"There" by Horse-despiser of great seriousness (Here by Philip Larkin) with Day 30 opposite prompt.

There

Stubbornly West, to lazy auras
desire paths across fields
not stout enough to be unlabelled car-parks.
And now a velvet nameless street, that exposes
the taskless at dusk; awaiting acitivity
of brooks and bird-tempters,
air pillows, bears and chiffchaffs
and the tapering of the river's fast absence,
the depleted silver sky,
the dull untouched marble.

Dispenses to the horror of a small park
dips and spaces, wells and crevasses
failed crops - gather on open grassland
and the unbelonging from cooked saloons,
pulled down they live crooked inches,
away from pottery still walls, away from their fears:
expensive nakedness, green soft fedoras, boiled tuppences.

A healing emptiness, rural yet complex,
abodeless, here no generous strangers go
without a birth-new scentless rose.

Removal of pictures from skin,
merry wild haired husbands,
slow-aura chaff-towns,
stumbling low as pavements,
exposed grassland,
where encapsulated death
company confuses. There chaos rampant
like cold.
Darkly empty smog descends;
and inside the war's reddish invasion of personal space
the sea stealthily claims a forest.

There is fenced death:
Turned away from the sun, talkative, in my arms.

To Early Morning Fields (replacement for Day 25 - missing poem)

Back on a softball pitch.
Daydreams notched up in right field,
or the panic of being on second base
unprepared for the frenzy
of a triple play.

Bonding with team and wet grass,
with the sound of a leather ball
hit by a metal bat
in the sweet spot.

Another type of together
another sort of seclusion
moving to another rhythm.

I'm glad I've known the welcome
of early morning fields.


Thank you everyone. I loved this year and hope that some the poems I have written here become as well-loved as some of mine from last year are to me now! I've had fun. we've all worked hard. Now let's go and edit (shhhhhh!). Also made some brilliant new poetry friends on Facebook. I hope to meet some of them in the flesh sometime and would be honoured to read alongside them.  xxxxxx

Language of play - NaPoWriMo language prompt Day 29

Language of play

Poetry to me
is 30% work
60% play and
10% editing.

Today I will play
(spelen igra juego chwarae bermain).

I discover apathy in Malay
(sikap acuh tak acuh)

and realise that Art,
three letters that endlessly give
(to those who look)

can ARTARTART RAT-TA-TAT-TAR
into WAR with a minimal alphabet shift.

War: three letters
that have taken too much
and always will.

Ah, playing became serious again!

Not sure what this is or where it is going. This is my offering for today. Only one prompt and a Zumba ballad left to post tomorrow. Thanks NaPoWriMoers for all the support. xxx

Something Borrowed - Day 28 NaPoWriMo prompt - Colour prompt

Something Borrowed

Cobalt, the clothes they say
you must wear from Day 1.
But you don't.

Turquoise, laboured laughter
pools of need and coping,
born from exhaustion rivulets.

Your Cornflower eyes
lost to the hazel
of becoming a boy.

Navy sky breathes relief
at your dusk snores
after an hour-long Royal tantrum.

Cyan reflected from ancient ice.
Terror, as I dream-slip on the brink
of an Athabascan kettlehole.

I clamber over your gate,
palm the rising of your chest
and Midnight calms my heart.


I am aware with every landmark Frank becomes more independent and steps closer to becoming an adult and leaving. Daft, I suppose when he is only two and a half, but I am aware he is borrowed and will be his own person. Oh and also the panic everytime you can't see that small chest rising! x

Let Him Sleep - Day 27 - Proverb Googlesearch - Never wake a....

Let Him Sleep

Hi------------YAH!

They had warned me.
Proverbs are common knowledge
for a reason.
Survival of the fittest, fastest
and those who listen
to the wise words.
Absorb them.

I thought it was a child or dog
I wasn't supposed to rouse
from slumber.
I don't expect I'd have tried it
with a tiger or skunk either.

But in the middle of Karate Beginners,
I was off guard,
a white-belt greeness surrounded me
urged me into action.

I prodded the sleeping Sensei
hard in his chest.

Take it from me.
"Never wake a sleeping Sensei!"
It is difficult to say in this position,
but you need to know this.
I didn't
and the recovery process
will be protracted.

Some fun, little time today. Playing again. Love x

Hopeful - An Erasure of Alan Ginsberg's Howl. NaPoWriMo Day 26

Hopeful   (Howl Alan Ginsberg - an Erasure NaPoWriMo Day 26)

 

I saw the destroyed, dragging themselves through streets at dawn

looking for an angry connection to the starry tatters

and in the supernatural darkness cities contemplating jazz.

Listening to the Terror through the wall,

as a belt ate fire, drank death.

 

Nightmares endless, blind shuddering in the mind

leaping between rooftops,  blinking tree vibrations.

Rantings chained themselves to noise,

battered bleak, drained of fire,

whispering

of memories and wars,

of the winter midnight shadow

who burned cigarette holes in their arms. 

 

Human caresses of love in cemeteries,

golden threads,

a candle in the sunset

and stolen

poems.

 

Rickety rows

faded in dreams,

woke sudden

suicidal romance,

full of onions and bad music,

breathing and roses.

 

Cough crowned with flame

under scribbled incantations.

 

Looking for an egg, every day for the next decade,

and forced to open,

they thought they were growing old and cried.

 

Clatters of iron walked away unknown

and danced on broken moans

journeying to

each other's jail-solitude.

 

Hopeless cathedrals pray for impossible criminals

with the charm of black hypnotism,

concrete, in one midnight stone

as heavy as the moon.

Nothing but hopeful hallucination.

 

A sudden flash

trapped a thousand years.

 

. Day 26. I know the ballad from Day 25 is missing. You will have it soon. xxx

A Danish lion in Iran darns a sad halo - Day 24 - anagram of my name in a poem

A Danish lion in Iran darns a sad halo

A Danish lion in Iran darns a sad halo.
Six hands hold salad handrails.
Horn soil lain on a Radon dish snarls.
An ash lad nods his hoax rinds.
A liar also hoards hard rain.
A rash rhino lands on radish sand.

Very daft and including my middle L, so cheating a little. x

Trial, eh? Day 23 a Triolet with one extra syllable

Trial eh?

A Triolet or trial, eh?
each poet's napowrimo store
stuffed with phrases, rhmyes and play
A Triolet or trial, eh?
the prompt for the 21st day
Words we've not used yet, add one more
(Triolet or trial, eh)
to each poet's napowrimo store


Sure I am not the first to have posted such a poem today, but I always post before I look at the other pieces from the prompt. I don't want to be influenced too much by other's writing on the theme and it would be hard not to with the high quality of writing. Just a bit of daftness and I have cheated on last line as you can see!xxx