Going back to my love for condensed poetry form once again, I have decided to write a sequence of lunes today. A lune is an adaptation of the haiku to the English language, and I have tried my hand at both versions of the form, the Robert Kelly (5-3-5) and the Jack Collom (3-5-3). And here they are:
Lune Sequence
dancing on the moon
one more step
towards completion.
***
at twilight
etched on the skyline -
devotion.
"Head on a Stem" by Odilon Redon
Finally, some peace and quiet and a – largely – reliable internet connection. I was actually able to sit down and think about what I was going to write for the first time in 4 days. So for today’s NaPoWriMo exercise I prompted myself to write a poem inspired by the Malagasy poetic form, the hainteny. According to our faithful friend Wikipedia, the hainteny relies heavily on metaphors, local mythology and ohabolana i.e. proverbs. So I’ve written something a lot more European starting from that set of requirements. Hope you enjoy! (And if you don’t enjoy, I hope you’ll at least be leaving constructive criticism for me to snack on.)
Aeneid
The first sign this morning
was a sparrow, unusual for
this side of the Styx; it
was looking for inky worms,
so I fed it many succulent
invertebrates from Virgil.
Their deadness was a treat
for my errant guest; how
often does one find worms
that don’t struggle, that
submissively slip down the
throat, eager to be consumed?
The second sign was a manticore,
its cheek eroded by tears
because still water runs deep
and sometimes floods the
heart; it wasn’t blood that
coursed through my sad
guest’s veins, but liquid
of a fainter kind. I fed
the manticore all my gold
adornments – rings, collars
and all – because they have
curative qualities, although
the age of miracles is past.
The third and most
potent sign was the
descent of hail, despite
the traditional lack
of weather on this shore.
The impromptu stones
sowed themselves in my
weedy garden and by
evening, strong, hard
stalks had stemmed out
of the wounded soil,
claiming nature for
themselves. By then I’d
realised I was to have
no peace and quiet on
the plutonic coastline so I
gave in and declared
my cabin a boarding
house for the improbable.
Wonders will never cease.
fantasy landscape by Maichol Quinto
This is… I have no idea what this is, actually, but it’s for day 18 of NaPoWriMo. Very eerie stuff, I suppose. I’ve been a bit tense lately and I need to relax, otherwise all my poetry’s going to turn out like this. Here it is then:
A Sketch of Our Home
Brighter, still brighter
the moon-rabbit
chasing butterflies
in your backyard
while we sip, cautiously,
dream-brews from
silver cups. Summer,
behind the silk screen
your grandmother
left us, is getting drunk
on laughter already.
Last year we got mad
at her, but this time
we’re both a little
kinder. We exchange
conspiratorial smiles
and let the world
change as it pleases.
A slightly more leisurely poem today, written in honour of all the comfortingly crowded spaces.
The Crowd
Constant murmur of thronging souls
Used to being silent but now
Compelled to navigate thin
Corridors through the careful
Manipulation of their delicate
Vocal chords – it feels as though
I were at the bottom of the sea,
Dreaming in the rhythm
Of the currents. So easily
People become waves, battling
With silence. So easily I
Fall back from myself.
"Crowd" by Misha Gordin
Apologies for just hurriedly dropping poems in here; I’ve been mostly on the run lately. But oh well, I guess this rather rushed approach does give poetry the pleasing flavour of an illicit affair.
I’ll admit I’ve been very lazy today though, so here’s another haiku for your perusal:
Rough
Patterns on the wind
Polished against every tree -
Just our palms stay rough.
Halfway through NaPoWriMo. I’m not being lazy, I assure you, I just felt like writing a haiku today.
Tea House
soft rain of petals -
the city is a tea house
for fighting spirits.
NaPoWriMo day 14.
Claustrophobic
Sympathetic pleasantries
plucked out from the root
ground into half-syllables
fit for a bestiary –
I suppose this is all that’s left
we’ve run out of ballast
to sink our teeth into.
Sometimes, maybe
you even miss the excitement
of rushed exchanges
rushed hellos and goodbyes
rushed everything.
It will please you to know,
my ribcage has become
claustrophobic.
So it’s Friday the 13th again. Well, as I was saying once before, poetry does go well with Friday the 13th. Today’s prompt for NaPoWriMo was to write a ghazal; I’ve written an approximation of a ghazal once before, for last year’s NaPoWriMo. I was hoping this year’s experiment would turn out better, but I’m afraid it probably turned out much worse. Oh, well… Anyway, Wikipedia tells us that a favourite theme for the ghazal-writers is illicit unattainable love which sounded so delicious to me that I went for it. Of course. The theme probably also explains why the poem turned out so bad. Of course.
At the Garden Gates
I had hoped for a word from you to bring us together,
A word given freely, from your lips to mine – in oath together.
But I have rummaged through your thoughts of us – they have no echo -
It burdens me; only loneliness brings us together.
I was praying for you to the goddess of promises
When I saw you and her, arm in arm, happy together.
Prophets sing with their hearts laid out bare at the garden gates,
They cry out for need, for hungering need, all together.
The garden is barren, but for a poisonous flower
Yet the prophets don’t mind, as they are, huddled together.
At the break of morning all the songs sound much, much sweeter,
Mingling in frenzy, refreshed, unstoppable together.
"Kazamachi" by Audrey Kawasaki
Today’s poetry prompt has to do with homophonic translations, but since I’ve already played with that in my writing rookie past thanks to my quirky and lovely tutors *nods in the general direction of Peter Blegvad‘s awesomeness*, I’ve decided to do something else. Something I’ve never written before, a sapphic poem. It’s not great, but this is my spontaneous interpretation, I suppose:
Overview
Buoyant embraces spilling into morning
Ear-bruising bird songs, indistinctive and sharp
More or less the same numbness in interlude
Then sleep, breathless night.
Improbable concessions over port wine
Reminiscing frivolities from breakfast
More wishes cracked like jokes but later kicked out
Finally, silence.
"Bends" by Sterling Hundley
A brilliant prompt for NaPoWriMo today:
Today’s prompt asks you to write a poem of the five senses. Pick an experience that is very sensory, and of which you have a strong sense memory — like hearing a train whistle, jumping into a rain puddle, catching that first whiff of lilac on a spring day, eating ice cream at the beach. One of those might work for you, or you might have one from your own past (eating jelly sandwiches in the woods springs to my particular mind). Then try to bring all five senses into it. What do you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear? Try to be as specific as possible, capturing that moment across all five senses.Package all that up, and you’ll have your poem. Good luck!
I have tried to capture a childhood memory, not very eloquently, but nevertheless… Here it is, as sensory as it got:
Cocoa
The acrid smell of freshly-polished
Floorboards and your clear laughter,
Bouncing from wall to wall, from the kitchen,
Into the bedroom, dispelling noon-time
Nightmares. The cheap paper of a retold
Novel in my sweaty hands, bleeding
Black ink through its pores, rough
But also gentle - as though stories were
Seeping into my skin, a transfusion of
Safely-contained adventures. The mug
Of lukewarm cocoa on the shelf,
Untouched, but even from a distance
I can feel your words bubbling inside it:
‘Drink it now, don’t let it turn cold.’
And I, allowing myself to forget…
"Titania" by Tom Bagshaw
