.

2017.17 - Elements of Sleep

Easy, like sheep
Layers of family,
And colours keeping
Things neat, and memorable
The castle, towers rising

Start small. H.

Hydrogen, Helium, Argon
Boats strain with the
current-fighting surge of
shoulders carrying obsession
like a curse

Potassium, Magnesium
A flash of light older
than living memory
they're all done, a
full-stop of generations

Carbon, Silicon, Oxygen
Clasping hands in waltzing pairs
but only one hand each
maybe a gavotte
or pavanne, fixed smiles

Boron, Neon, Xenon
Strange, so strange,
bright and inert
taking up space
and saying nothing

Nitrogen, Iron
The core of it all
beginning and end
cleaving and failing
and falling, molten again

Gallium, Plutonium
Waiting, tall and dark-voiced,
his half-lit wife
looking away,
straining to the birdsong

Everything else is fading
Or a clasp of complicity,
compounding interest
and splintering,
and Lithium

Sodium, Selenium
Star-metal
the Thunderer's plunder
understand the tears
splashing on a dry chest

Alumnium, Tin, Zinc
Ageing windows
opening into
oxidation blossoms
garrotting, gavotting
What?

Mercury, Gold, Copper
Hope for the future
is a liquid ring
on an empty finger
lingering

Rise.
Google is cheating
Rise
Warm milk
A new beginning
Rise
Read yourself a story
Cassette clatter
sing yourself to sleep
Rise.
And fall.
And fall.

Merino, Suffolk, Cheviot, Southdown, Romney, Shropshire, Polypay…

Marion Leeper, current Bard of Cambridge, suggested (among other things) listing elements of the Periodic Table - you never know, she said, something might come up. Behold, a gift of insomnia.

2017.16 - Ghazal

I walk differently with women,
Sing a different key with women.

My vigilance leans, eyes shutter;
Something else to see with women.

Voices like the sea, throats awash -
Laugh, or disagree, with women.

Arms wide as a tree, wind-dancing,
Sway safe in the lea, with women.

Not just them, but we, a bonding;
Have faith, and be free, with women.


I’ve secretly wanted to give this form a go for a couple of years. The last time I looked at the rules, I felt the same pain I do when considering certain types of quadratic equations. I fled from the explanation, and decided that Ghazal was not for me. And then this year I thought: nope, this is NaPoWriMo, and you push those pain boundaries. If you can do sonnets, Roberts, you can do this. I put a call up for topics/ prompts on that social media, and came away with a hill of helpings. I chose Lara’s “The company of women” and decided that today was the day for my first ghazal. And finally found an explanation/ description that made sense to me.

I suspect I’ve not done the form (or myself) much justice here, but then my first sonnet sucked badly, so onwards and upwards, eh? ☺

Tomorrow I may well give myself a break from counting syllables (four forms in a row… pfff…!) and do something like a clerihew or some stream-of-consciousness free verse.

2017.15 - Abracadabra

It makes no difference, the distance, when we meet 

Ten minutes or ten years - it's all the same 

Sword-pull in the gut, cut quite in two 

And a choking tug of bunting. 

Knuckle down to mundane work,

Imitating normal;

No more glittering,

Dove-chest flutter…

Oh my love,

Forget

Me

Yet again, the prompt for this came from the prompt that was given to Paper Planes for their show tonight. I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but I think this is a new poetry form called The Abracadabra. I've combined that with some concrete poetry for good (?) measure.

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...

2017.5 - First and Last

Not all gods live in groves
Not all skies burn.
We sought an answering pulse in the world
Stretched skins to echo
Sending an embrace to everything
Seeking answers in flesh and breath

And we found it in the rise and fall
And in the glory of the simple
Teeth chattering on that
First cold morning
One minute past dawn
And no-one told you
The way the colours would blend
And bleed and the way that warmth
Blesses.
The way your skin stretched itself
Over cramping muscles
And suddenly
You couldn’t stop
And there was nothing,
Nothing between the sky
And the bottom of your lungs

At the top of the hill
You couldn’t hear anything, at first,
Over your own gasps,
The protests of creaking bones
Too long still
And pushed to flight
And drinking in height
And the drop of earth
And the promise of rain
Seen three hours away.

Measuring distance in time
You are an alchemist
Blood flushing blue-white fingertips,
Stinging the tops of your ears
When was the last time you felt that?
When was the last time you knew
The size of your ears
Where they finished?

And when was the last time you heard
The praising skies
Echo and answer each other
Longing across the flocking distances
Bright as wingflight and
You wonder if you should want to take a photo
And you will never take a photo

This moment is textless
A grin stretching skin
Into a peerless ache.
And soon.
And soon the descent, slow and rueful
And yours.
But now?
But now you sing,
A diaphragm-deep gulder
Bellying the words before words
And this
This freedom?
This will tuck, a fold of always,
Rising to the surface
Each time you see such colours,
Each time your hear your own gasps,
Feel the span of your ears,
Freezing hot,
Each time you do not take a picture
Of the sunrise.


Those tricksters at Lies, Dreaming Podcast generously supplied some idiosyncratic prompts for NaPoWriMo. One struck me, at first because of the name, and then because it was a link, and then because what it linked to was so stunning, including what lay beneath. The poem above is a free-written piece that was the result of writing while listening. I thoroughly recommend it.

2017.4 - Proof

Gather your ingredients,
Vital as bricks
No, not bricks.
Mortar?
No.

Gather your ingredients.
Flour, water, maybe milk,
A touch of salt
He always added salt, didn’t he?
A pinch.
The time he stopped the factory line,
The bread sullied by its lack.
Always have salt on hand.

Wash your hands.
Grate the cheese.
No, wait.
Later.

Cook the bacon.
Thick and curling into
Slabs.
You should cut the bacon.
Before you cook the bacon
Cut the bacon.
Chop.
Thick ribbons ready to
Or
Now there is raw meat

Wash your hands
Wash the knife
It is the wrong knife for bacon
Or the wrong knife for cheese
It is your only sharp knife.

Wash everything,
Set the bacon to fry,
Scrub.
A simmer of curls and
The gentlest change of colour
Deep pink to mid pink
Under the nails
And white to
Still white.

Prod the unchanging white
You should.
You should chop off the fat
They say nowadays
They say “womanly”
And “comfortable”
And “healthy”
And “well-rounded”
And she said “fat”
And she said.
And she said “fat.”
Flat and glistening as a
Curse word

Take the brown bacon,
Place it in a dish.
Chop more meat.
Apply heat.
Watch it like a hawk,
A spatula-wielding hawk,
Sharp as grassblades.
Remove from the heat at
Exactly the right moment.

Take the flour and water,
Or maybe milk
Or... both?
The book says to sieve.
He never sieved.
Never measured,
A lifetime of eye,
Fingertips wise as
Wanting

Mix things together.
Butter should be cold
Folded in but
Your fingertips are not wise
And your shoulder aches sometimes
And the machine waits
Bladed like a brace of scimitars
Watched by two extra pairs of bright eyes
As the sound skirls into a wince of whirling
That signals completion
In a fleshy thump.

Keep them clear of the edges,
Set them to observe,
Still as scientists
Wriggling on the edge of understanding.
The elder, narrating,
Fingers itching to be into the mix
The younger, absorbing
Then dawdling away
While the elder stays,
Straying to sharpness.

Ignore that part of the recipe.
It calls for ingredients that
Normal people call nutrition
But the elder child writhes at,
Skin blistering.
Substitute milk
Always milk.
This week the younger
Still likes milk.

Thump and roll.
Wood clatters, folding the
Machine-rolled lump
Into something like
Something like what wise fingers can do
Glistening
Too much fat?
Everything yellow in this
Kitchen, still redolent
Of its previous incumbents
It does not smell like home.

Press the flattened lump
Into your glass dish,
The one with the lid,
Lift the soft bacon,
Let it flop and slither into
Its new home.
Soon there will be cheese.

Battle the heat-softened cheese
Into the grater,
Ingratiating skin into the mix.
The grater stands sturdy,
Foursquare,
Pristine on three smug sides.
After a while there is enough cheese.

Make a roof for the pie
It is now a pie
The roof is a lid is scraps
Held together with milk and wishing
and the chink of the glass fitting
Your cheeks feel red,
Your shoulder and back ache
Your knees feel swollen
Your fingers shake.
But, for the next thirty minutes
You will only be waiting.
And washing.
And waiting
As the oven roars and blinks.

Sit them down.
Gather them around,
Lift the lid,
See the salt smell envelope them,
Pale as pastry.
Worth the waiting.
“What’s this?”
“Bacon and cheese pie.”
“Again?”
“I don’t like it.”
Watch him cover his in black grit
Watch them poke and pick
Your cheeks still red
Your back still aching.


I’m still playing, unusually for me, with prompts from the NaPoWriMo site. The last couple were “a recipe” and “an elegy”, and somewhere between the bus and home the images became a curious mixture of the two.