Clio's inertia

oh boy !

napo 2021: Clio's inertia

goal: 15 poems
gonna be juggling this with camp nano:)

Her dress is a patchwork pattern,
of war and peace and silky satin.

2019 fairy tale denouement
2020 hestia by the hearth

1.
there lies a wavering shore
somewhere in the backlog
of my dreams
where the water wobbles
and laps quietly, nervously,
against the sand

2. Thalia

Oh Thalia’s got a knack for the
wit and pun,
for the quick of thought and the
way tears run

I watch her from afar,
as her jokes spill out,
like she’s practiced so long
(she’s hilarious… no doubt)

Oh Thalia’s got a knack for the
way they laugh,
for the sun in the sea,
a smiling photograph

I hold the photograph,
in the palm of my hand,
shake my head and laugh bitterly
at my fake fairyland.

3.
I wait, at the tightrope,
wait for the rigidity of my balance to
snap me solid. calm.
I wait for the instruction of the director,
waiting waiting waiting waiting
I will fall if I wait any longer,
but I don’t know what else to do
without the guidance in my ear.
I think I will fall, soon
I think
I will
fall

4.
This house is empty,
empty like a cup of day-old tea.
full enough you could take the tiniest
sip of cold bitterness,
sunken sugar crunch.

There is no one here to knock
on doors and call,
anyone there?
There is no one here to dirty
the kitchen, or clean the
pots and pans.

It’s a quiet kind of nothing,
a bad kind of quiet,
a regretful sip of day-old tea.

Ah Rain these are some really lovely poems! c: I loved the repetition you used in the third poem, it definitely works well at conveying impatience and insistency and a sense of "uh-oh we're gonna run out of time soon!!"

but I don’t know what else to do
without the guidance in my ear.

These lines are so simple and yet so poignant and sad </3

And the closing stanza of poem 4 is such a great way to summarize & end a poem, I enjoy how you pull on all these already established images and then just tweak them a bit to leave the reader with a lasting impression!

Keep up the great work!

@whatchamacallit thank you for your comment!! i really appreciate it:) i'm especially glad you liked the last stanza of #4 b/c that's one I enjoyed writing

5. blooms
hands, washed and rewashed
so much you the skin
peels at the edge of nails,
are the soil for the flower of
love
passed down, from that ghost
father to broken son,
blooms

6. Euterpe
the notes of her flute are
ducks in a flower field,
a creek glinting in afternoon daylight,
a fleeting fairy tale.

euterpe finds a place, one day:
some blooming meadow,
on the outskirts of a crumbled city,
her hand to her face to block the sun.

she puts her flute to her lips,
a melodious, melancholy sigh.
her inspiration flees
as the sun falls down

7.
Their jawlines are soft.
They watch over him,
Angelic, wet drapery,
carved from marble by a
Greek artist’s hand.
Soft lines drawn.

Their words are purposeful,
they watch over him,
a spark of a flame,
flaming golden hair like
a lion’s precious mane;
poise words full.

Their guidance is calm
they watch over him:
when he stumbles deeper,
they light the fire under his
feet, heat rises
guise of a calm dance

8. matter
The clock chimes twelve on a depressing dim night,
as a letter on parchment curls and disappears into nothing;
matter is neither created nor destroyed, she remembers,
but refuses to believe:
the last of the letter, sweet hearts and a sweet printed name
melts into gray, unfiltered ash

The minutes pass in the still dreariness,
she wonders if her matter has been transformed--
from the heat of the moment, the energy of it all--
into someone with a prettier face or a kinder smile,
someone who stands on two feet instead of one,
who indulges in newest sciences and follows the
thought of gravity
Gravity, weighing her down,
like the pendulum swinging in the clock,
back and forth and ringing twelve.

9.
A lyre sits beside me tonight,
Mystical song,
A low flutter,
Golden strings that strum
in the shape of hearts.

10. Hyacinth
Hyacinth grows in the heart of music, art,
and blooms from the palms of the past.
Hearts crack when the clouds split,
when guilt and sorrow eat at the soul,
picking away the remnants, growing
like weeds among a field of hyacinth.

11. Meditation in the grape fields
Meditation in the grape fields,
where the grapes capture worries
like bubbles.
bubbles that scrub away grime,
until there’s nothing left but a
calm, serious face
looking towards the sky

12.
Today is a desert.
The sun and the earth play
off one another; the gravitational force
is strong
My weight against the earth is equal to that
of the earth’s force on me,
and I can feel it today, out in this desert,
each grain of scorching sand pushing against the earth
as the earth pushes back.

13.
a sound like a scribble,
in the back of my mind,
scratch scratch scratch
head spins world tilts
quiet calm pinch yourself

moons moons,
head orbits the sun,
ground your feet,
sing a song.
scratch scratch scratch
a sound like a scribble,
in the back of my mind,
crescent waning
the scribble writes