Cat’s meow

Kitten
purring softly
at the farm
We await your arrival
eagerly

I used the elevenie prompt to capture a real life moment. The neighbours of my parents in law have a nest of kittens, and if all goes well one of them will be ours in six weeks.

It took me a while to publish this one, because I wanted to add a photo. We only have one or two weeks of waiting to go now. This picture was taken when we first met our new housemate. She wasn’t very eager to stay on my lap, so we cuddles her brother or sister after that.

Elevenie snapshots

Child
plays piano
in holiday cottage
fingers dancing over keyboard
proud

Trains
drive through
huge miniature landscapes
endless amounts of detail
joy

Child
plays piano
away from breakfast
mother irritated as hell
fight

Tanks
standing still
everywhere I look
luckily I’m on holiday
relieved

Child
plays piano
chooses choir sound
to annoy his mother
success

Seesaw
going up
In Hamburg playground
daddy falls off, laughing
fun

Child
plays piano
end of holiday
goodbye cottage and piano
sad

Bridges
majestically bridging
the Hamburg waters
this city once obliterated
resurrected

It’s the last day of NaPoWriMo 2017! This was the prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something that happens again and again.” I’ve been capturing our holiday near Hamburg in elevenies. One of the recurring things was my son playing the electric piano in the cottage. We also visited wonderful exhibitions, had great food, and, unfortunately, there were many irritations.

Thanks to everyone who visited my blog, who has read my poems, who has liked, commented, responded to tweets, etc. You are what makes #NaPoWriMo so much fun!

Unfree matter

What is one to do
when one has a head that doesn’t stop
that’s on full time
that doesn’t know how to take a break
that doesn’t do empty
that laughs at zen
that cries at zen
that screams for control
that tries, tries, tries to keep the void away
and anger and fear and all threats
whereas the absence of those, is the absence of life too

I can’t say I long for death

dead flowers is as far as I’ll go, and easily
cause I’m not very good at taking care of plants
they don’t talk to me
I don’t talk to them
and I’d probably be pissed off if they DID talk to me
because COME ON there are too many people talking to me already
pulling my strings pushing my buttons and i have buttons everywhere EVERYWHERE
I could be a goddamn shop
a haberdasherie

not a hasherie
that would be a Dutch drugs boutique

I want pills pills pills
not that I don’t dislike pills, I do
but I need them
I want happy pills
HAPPY pills
can you imagine that?
there was at time when I wouldn’t even take paracetamol
and now I want pills pills
pills that will make everything better
pills that will make me feel better
pills that will keep me from losing it with my child
because I’m endlessly fed up with his behaviour
and then feel totally embarrassed because the child’s seven for pete’s sake
shouldn’t he have a mother who keeps it together
who raises him so that she never feels the need to flip a finger
who moulds, him shapes him
grinds him like a coffee bean
and turns him into the best coffee in the world –

now that you mention it
it doesn’t sound nice to utilize your child to make coffee

what is one to do
when one has a head that doesn’t stop
that’s on full time
that tries, tries, tries to keep the void away?

This was today’s prompt at napowrimo.net: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to take one of your favorite poems and find a very specific, concrete noun in it. For example, if your favorite poem is this verse of Emily Dickinson’s, you might choose the word “stones” or “spectre.” After you’ve chosen your word, put the original poem away and spend five minutes free-writing associations – other nouns, adjectives, etc. Then use your original word and the results of your free-writing as the building blocks for a new poem.”

I really wanted to try this prompt before I read other people’s work, to see what would happen. Now that I’ve written it, I want to post it straight away instead of saving it for day 30. Let’s see what tomorrow brings 🙂

Allowance

Letter
crumpled, Pollocked
in my pocket
containing your last words
Unwilling

#NaPoWriMo day 29, another elevenie. Off prompt because I wrote this one ahead, today is a travel day. The prompt is to use a word from your favourite poem as a starting point. I’ll be spending the rest of my day wondering if I have a favourite poem 🙂 Feel free to leave your favourite as a comment if you want to inspire me. English, Dutch and German are all welcome. I think Holly mcNish might be my favourite poet. Fresh, sharp, relevant, great sense of humour, and fabulous poetry.

Letdown Felicity

Letdown

Friend
being absent
from my life
I effing miss you
Angry

<>

Felicity

Friend
being there
when I need you
The fun we have
Grateful

I’m off prompt, because I’ve been working ahead, worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to write in the last week of #NaPoWriMo. Skipping days just isn’t an option when we’re this near to the end 😉 This one combines the elevenie prompt of day 23, and the subject of the poem I shared that day called I secretly gave up on you.

Later on I decided to make this a double elevenie by adding another friend to the poem. She deserved a title of her own 🙂 The definition of felicity is: “the quality or state of being happy; especially :  great happiness.” That’s what my weekend away with her has been. I wrote Ambrosia about the fabulous meal we had.

I chose the painting of the piggies because they look really happy, and one is rather absent.

Debasement

Alas, I spilled anger all over the floor
Scattered droplets singeing the carpet
Sultry sulphur puddles of spiteful spittle
Left lasting, stinking stains
No mop bibulous enough to absorb it all

The prompt for day 27 at napowrimo.net is to write a poem that explores your sense of taste. This is more like a 3D rendition I’m afraid 😉

Time quake

What would happen
if nine eleven
happened on nine seven?

This is loosely inspired by today’s prompt and a Kurt Vonnegut book I’m reading, called Time quake. Time gets turned back 10 years, and everybody has to relive the 10 years again, without the possibility to change anything. When the time quake is suddenly over and free will enters the stage again, things are confusing for people.

This poem has a different angle. It’s about when things are different. I’ve always been interested in “What if…” questions about history.

This three line question really makes me wonder, but also makes me sad. So many people lost so many people. It’s a painful question. Feel free to create your own answer.

This was today’s prompt: “Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today, I’d like to challenge you to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist? The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone.”

Ambrosia

Food
savoured by
two laughing friends
happy to be there
together

Wine
wafts wonderfully
heightening their spirits
with explosions of taste
bliss

A double elevenie created to remember a fabulous night out with amazing good food, fantastic wines and great company.

Aftermath

Hair
itching everywhere
on my body
returning from the hairdresser
worried

Scissors
falling down
from the washstand
after the mirror shattered
relieved

Yesterday’s prompt worried me when I saw it, but I turned out toe be fun. This was the prompt on napowrimo.net: “Your prompt for Day Twenty-Three comes to us from Gloria Gonsalves, who challenges us to write a double elevenie. What’s that? Well, an elevenie is an eleven-word poem of five lines, with each line performing a specific task in the poem. The first line is one word, a noun. The second line is two words that explain what the noun in the first line does, the third line explains where the noun is in three words, the fourth line provides further explanation in four words, and the fifth line concludes with one word that sums up the feeling or result of the first line’s noun being what it is and where it is.”

I accidently hit publish instead of schedule… This is supposed to be my day 24 poem. Well, never mind. Now that I’m too early I’m on prompt 😉

I secretly gave up on you

I secretly gave up on you
Sure, I still go through the motions
“My name is Sue, how do you do?”
But I secretly gave up on you

I secretly gave up on you
These fleeting fragments of now
Together cannot create a future
You’re stuck in my past
So I secretly gave up on you

If we were to meet like we once met
What would I say to you?

Censored (strike through font)

Hello, how do you do?
I secretly gave up on you

If you don’t have a clue with how much emotion the sentence “My name is Sue, how do you do” can be spoken, you probably don’t know this Johnny Cash song:
Safe to say that in this poem, that sentence is meant as a metaphor for saying one thing and meaning another.