NaPoWriMo continues despite a long day prepping for & running a production meeting. So the following formula: very tired + little creative juice = quick pome.
bed
you brought autumn into our bed
which was fine while the leaves
were still soft & smelt of earth
— now they crackle when i snore
& you are long gone though
i refuse to change the sheets
Today was a tiring day with a meeting in the morning, work on technical/production documents, phone calls & planning, pulling information teeth from my reluctant-to-divulge-information director, along with a printer cartridge which needed replacing at a crucial time, all meant my brain wasn’t really in a poeting frame when 8 o’clock rolled round & I realised I hadn’t written anything postable yet.
Feeling uninspired, I used an old trick — flicking through an art website I like, typing in keywords (like “firefly”, “serenity”, etcetera) until “autumn leaves” brought me to a website of a lovely French photographer who was obsessed with both the season & the “golden hour” which meant her page was full of golds, & glowing light, rich decaying reds, browns, & yellows.
So I assembled a page & a half’s worth of picture description (me describing what I see in the photo), photo titles (or parts of), & words/phrases lifted from the mostly French comments below the photos & run through google translate, which I arranged, tweaked, edited & tried to shape.
The result is this narrative through images. I know it probably needs a solid edit to help make it, make “sense” — & I’m not sure about the last line which originally I took out because it felt like it was from another pome, but I missed what was lost & so put it back — anyhoo, NaPoWriMo is about writing a pome a day, not about masterpieces. (At least that’s my excuse, & I’m sticking.)
Autumnus
your hands : overlap : your face : letting go : the place remains : imaginary : you handstand : in puddles : hair caught on blossoms
the leaves of my manuscript : waterfall over the balcony : stare at blank pages : sunbeams on my skin : my house : then the sky : pity the sun : that must go down : every night
we look at the stars : & talk til 2am : different themes : on the same thought : the same person : yearning for sunshine : in different clothes
wildness in your eyes : crackles through : everything seems to be twirling : ambiguous : diminished
i lay in the field : among flowers : asleep : my book : across my face
this is the link : to us : i am me : & you are nobody
you could : hide beside me : & i could : hide inside : maybe we just like fixation : this is the madness : melancholic nostalgia : beautiful : but full of sad memories
please don’t : wake me up : i need time to dream : everything deep : so i’ll remember forever : the days we spent : together
child of the autumn : child of the leaves : child that can never be
So it seems the NaPoWriMo moral of the story is, post Thursday mornings beforehand, not think you’ll have time at the end of the night. Thursday is my Worstday; with driving, work, late night, driving; I arrived home half an hour before midnight, tired & with a slow computer so that when it ticked over to midnight, I just thought: I’ll do it in the morning.
Not a 100% happy with this one, but the others I worked on (yester)today are i) for a competition or ii) political so it’s a very short short list (i.e., it’s this one poem). The only editing I’ve done (to)today is shorten the title.
favourite sign of autumn
you can keep your gently goldenening leafs
your sugarysweet ripening grapes & all
your other dull stereotypical signs of autumn
i’ll stick with my little bag of wheat
in the old days we warmed em in the oven
my forgetfulness costing me at least two
now the agitation of microwaves does the trick
in 180 seconds stimulating water molecules within
& so for the next three, four or more hours
it gently leaks heat into my bed, against my leg
warming against the oncoming winter
reassuring me cold can & will be overcome
more organic than an electric blanket
(& less likely to incinerate) but sadly
more lumpy than a lover at 3am when I roll
— at least, I think it is, it’s been a while
An hour ago, I sat down & looked at the ideas I’d been playing with & groaned.
Why at this time of night, do I suffer NaPoWriMophobia: the fear that nothing I’ve worked on all day is worth sharing?
At the end of a regular day, if nothing’s good enough to share, um, well I don’t. (To be honest, it’s a fine line, because sometimes I write something I think is good/has potential, but I don’t want to share it because it might have a life at a competition or in a journal somewhere; & many such avenues frown on public broadcasting even on such a humble thing as a poorly subscribed poet’s blog.)
But then, I typed up half a dozen lines scrawled in my notebook after waking this morning, which grew into this moody piece. Not what I was originally intending to do with it (I don’t think) but something I am more than satisfied, even pleased, with.
nest
woven layers : accumulation : levels of detritus : leaves like slugs : webs pull the corners : closer : a comfortable chaos : treesurrounded : birdnoisewrapped : step over twigs : all wound through : with string : & stolen hair : windrunnels : wingflutter : cavesafe : eggless : empty : arrive : unlock with relief : discard shell : flop onto : feathersoft couch : to rest : regenerate : recubate
If I said I understood everything I wrote, I’d be lying. Today’s effort comes from a form of poetry-generation; a pome-making game I guess. The steps are simple.
1. Make a series of lists (using prompts).
2. Choose one element from each list.
3. Find a way to combine them in one pome.
Ergo, below…
surveying the damage
through the window
yellow leaves cover the lawn
on the table bread is dark
brown like chocolate
— the wind blew all night
forcing doors & knocking
knick-knacks from sills
too cold to emerge
from beneath blankets
so the water did what it must
— spend the morning
throwing all my books
into a pulping machine
they’re useless now
Life can be such a poo the way it gets in the way. The first draft of this pome was finished well before 11am with intentions to tweak later in the day; but work, 2 & 1/2 hours of driving, that pesky niece again (thankfully the essay is due tomorrow, well today now) meant it’s had no chance for revision & is being uploaded a few minutes after my midnight. Ahh well, it’s a solid start that can be worked on later.
cheap paperback wonderland
though the pages are yellow, foxed
though the spine brittle
though the glue cracks
as each page tumbles over
transforming bound book
into loose leaves no matter
how reverentially i turn
despite the damage i inflict
upon this precious relic
long savoured by my mother
as one of her favourite fictions
i am once more lost this time
in revolutionary cornwall
as the industrial age fires up
weeping at love gone awry
wailing harder when reconciled
every so often wandering astray
at the way words no matter
the medium these upright lines
curious curves intermittent
dots & convoluted squiggles
repeatedly rearrange themselves
into emotional outpourings
that make them the greatest
of all wonders
I have been reading a few fairy tales most recently Scandinavian ones from East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North (1914). This edition is gloriously illustrated by Kay Nielsen.
Today’s poem is breaking more than one of my self-imposed ‘rules’ – 1) it is not a cover image & 2) more than one illustration has inspired it. But given the rules are mine, I figure I can change em as I see fit.
fairy tale
she is the girl who understands
what the birds say when they sing
& if she has bad dreams, pretty birds
snatch them from her & fly away
she is the girl who can move
the moon with her eyes alone
& if her soul feels empty
stars come in close to comfort
she is the girl who dances with fairies
under leaves of endless autumn
& if her true love ever breaks her heart
they will torment him till his grave
she is the girl i loved & lost
once upon a time, long long ago
NOTE: image is a detail of she could not help setting the door a little ajar, just to peep in, when — Pop! out flew the Moon (pg 67) from East of the Sun and West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielsen (1914)
gareth roi poet boi 