Each day I’m exhausted
proud of making changes
fed up with the time it takes
Writing poems
is an act of defiance
protesting the void
reclaiming imagination
Prescription followed
check
Escaped into creation
check
Today’s prompt at OctPoWriMo.com was ‘Mother, may I?’. My mum visited me today, so I looked through my notebook to see if there was an unpublished one hiding in there. There was 🙂
Each night before I go to sleep
I retell the story of my day
as a fairytale. A hero’s journey
My son waking up is a call to adventure
I’m asked to leave my sleep and head off into the unknown
I refuse the call, for fear of what the day might bring
but he is not to be ignored
so I, the heroin, get out of bed
hoping for a guide, a magical helper
a talisman that will help me in my quest
a magical appeal-repellant that makes me immune
to the pushing of requests
a cloak of silence that will dampen noise
a wand that makes people comply
Before they find me I cross the first threshold and get out of bed
crossing into the field of adventure
leaving the realm of my bedroom and stepping into a place
where rules and limits seem to be endlessly changing
Breakfast is the belly of the whale. The day swallows me.
The road of trials awaits.
Dragons and barriers, dragons and barriers –
and I’m still waiting for my aide
Here’s where the metaphor goes wrong. I am no heroin. Daily life is not a quest. I refuse to see my child as a dragon to be slain, a frog to be kissed, a beauty or a beast. I know there are no magical aides and I know I’ll have to find the answer within myself. Sod it. I’ve been searching too far, too wide, too long already. I’ve travelled many miles within myself and most certainly haven’t found what I’m looking for. The answers within myself are a myth.
The irony
The heroin appears
I just go about my day
performing my usual struggles
I can’t bear the noise – I’m glad he’s having fun
I need quietness – He needs to be accepted for who he is
I don’t want to look, listen, answer – He has a right to attention
I want to tell him to SHUT UP – I don’t want his world to be as dark as mine
After breakfast we enter the realm of chores. Neither of us has a magical aide. We need to clean the table ourselves, lunch has to be made, the school back pack packed, teeth brushed, cat litter cleaned. Where are fairies when you need them? My son is definitely no fairy. Neither am I. We both resent what needs to get done. He resents the chores. I resent trying to get him to do his part and having to work so HARD on that. He’s no Cinderella, yet I am an evil stepmother.
When he waves his sword I turn into Medusa
Snakes hiss at him
My look can kill
You see, people wonder why I’m tired all the time. This is just 90 minutes of my day. Out of bed, defences up. Dodging curses. Often cursing myself. After those 90 minutes do I go back to bed? No. The day has started. There’s no turning back. My bed has transformed into a witches cauldron. Even the fumes are poisonous. Returning there would boil me alive. So I seek another shelter.
The couch
The television
A book
Work
Each has its own perils
The couch
A siren
It’s seducing song
leading to destruction
The television
A ball
I’ll turn into a pumpkin or loose a glass slipper
Either way it won’t change a thing
Mice aren’t horses
A prince no self esteem
A book
Ah, books!
My entry into the land where
I can be king or queen
Lion or faun
I can be good, I can be evil
But will I ever return?
Will my life be led?
Work
My pleasure island
I’ll spend the whole day having fun
and turn into a donkey without realising it
More chores?
Time thieves who try to kill my Momo
I’m torn between obligation and pleasure
and I wonder
which one is the dark side?
But I digress. I was retelling the story of my day as a fairytale. A hero’s journey, containing a call to action, a threshold, a magic aide. Joseph Campbell claims there will be a goddess on my way but I can’t find her. I can’t even find the darkness in the deepest chamber of my heart. No mystical marriage. No scales falling from my eyes. My desire doesn’t find its peace.
On with the day
There’s work to be done
Relaxation to be scheduled
Chores to slay
A mystical wedding on tv
I perfume, whitewash, reinterpret.
The hairs in the soup are someone else’s fault.
There’s no lecherous fever in my cells.
I’m distracted by a purring kitten, trying to be fed.
It gets washed instead.
What’s the deeper meaning of that?
But let’s move on. The atonement with the abyss is what we’re heading towards. To confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in my life. I look at the clock and see that I have 60 minutes left. 60 minutes before I’ll have to pick up my child from school. 60 minutes until uncensored power, pure life force will be unleashed. The beast. I’ll need patience. I’ll need mercy. I’ll need a place to centre my faith. To be a mother is to be your own godmother.
I want to be him
I want to be relentless in my demands
To feel I’m the centre of the universe
I want to be noisy and play and don’t think too much
I want my childhood back
Now I have 50 minutes left for my apotheosis. Or a trip to Neverland. Which shall it be?
Witch, it shall be. Alchemy is the way to the holy grail.
I will not send out a chivalrous search party
I will not roam the seas for a number of years
I will not spin gold from straw
I will not eat the poisoned apple
I have 45 minutes left.
I’ll paint
Just for the fun of it
I wrote this when we still had kittens, so it must have been a while ago. The last of them left the house this June. I don’t remember what I painted that day. I’m not even sure IF I painted, but I expect I did. I probably shared what I painted on Facebook. I didn’t share what I wrote. It felt too vulnerable.
I quote from today’s prompt on octpowrimo.com: “Today’s prompt is Falling through the cracks. Nothing is perfect and sometimes, things do slip through those pesky cracks. […] How do you deal with things that slip through? Is it ok to reveal our flaws?” I wanted to write something new, but I kept thinking about this piece. So I decided to share it. Even though it still feels vulnerable.
I think I used wikipedia to increase my knowledge of the hero’s journey. I know I want to learn more about it, and I’ll start by checking sources on the Joseph Campbell Foundation page.
I am a bunch of self imposed rules
that make me worry
that make me fret
I am an antenna
that turns signals into static
Don’t make me think
I’ll start
but I won’t stop
The prompt for #NaPoWriMo day 25 was warning label about yourself.
Today I want to feature Big sleep by Christopher Perry and Barbara Turney Wieland, alias Johnny and Woody. I love poems with an unexpected ending. When you’re there, also visit Terminus, about the times when everything ran on parallel lines.
How do you do, you asked
You couldn’t have confused me more
Am I doing? How?
So I prepared some answers
just in case
we meet again
I feel like a fish
swimming in water that has been boiled for too long
the temperature is down again
but there’s something missing
I can breathe
but I’m hungry
something is not right
You know what I mean?
In case of embarrassed silence
I have a second answer ready
I am a Lego brick stuck in a Playmobil basket
a make up doll in a garage
I am dice in a card game
a knitting needle in a carpenter’s hand
Same old, same old
You know what I mean?
In case you then move away from me
I have prepared to grab your hand
I’m only joking
I’m doing fine and okay
I’m safe and secure
I’m healthy and whole
I’m up to snuff
Everything is perfect – you know me!
Would you then try to pry your hand away
I’d be lost for words
but I’d have
my knitting needle
a Lego brick
and dice
so in my garage
I’d find out how you’re doing
You know what I mean?
The prompt today was “to write a poem that stretches your comfort zone with line breaks. That could be a poem with very long lines, or very short lines. Or a poem that blends the two.” When I looked at this poem, I realised the line breaks didn’t make me that uncomfortable. I tend to take liberties with those anyway. So I tried other ways to stretch my comfort zone. It’s an uncomfortable poem, and it deserves an extra bit of awkwardness. So I centralised the text. That worked, and even looked good. Not the effect I wanted. So I made my next move… It looks very uncomfortable to me now. I consider my comfort zone stretched. And the form illustrative. But ouch, it hurts!
Yesterday’s prompt turned out many interesting poems. I’d like to highlight A big bang, by rivrvlogr. He choose a poem by Runa Svetlikova, in Dutch. His ‘mistranslation’ catches the magic of the original, without being the same. I can’t explain it, you’d better read it yourself 🙂
If you read Dutch, it’s really interesting to experience the difference between the Dutch version and the translation, as provided at Poetry International Web. Ken included it in his post, so it’s easy to take all of them in in one go and wonder. Or marvel.
When I first met me
I was the bee’s knees
promising like a spring day
fertile as cow dung
When I met me again –
waxing eloquently
on everything I didn’t know
as entertaining as I’d ever be –
I was just full of it
and I knew it
We lost touch
my pen pal promise
a face in the crowd
our sense of soul mate
homeopathetic
#NaPoWriMo day 2 is done, and I managed to work from the prompt. Yay!
Today’s inspiration came from an essay recommend by the NaPoWriMo page. I’ll copy paste both their description and link here: “an essay by Katie Rensch on the poetic “I” – you know, that mysterious self who sometimes speaks in your poems. Rensch discusses how the use of the first-person voice affects a poem, and how the poet can draw the reader in or push them away by the selection of a voice, and how even within the first-person voice, both the identity and complexity of voice can change.”
Droplets of conversation
Dripped into veins
Words resurfaced
Festering boils
(nothing a quack couldn’t cure)
How do you say thank you
to people who’ve given so much
when you’re supposed to poet
but get stuck on gratefulness?
How do you say thank you
for all the prompts
words, images, forms suggested
and the invitation to ignore them at want?
How do you say thank you
for the poems you got to read
that touched your heart
touched your soul
made you smile?
How do you say thank you
for darkness bared
hopelessness shared
feeling shaken
and stirred?
How do you say thank you
for being read, receiving comments
feeling appreciated, feeling valued
feeling connection?
How do you say thank you
to people
for being different
for being the same?
How do you say thank you
for showing up
for trying
for being a witness
for creating a spark?
This ‘you’ turns to music
Thank you!
If you weren’t participating in the #OctPoWriMo challenge yourself, you may not know about all the wonderful participants out there. I’d like to recommend some, in random order. I’ll introduce you to a specific poem if I can, but I recommend you to read many more on their blog, since the prompts led to many different writings.
because #metoo is just too much by Wanda Olugbala – a poem about growing up where harrassment seems to be the norm, not the exception
Ghouls by Pat R – a lovely short and claver take on modern ghouls
My mind on arts by my friend Dawn – she’s written an ode to her own mind, without leaving out the darkness
Reflection by Jenni Astramowicz – a poem about missing your mum, not being allowed to cry and not having a face
Don’t buy the bullshit by Cara H – who tells busiebodies who like to talk about people’s bodies what she thinks of them
Fighting the urge to vomit by Annis Cassels – a poem about desperately wanting to share your knowledge for the benefit of others and doing that by not doing it
Rings by Michele Vecchitto – a Fibonacci poem about the mother of her stepchildren
Fear of unfeeling by Jennifer Patino – about the lure and dangers of feeling and breathing
be like them by Annie R. Ray – a punchy poem about walking your own path
https://kryptic.blog/ –> a beautiful combination of collage and words
I want to add more, but at the moment I’m cross-eyed from reading more than I can handle.
A special shout out to the people who’ve made this month possible for all participants:
Morgan Dragonwillow at Wild Woman Mysteries
Amy Phelps McGrath at The Rabid Artist
Beverly Tan at @BeverlyTanFilm
Tamara Woods at Pen Paper Pad
Annis Cassells at Poems by Annis
Acknowledge your needs, she said
I tend to be too busy denying them
or DIY’ing them away
Speak up for your needs, she said
I’m either silent
or screaming like a banshee
Enjoy your needs is what she didn’t say
I would have been addlepated
#OctPoWriMo day 29. I got to use the word addlepated. My favourite English words has always been flabbergasted. From today onwards, addlepated is runner up.
Depression, perfect crime of the mind
unsolvable, a technical achievement
mysterious, unattributed, unkind
Depression is a joke
where no one’s laughing
Depression is a movie
screened without light
Depression…
Show, don’t tell
I can’t be bothered –
You want a poem painted in black?
Mark my words
with a giant marker
or use spray paint
for all I care
Today’s prompt was the scent of a flower. Safe to say I’m off prompt – as we are always at liberty to do. The prompts are there to provide inspiration, not pressure.
This poem demanded to be written and it demanded to be shared. I obey.
Day 27 of #OctPoWriMo done. Four days to go…
I’m tired
I’m tired of being tired
Tired to the bone
Tired, hung, drawn and quartered
Quartered by the skin of my teeth
Quartered, keeping my chin up
Up, warts and all
Up, turning a blind eye
All fingers and bones – I
All flesh and blood – I
I keep my hands clean
I keep my nose clean
Clean, by the skin of my teeth
Clean, knuckling down
Teeth, foam at the mouth
Teeth, skin and blister
Mouth, hand over fist
Mouth, stiff upper lip
Fist in your face
Face the thorn in your flesh
Face the wool over your eyes
Flesh wins hands down
Flesh, the beast with two backs
Down, your upper hand
Down, take the bit between your teeth
Hand – pull your finger out
Hand – put up your dukes
Out, keep your nose clean!
Out, keep your pecker up!
Clean -putting my best foot forward
Clean- keeping my nose to the grindstone
Forward, turning a blind eye
Forwards, setting my teeth on edge
Eye – no sight for sore eyes
Eye- no blood out of my stone
Eyes – Off with your head!
Eyes – You nosy parker!
Head first, bum second
Head over heels, guts for garters
Second skeleton in the closet
Second head buried in the sand
Closet – my heart’s content
Closet – the cat has my tongue
Content with my blind eye
Content there’s no heart upon my sleeve
Eye – am feeling finger lickin’good
Eye – am keeping body and soul together
Keeping together
That’s good
A once and unruly mind is the prompt today. Which perfectly matches one of the form prompts I hadn’t tried this year – the blitz. I’m not sure how I feel about blitzes – or maybe I should say about my blitzes. I’ve tried some before. But I know when I read them back later I find them interesting, even when I’m doubt their quality. Maybe in my head rambling and quality just don’t go together, whereas at the same time I love fast association.A blitz is not supposed to have interpunction – but that’s what poetic licence is for 😉
The poem consists of phrases used in a different way. If you don’t know all of them (like me) you can look them up here.
Unassorted stories 