Bubbles' NaPoWriMo

I kind of messed this up, because for some reason I keep thinking the interlocking rubaiyat is abaa instead of aaba, but whatever form this ended up being, here it is. I tried to write another one the right way around, except that (a) it didn't work and (b) it kept me up until midnight trying, so I gave up and just posted this instead.

April 14

Synchronicity
(interlocking rubaiyat, sort of)

I want to collect your voices – to distill them down
And find the essence that I hear in you.
From here, it sounds of spices, and a town
Forever distant. It makes me want to drown

In your verisimilitude. Yes, I know it’s true
That writers lie, but it is how they lie
That tells you everything. Your lies are new,
Like coins, like sand over bone, like dew

On the thorns of a cactus, uprooted from the dry
Hot world from whence it came
And sitting in my window. Tell me, why
Does your voice speak right through to my

Veins like a ventriloquist, like I’m that same
Unwieldy lump of wood while you sit, a frown
Of concentration on your face as you try (so hard) to tame
Your lips, even though we know that you’re to blame?

April 15

Promises are Forever
(Palindrome)

You say forever
Like I give promises:
nothing is real.
Things false between us
entangle hearts and limbs
in knots, strangling us
in love (or hate).
There is no

Escape.

No.
Is there hate
Or love in us?
Strangling knots
In limbs and hearts
entangle us; between
false things, real
Is nothing.

Promises, give I.
Like forever, say you.

Wow. Promises are Forever is the most amazing piece of work I've read for NaPo so far. All the rest are brilliant too, of course.

Thanks, anti-pop

April 16

On the Sale by Auction of Keats' Love Letters (Reprise)
(Glosa)

Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.*

Voices are trapped in ink, the way that souls
Are trapped in photographs. A poet knows
The way that ashes, like still-burning coals,
Can slumber in the dark, lurk in the holes
Of careless pen-nibs. One may thus suppose
The value of the sheets on which they wrote;
A value which, alas, the eyes of those
Whose greedy hands at last possess such prose
Cannot perceive. The villains price each note –
Ay! For each separate pulse of passion quote

A ruinous figure. They don’t comprehend;
The true worth of a poet’s hand is not
Found in the price tag which they all append,
But in the fact that it was they who penned
Each vibrant letter. Every stain and blot
Is like a memory the words impart
Beyond their humdrum meaning; in the dot
Of every i, for those that see, a lot
May be revealed. In short, it is not smart,
The merchant's price. I think they love not art

Who cannot see that remnants won’t suffice
If one lacks vision. Take these letters, here,
Upon the block; it is the hand (precise
and ever fair) of Keats that does entice
the vultures and their wallets hence. Sincere
though many are, and all eager to part
With large amounts of money, they don’t hear
The long-dead voice that whispers in their ear.
They do not feel the soul they pull apart,
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart.

Instead, they peer and pick, they prod and poke,
At the dried corpses which provoked such toil;
To them, the rustle of the words he spoke
Is lost in counting dollars, and the smoke
Of satisfaction. Yet though their fingers oil
And smudge the precious leaves on which they dote;
The words, the essence there they do not soil.
No speech writ with such love can ever spoil –
Not even when some men’s collections bloat
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

-------------------------------------------------------

* = quote from On the Sale By Auction of Keats' Love Letters by Oscar Wilde.

This poem bothers me. The idea seemed to shift several times while I was writing, it and I feel it's a bit disjointed; at the same time, I find myself loath to alter it, because it is so disturbing. You can see it as, on the surface, a woman being set aside by someone who no longer loves her. Or you can see it as someone trying to remake their lover in their own image of how s/he should be (which was what it originally started out as); or, finally, the narrator is a woman being literally laid to rest, in a coffin, who resents her partner's moving on.

April 17

Pass the Parcel or Who Killed Polly?
(Rondeau)

You pack me away in boxes, like a present,
With bows and gilt and glitterings. And you have spent
All you possessed (which wasn’t much, admittedly)
To dress me up this way – so doll-like, prettily –
That I might truly make you happy, and content.

Like folded clothing, neatly pressed, I thus lament
Only my wrinkled edges, which you can’t prevent
And for which reason you hold me tensely, brittlely;
You pack me away in boxes.

When all those years that I, unfolded, gladly spent
With you – you thought me lovely then, as my ascent
I made on conversations, spun so wittily –
Who would have thought it could end here, so bitterly?
You lay me to rest, though I beg you to relent.
You pack me away in boxes.

April 18

The Hive
(Minute)

I noticed most today that we
were locked in three
compartments; each
just out of reach.

Like honeycomb, sealed up in wax,
there are no cracks
(we built them well,
each tiny cell)

and now like angry bees we buzz
if someone does
come close enough
to steal from us.


Apologies are Not Enough
(Minute)

Rage is a hydra or a snake;
Leaves in its wake
Destruction and
A kind of bland

Distrust that sours everything.
The snake-bite’s sting
Is one part blame
And two parts shame.

Insidious, it often stays
For many days.
The only cure
Is to mature.

So, Bubbles. You have some absolutely lovely work here. I don't think I can quote all that I like, it's too much!

If I wasn't a fan of your work before, I sure am, now!

(also, the sestina is simply beautiful^^)

Thanks Mesh. I've submitted that one to a competition, actually, so I'm glad to hear you like it XD

April 19

Play it Again, Sam
(Quatern)

Turn up the gramophone, let go.
Let the music flow over us
here in a red womb, where pulsing
notes are almost visible and

blood beats in time to saxophones.
Turn up the gramophone. Let go
and listen to the bow against
the strings, the sound of violins

like voices calling. The volume
seduces; it invites you to
turn up the gramophone (let go,
it grows like a wild thing, fills

the whole room). From these gyrations,
we will emerge reborn, full of
notes and rests, music in our bones.
Turn up the gramophone. Let go.

April 20

The Bride Wore Red
(Canzone)

Late at the altar, waiting for the priest,
She stood unveiled. Beside her, He wore black,
And stood like a raven with her, gloating. The priest
Was wearing white, the way a priest
Must, at weddings, and so looked out of place;
A streak of grey amidst the brighter hair of youth. A priest
Is never young, if he can help it, and this priest
Felt the hand of God on his shoulders – he walked like a man
Who knows himself in sight of that Holy Place, where man
May find eternal rest. When he spoke, even his voice was like a priest;
All slowness and somnolence, all rhythmic words. The red
Of his cheeks matched her lips: it was a violent red.

And she was dressed in violence; her long train, russet-red,
Was like the first shades glimpsed by man, like the ochre an ancient priest
Once smeared on knife-edges to slaughter sacred oxen. Now, the red
That poured forth and drifted against the edges of this altar was the red
Of her dress, pooling as she knelt beside the man in black.
This was the colour shed by Adonis – hearts-blood red,
Like Aphrodite wept over the corpse of her lover. This red,
Which used to give life to the dead and take it from the living, in this place
Dripped over her downcast eyes as she took her place
In the living triptych. Her still form blazed like red
Fire, fixed and burning between the man
In black and the priest in white, who was more than just a man.

As she spoke the words after Him, the man in black, the man
In the skin of a raven listened and watched. He saw autumn in her red
Dress, her voice like leaves; He saw winter in the other man
Who was more (and less) than just a man.
He was bound together with her, this woman, and the priest,
And in the same way that their colours mingled on the stone floor, the man
Knew that their destinies mingled. This was not a man
Used to the sound of voices; he dressed in the deep black
Of a bird because he was accustomed to it, the silence that only black
Understands. The velvet of his coat smothered the way coal smothers, and this man,
Even here in the midst of flame and snow, sank into the darkness of that place
And no one could touch him; it was his place.

Despite this distance, she could feel His gaze on her from that place.
He did not watch her as a lover watches, or even the way a man
Watches a woman. Instead, he watched as smoke watches fire, from his dark place,
His gaze winding about her shoulders, curling in that secret place
That women keep between neck and collar bone. He knelt beside her, red
Against black, a study in contrasts on the cold floor of a sacred place.
Only when the soft cadence of the white man’s words fell into place
Around them like a mantle did He turn his face to the priest,
His eyes like tunnels into a deep and pressing earth. The priest
Let his old voice whisper unheeded, filling the place
With a benediction, while he found himself drowning in the black
Eyes, wood-smoke eyes that were more than just black.

He did not mean to touch them, this couple, the man in black
And the woman who burned, but as he reached out to place
His hands above them, to draw the sign of the cross and banish them, the black-
Winged man with his echoing eyes seemed to rise, the black
Of his coat against the white skin of the priest, and the man
Was suddenly beneath his fingers, as if swallowed upwards by the black
Shadows reaching from above. On the other side, red against black,
The woman flashed against his palm, the scorched red
Of her dress burning his flesh. He knew that red
Too well, better than he knew the man in black
And better by far than was fitting for any man who was a priest
And therefore more (and lesser than). And he was a priest.

Even when the smoke and fire died, he was still a priest,
Born to live on the edges of a greedy black
(the sweet seduction of a deep, quiet place
That only the raven understands). But he was also a man,
Facing the wedding of doubts and promises - and the bride wore red.

April 21

Koru
(Terzanelle)

Papatūānuku, mother, I sing
for you in the morning. Like the bright ferns
amongst the kōwhai, I am unfurling,

uncurling a furred tongue that yearns
for the rolling hills, and the plants that grow
for you. In the morning, like the bright ferns

made of endings and beginnings, I know
you hear; you answer with the streams that dance
through the rolling hills, and the plants that grow

in my garden (light fingers that advance,
reaching upwards, trying to touch the sky).
You hear; you answer with the streams that dance.

I have found in you tūrangawaewae.
This soil is mine. This is my place to stand.
Reaching upwards, trying to touch the sky,

I am cradled in the breadth of the land.
Papatūānuku, mother, I sing:
this soil is mine - this is my place to stand.
Amongst the kōwhai, I am unfurling.

April 22

The Isle of Is
(Heroic Rispetto)

In water, like a mirror, you reflect
O drownèd city; there your beauty fades
Beneath its weight. Your towers are bedecked
With all the creeping things that live in shades

Of grey, and these, your slumbering spires,
Burn in the light of dawn’s emerging fires.
Though I’m ashamed to confess it in the day,
At night, sometimes it seems better that way.


Watch the World Burn
(Heroic Rispetto)

Like Vikings burn their dead, I burn my dreams
Those meddlesome things that disturb my sleep;
I send them off in boats, down twisting streams
(of consciousness) into the dreaded deep.

These lighted sepulchers, they make their way
Through stormy waters, past each open bay,
‘til they burn out. I don't attempt to save
A single one from their watery grave.

April 23

Stuck in Traffic
(Ghazal)

Some days I feel I can’t get a word in;
Life rushes by too fast for me to be heard in.

I sit in traffic, while the cars stream past.
I’m always the one left, waiting to be stirred in.

Where are my wings? It’s all I ask of you.
This is not a place to play the flightless bird in.

I’ve always pretended I am unruffled;
This is not a heart you’d think things have occurred in.

I’m trapped by what I’ve made myself become.
I can’t escape this earth that I am interred in.


Renovation
(Ghazal)

What does it take to break a wall down?
Sometimes I want to bring them all down.

Plants grow ever upwards to the light,
But don’t forget their roots’ slow crawl down.

Are we deluded, that we feel so secure?
Even the slightest gust can bring a hall down.

If life were a mountain, you’d be at the top.
From the summit, I can hear you call down.

Is inspiration the stuff of clouds that,
Having found it higher, we must haul down?

The devil’s in the details, especially these
The lines of poetry that you scrawl down.

You think this life is perfect; it’s not all it seems.
Ring-a-rosy, darling, we all fall down.


Falling Up
(Ghazal)

Sometimes we forget that we must deny gravity;
Only the dead fall up – the rest apply gravity.

Life blurs beyond the windowpane and smothers me.
The tracks of earth-bound raindrops imply gravity.

I stand at the window, drowned in black coffee.
Just watching you, I know we will never defy gravity.

Why do you walk like that? Your spine slides down
To your knees, as though the streets supply gravity.

Once you stood poised, as though to leap upwards –
One more step, you suggested, and good-bye gravity.

We were not meant for this; the fug of normalcy.
But it is so difficult here, if you want to try gravity.

In the city, the blank lights on shining pavements fall –
What do we fear but this? A slow death by gravity.

April 24

Memories, Like Weeds, Flourish Best When Undisturbed
(Pindaric Ode)

I am dropping stones behind me, on the pathway
by the grocery – you know the one, where we would
take fishing nets and gumboots, and spend the whole day
terrorizing tadpoles; there was a stream there. Could
see your face in it. Stones sank in it, and vanished
into chip bags and plastic wrap (because that’s how
the back of shops always looked in those days). Banished
black cats would stalk the alleyways nearby. But now –

Did you know? They’ve paved it over now, fresh and clean.
The footbridge we would pretend was a narrow rope
over fiery chasms is a gap between
two tidy, concrete arches that offer no hope
to the imagination. No fat polliwogs
lurk in these waters, but these stones still sink in it –
can still see my marbled face, drowned in whorls and bogs,
like a monster’s face, rising from the endless pit.

Walking amongst the ghosts of what was once reality,
I’m wondering if you remember how it used to be.
As I walk on past, my ageing bones forget –
trailing memories like stones, without regret.

Amazing stuff.

I was lazy today: I did haikus. I might come back and do another poem later, because dude - that's just weak XD Also, Happy Anzac Day.

April 25

Goldfish Pond

Bright fish pondering –
Philosophers in a deep
Pool, thinking deep thoughts.


Christmas Vigil

A street full of lights:
Streams of candles and people,
Voices raised in song.


The Painter Paints

A brush on canvas
Sunlight caught in the bristles
Grows a paint garden.


Looking into the Abyss

Space opens a mouth
Made empty by starry teeth
Swallowing us whole.


Need a Hug?

Warmly, we fold up
Pressed in small spaces by hearts
Soft as fresh laundry