Bubbles' NaPoWriMo

I couldn't resist once I found the forum. I've been experimenting with different forms each day so far; some of them are complete rubbish, but others I am less displeased with.


April 1

What Colour is Water?
(Acrostic)

Water has no colour. Like
A cup of liquid glass, it reflects
That which is poured into it;
Echoes of a wider world
Reverberate between its waves.

Water can be cruel, without
A shade to call its own. It steals,
Takes, borrows the colours of others,
Eating them up and swallowing
Rainbows beneath its shallow skin. But

Water is also kind; it gentles edges,
Appeasing sharp corners and softening
The brashness of our yellows and greens.
Elegant, we glide across a shadow of ourselves,
Reflected kindly in the mirror of an endless sea.


April 2

The Sea at Daybreak
(Pantoum)

At low tide, the sea retreats into the dawn
Leaving mud behind like a long-lost lover.
The ropes of boats lie slack, their bristled lengths forlorn
And the wind keens, the sound of a widowed mother.

Leaving mud behind like a long-lost lover,
Where the curved pincers of crabs grasp empty air,
And the wind keens, the sound of a widowed mother,
Searching for a husband buried there.

Where the curved pincers of crabs grasp empty air,
And the husks of ships rock, in the ribs of the sea,
Searching for a husband buried there,
The gulls pick at the bones of the dead and the free.

And the husks of ships rock, in the ribs of the sea
The ropes of boats lie slack, their bristled lengths forlorn.
The gulls pick the bones of the dead and the free.
At low tide the sea retreats into the dawn.

On April 3 I did a bunch of limericks, which I will spare you the agony of reading, because they're horrendously bad. With the exception of this one, because it amused me:

The limerick lends itself neatly
To a poetic urge to be beastly
Whenever I’m mad
I write a poem this bad
And then I feel perfectly priestly.


April 4

When You Sleep
(Sestina)

When you sleep, I learn anew the transparency of skin,
the way your lips move slightly with each breath, as if you’re talking
to someone I can’t see. These are the moments that I collect
like photographs, or fingerprints; for it’s only when you rest that you are visible.
I like it best on those days when you smile, which is why
each morning, I wake early to watch the light touch your face.

At times like these, I have no wish to leave to face
the coming day. I want to rest here, skin to skin,
and wait for you to reveal yourself, or rise and ask me why
I’m watching you like this. One day, we will be talking
together this way and I will ask you what makes you visible
only at those moments. Do you collect

the pieces of yourself, so that you leave no trace behind? I have been collecting
you each morning for years now, but without the finished set your face
will not give up its secrets. They are in the shadows of your chin, visible
here in the half-light of dawn, and the way your skin
reflects the sunshine. They are in the way I sometimes hear you talking
in your sleep, and later when I ask you why

you say you don’t remember. If I were to tell you all the reasons why
I sit here, waiting, letting the minutes and their seconds collect
in the hollows of our bedcovers, never talking,
I think you would remember then. I think your face
speaks to mine while you lie dormant beneath the dreaming skin.
I think between us there are some things that are not visible

to the naked eye. These things are only visible
when you are not there to keep them in, or to question why
they’re there at all. Sometimes, the world reveals with skin
that which we would conceal. In these moments, collected
beneath closed eyelids, our secrets travel from face to face
in sunlit silence; though wordless, we are still talking.

Later, when you are awake and we are talking
over breakfast, you with sleep still visible
at the corners of your eyes will turn your face
to mine, and I will count again those reasons why
I watch you. All the missing pieces of who you are will collect
in the creases of your smile, as if you are just beneath the skin

waiting for my skin to start talking. This silent conversation
is where we collect, connect those parts of ourselves not visible in the day,
and reminds me why we speak with faces, not with words.

April 5

Spare Flowers
(Etheree)

Sir
Can you
Spare me a
Flower or two?
I need them to twine
Through my hair for a long
Lost mother’s funeral. Her
Favourites were those roses that
Grow like brambles over back fences
And find ways home through knotholes, like wishes.

Wordplay
(Etheree)

I'm
Watching
As you walk
Around me in
Circles. We are like
Dancers; on tip toes, we
Two-step our way through this con-
Versation. Our voices are mu-
Sic. Like children, we are playing games
Of team tag, touching through chain-link fences.

April 6

Inside
(Triolet - traditional)

There is a door on which I knock
Each morning. From the inside
Comes a click; I turn the lock.
There is a door on which I knock
A few streets down, the second block
From my place. And the reason that I hide
There, is a door on which I knock,
Each morning, from the inside.

Wake Up
(Triolet)

I saw this morning that there was a bird
Outside my window. Made me smile
To think that it sang in my sleep, unheard,
Until I saw this morning that there was a bird
Waiting to greet me. Not a word
Said I about this meeting, but be sure I’ll
Remember what I saw this morning.
. . . . . . . . That there was a bird
Outside my window made me smile.

waiting for my skin to start talking. This silent conversation
is where we collect, connect those parts of ourselves not visible in the day,
and reminds me why we speak with faces, not with words.

Ooh. Ooh.

These are lovely poems, and I'm very partial to this one.

Cheers, Clo I'm rather partial to it as well, lol.

April 7

Robin Hood Always Dies at the End
(Terza Rima)

When I still believed that heroes lived forever
You told me: darling, don’t pin your hopes on a man
Who believes that glory never

Dies. There’s only one way that a love like that can
End; with you deserted like a princess in a tower
While he goes chasing dragons that are larger than

All lovers. Back then, I thought the princess in her bower
Was the lucky one; she watched her faithful knight
Face down all comers, earning hour by hour

Her love like a rare and precious stone. Her plight
Was not one I (nor any girl) knew to resent.
Why should those of us earthbound reject the gift of flight?

But I grew wiser. The girls in fairytales were never meant
To watch their knights grow older, see their armor rust;
They never lived to rue a youth misspent

Among the twin delights of dreams and fairy dust.
These days, you ask me: darling, do you regret
That you chose a world of paupers, of bitter death, and lust?

And I will tell you, sweetheart, that I have never yet
A knight as true as you, nor one so valiant met.

I apologize in advance for the absolute suck that is today's poem. Villanelles do not suit me, I'm afraid.

April 8

Nostalgia Tastes Like Grapes
(Villanelle)

The grapes that summer were green, and filled the vine
With unripe baubles. Still, we put them to our lips,
(we were too young then to know the taste of wine)

An unseasonable vintage, flavoured with chlorine
That soured our mouths and wrinkled youthful fingertips.
The grapes that summer were green. They filled the vine,

Their shining fingers through the trellis fence entwined
The way this memory grips
Me. We were too young then to know – the taste of wine

Is a fleeting thing. We thought it fine
To eat them; suck out the middles, spit out the pips.
The grapes that summer were green, and filled the vine.

When we were young, on these new grapes we’d dine,
And use our shriveled tongues to stop the drips.
We were too young then to know the taste for wine.

Does this echo in your thoughts, as it does mine?
The bitterness, the way the middle slips
So gently down. The grapes that summer were green; they filled the vine.
But we were too young then to know the taste of wine.

I absolutely adore Robin Hood. It's wonderful, especially the couplet at the end.. And I like Grapes as well.

Thanks Mars

April 9

Ballade to an Author Who Was the Cause of Much Pain
(Ballade)

Of those whose pens of distant places tell,
I must confess that I like thee the least;
Thy sentence structure is akin to hell –
Though thou art now dead, yet thou hast not ceased
To wreak the terrors of thy meter, beast,
Upon thy poor, unwary offspring’s head!
Each time thy work was raised, the pain increased;
The very thought of thee filled us with dread.

And thou dost not stop there! No, thou dost excel
At torture; thou art worse than any priest –
His shades rebuketh only those who fell
And leave the rest, but thou – how thou dost feast
Upon thy student’s minds, thy palate greased
With sweat and tears, the blood of those who bled
Like lambs upon your altar. Us, thou fleeced.
The very thought of thee filled us with dread.

Yet, though I speaketh thus, with words that dwell
Upon thine horrors, my love has not decreased
Thou taughtest me to use thine words, and well,
As best a woman mad (north by north east)
May claim to do so. Thus have I released
My fears, followed the path where thou hast lead
And plunged into thine corpus (now deceased)
Although the thought of thee filled me with dread.

Now bit by bit I hath thine puzzle pieced,
And in thine footsteps I so humbly tread;
Space in my soul, to thou I’ve meekly leased –
No more the thought of thee fills me with dread.

These are lovely.

Thanks, Jigster

April 10

Map of the Human Form, Asleep
(Shakespearean Sonnet)

I learn geography through fingertips
Tracing the edges of a sleepy earth,
Whose gentle curves rise up, and slope like hips
Into blue gorges where their depths give birth
To endless fields. Though not shown on maps,
The way the tops of mountains feel is bone.
Beneath thin skin, their roughened lines and gaps
Can steer us true when nothing else is known.

But though I sense the morning's slow travail
Across this dreaming land, I do not wake;
For I still hear the seas in each inhale,
And this, my country, I can not forsake.

At night I visit islands when I sleep,
Where dreams are like the forest – dark, and deep.

Umm... Bubbles, you are my new hero. I adore each and everyone one of the them. And your villanelle is not absolute suck. And the limerick was especially amusing.



Stuff I really, really enjoyed.

Nostalgia Tastes Like Grapes wrote:The grapes that summer were green, and filled the vine
With unripe baubles. Still, we put them to our lips,
(we were too young then to know the taste of wine)

An unseasonable vintage, flavoured with chlorine
That soured our mouths and wrinkled youthful fingertips.
The grapes that summer were green. They filled the vine,

Their shining fingers through the trellis fence entwined
The way this memory grips
Me. We were too young then to know – the taste of wine

Is a fleeting thing. We thought it fine
To eat them; suck out the middles, spit out the pips.

Map of the Human Form, Asleep wrote:I learn geography through fingertips
Tracing the edges of a sleepy earth,
Whose gentle curves rise up, and slope like hips
Into blue gorges where their depths give birth
To endless fields. Though not shown on maps,
The way the tops of mountains feel is bone.

I loved the way this one flowed too.

Ballade to an Author Who Was the Cause of Much Pain wrote:Yet, though I speaketh thus, with words that dwell
Upon thine horrors, my love has not decreased
Thou taughtest me to use thine words, and well,
As best a woman mad (north by north east)
May claim to do so.

Ballade to an Author Who Was the Cause of Much Pain wrote:Now bit by bit I hath thine puzzle pieced,
And in thine footsteps I so humbly tread;
Space in my soul, to thou I’ve meekly leased –
No more the thought of thee fills me with dread.

Inside & Wake Up wrote:Inside
(Triolet - traditional)

There is a door on which I knock
Each morning. From the inside
Comes a click; I turn the lock.
There is a door on which I knock
A few streets down, the second block
From my place. And the reason that I hide
There, is a door on which I knock,
Each morning, from the inside.

Wake Up
(Triolet)

I saw this morning that there was a bird
Outside my window. Made me smile
To think that it sang in my sleep, unheard,
Until I saw this morning that there was a bird
Waiting to greet me. Not a word
Said I about this meeting, but be sure I’ll
Remember what I saw this morning.
. . . . . . . . That there was a bird
Outside my window made me smile.

All of this up in here is lovely.

Spare Flowers wrote:Grow like brambles over back fences
And find ways home through knotholes, like wishes.

When You Sleep wrote:When you sleep, I learn anew the transparency of skin,
the way your lips move slightly with each breath, as if you’re talking
to someone I can’t see. These are the moments that I collect
like photographs, or fingerprints; for it’s only when you rest that you are visible.
I like it best on those days when you smile, which is why
each morning, I wake early to watch the light touch your face.

At times like these, I have no wish to leave to face
the coming day

The Sea at Daybreak wrote:And the husks of ships rock, in the ribs of the sea
The ropes of boats lie slack, their bristled lengths forlorn.
The gulls pick the bones of the dead and the free.
At low tide the sea retreats into the dawn.

Squee, I love Pantoums.


Ta,
Cal.

I've always been in awe of your poetry, Cal, so that really means a lot Thanks!

April 11

Death of a Poet
(Tritina)

He asks for bodies in verse, in words whose meaning
She thinks could still be beautiful, on another’s lips.
Each day, he asks, and she will deliver – murder by murder.

When she kills, she imagines the ways that she might murder
The love she still feels, but which has lost all meaning
(sort of like the words that fall like stones from his lips)

But she has given up on tracing the smoking lips
Of craters, as if their Braille edges contain all her murdered
Hopes. She lets him erode her, meaning by meaning,

Until everything she means, when she moves her lips, is a murdered poem.


The 7a.m. From Wellington
(Tritina)

She stands at the bus stop, conversing with strangers.
The sun is white on the asphalt, and she can think of no place
She would rather be on a winter’s morning. Here

There is a sense of life, as if those who pass through here
May never come again, and the people she calls strangers -
Though they hail from all over - have reached this point at this place

At this time, and in doing so have found a place
In her life. The road stretches, glitters; reminding her that here
Is a single point between the distances of strangers,

And these strangers only stop in this place to get to there from here.

April 12

Looking Up
(Dorsimbra)

The curious eyes are always the first
to turn their faces to the skies. On nights
that burn as bright as this, the pull is worse;
we're mesmerized. So pure, the lure of lights

(as if each star were a predator
lurking, waiting like jaws
to steal away our gazes
and gobble us up).

I’ve always thought that skies were much too deep
for idle watchers. Better to live not
looking up than drown in open mouths; for
the curious eyes are always the first.

Not really pleased with today's efforts, but since I was up all night (yes, literally) last night I am too tired to see straight, let alone write coherently. Frankly, I'm surprised I managed to get anything done at all, so...you have been warned.

April 13

Curious Weapons, Words, But Wielded Well
(Rima dissoluta)

This morning, they sit on the porch and discuss their wounds. They
Are battle heroes, the unsung survivors of the hell that is
Family warfare. Holidays have always been like this, with the first
Salvos launched over breakfast, passing hands with the salt –

We don’t have eggs, unless they’re scrambled for the fray.
By lunchtime, organized attacks and sorties whiz
By our ears, like a verbal tennis match, and though the worst
Of it would subside at tea-time, they still readied for tomorrow (exactly whose fault

The burnt chicken was remains an open question). In a way,
I would not give up how things are for how they might have been. His
Voice is meant for anger, not for mirth,
While hers is directing soldiers by default.

At no time that I recall have they conversed
Without constructing sentences like strategic assaults.


He Travels With Questions (He Arrives With Answers)
(Rima dissoluta)

Ask if he regrets his memory of spice
And the taste of India like green tea
Carried on the backs of elephants to exotic

Continents. Ask him if he would rather go
Back to his homeland, his nice
Safe hole in the ground and see

If he will answer. Even if you ask him, quixotic,
About the yellow slip of saris and the slow,
Wild dancing that he remembers twice,

Once for the senses and the other for her (because she
Herself sees nothing remarkable in the erotic),
Ask him. For these are the questions that cannot be packed so

Neatly into suitcases and boarded onto flights like tamed, demotic
Photographs - and no matter what you ask, he will always say no.