Scramblings and Ramblings

First NaPo! YAAAAY!

So, first post goes HERE:




Here we are, at the brink of a beginning:
I don't know if I've ever been more terrified. My feet
are slipping towards the edge with its pebble shedding
and ominously long hesitation, and I can't quite see
if it's heaven at the bottom, or something
a bit more akin to hell-- I have to get closer.

But I sit and wait to find the knowledge somewhere in
the time I spend;

but let's leave atrophy behind me; I'll try to stop itching at my new
skin and shed the old... I need to save my nails for digging in the earth
and tearing under the soil to find the satisfaction of aching muscles, unused to such work.
And here, here's a step closer to something beautiful (or something...other) with
tentative toes I cover my feet in holy dust
and wonder if I'm about to step over something I'll never be able to climb back up.

Persephoneia wrote:and I can't quite see
if it's heaven at the bottom, or something
a bit more akin to hell-- I have to get closer.

Persephoneia wrote:I cover my feet in holy dust
and wonder if I'm about to step over something I'll never be able to climb back up.

For me, these two bits were the loudest-- in a good way. They aren't weaved with as much imagery and whatnot as other areas of the poem, but in my opinion they leave the deepest impression. It's all a mix between excitement and fear of the unknown, the desire to take a leap of faith, praying you'll end up flying rather than colliding at rock bottom. Awesome.

The little transition line between the two stanzas is kind of weak, and that "here, here" isn't really necessary. Other than that, you put my NaPo to shame. Shame, I tell you. Tell me, how to you write with no hands?

Day II

Spoiler

I hate these short verses, because with my style, I feel like they don't accomplish anything or that they describe too much all at once. >.<

Curled in a teacup, she seeped and steeped in a church
of deep ceramic and melancholia-- with destiny and tea leaves
plastered to her limbs, bitter flowers pressed to her lips
and she choked on perfumes of solitude.

Forgetting Fideism


Let's forget the things we were told before, before
our lips started moving in the ways that they did
and before we learned to breathe with our lungs;
we've left potential behind the veil of things that never really
mattered, discarding all those little lights like
they were lies and fireflies and
inconsequential, when that innocence is what we
needed most.

Let's find a boat and stroke our away from
false knowledge and reality fideism... let's find a
shore to rest our weary arms and scrape ourselves across
the sand; I want unnatural rhythms finding their way through my veins
and I want the tide and the oar to teach me how
to sea the sky and trace
something new into the saltwater with my toes;
here is something I've never seen before, something no
one has ever seen, a place that tastes like memory--

With strange, nostalgic winds whipping at my face, I let loose my limbs and
now, I embrace the fall, into ripcurl tides and reeds rather than
dust and rocks.
The blessings round my ankles weigh me down with tradition
and I let loose the barbs tied on by each stepful of reluctance.
Here are the words, leaking from my lips and swimming to the surface...
you may think you need the oxygen, but all the best adventures
are found in the deep dark where you have to
breathe with your eyes and your heart,
and tenacity means absolutely everything.

Persephoneia wrote:Curled in a teacup, she seeped and steeped in a church
of deep ceramic and melancholia-- with destiny and tea leaves
plastered to her limbs, bitter flowers pressed to her lips
and she choked on perfumes of solitude.

I love this! <3

Oh, Seph. How I love you so.
That short verse is lovely.

Day III



"callouses"

Heavyheavy in your arms, with love spilled red onto your sleeves--
my eyes are bound to the grim way you set your shoulders into the shovel,
and I hold myself close to the painter as he strokes glaze onto my irises,
readying me for hellfire;
I watch you as he does, thinking.

You carry me gently, caress limp hair with coarse fingers and
set me into the sounds of soil; gripping the sides of my shoulders with
rigor mortis fingers, there's a cross on my chest--
and I wonder why there isn't a god, why they haven't come and where the light is.
(Why is everything still so dark?)

Setting into ceramic and stone and sweet calcification,
I feel mindlessness settle under my breastbone and
I trust that you'll decorate the tips of my skin with petals,
even if they are only flowered guilts--
even if they aren't really for me at all.

I want to speak; I want to make
you promise that you'll bury me softly in your heart, so wicked and divine.
I want to live in the callouses I've left behind, broken and bleeding, and I want to
feel you wipe the tears away.

This is a three-liner that I have NOT been able to expand on. It's been driving me crazy. D:




hallowed in your arms, you said;
you put love notes to my neck and
taught the world to be gentle.

-___-

Your poetry is incredible.

Spoiler

My writing is a bit odd right now. Sorry.

I count dreams with an unsteady fingers
and an even more unsteady mind,
fingers on my pulse between the empty spots
(am I still beating and breathing or has
that left me too?)--
I'll dream some dreams for the
insomniacs and douse myself in sweet
narcoleptic realities, trying to take deep breaths through my
spine, past my tongue, and under the
sleep murmurs slipping past my pillow. With heavy eyes,
I'll blink out the memories in Morse code, and maybe
some sailor will find me to translate.

I know, I know-- the world
is easy to live with eyes closed,
but look! just look at what you've been missing.

I'll blink out the memories in Morse code, and maybe
some sailor will find me to translate.

I really like this, but it can't breathe without the rest of the sleepy poem, because that's what makes the 'find me' important, so that's cool. It's gorgeous but can't stand without the rest. It's tied.

It weirds me out that you seem to be putting out some of your best stuff during NaPo. Crazy girl.

DAY IV

I dun even know. Feel free to ignore this completely.



I hope you can find my carcass somewhere in this,
at least some stench or rot lacing my words:
here is the smell of my childhood, stink of nostalgia pressing
humid fingers to your mouth and nose like formaldehyde
____(formaldehyde was always my favorite,
____because I loved the sense of
____literally falling into dreams)–
here are the scraped knees and blood down your windpipe
and here are the petty tears I wish I never cried, from my eyes to yours.

You’ve studied the lines on my face and the scars on my hands,
and told me my fate with that fortune teller voice of yours,
tracing rivulets of war through my palms—
you declared prophecy, but asked about my past,
because understanding seemed to still be just out of reach—
____so let me splatter myself across the concrete
____and you can pick away at the little bit of me
I’ve never been able to quite get at.
Here are the notches in my bones, age rings
and inscriptions pushed in by all the pressure; here are the clots in my veins,
indulgences and sweet vices that I loved to soak in.

-----Here is where I lay dead and more alive and known than I’ve ever been before.

I am trying to quell the
tentativity in crooked, bared teeth and sloppy cursive Rs sloping into
small mountains and through my hands, whose calluses are
hidden by oversized rings and silver, because
gold was always too gaudy
____(There are the kings, there
____are the queens, and then there is me,
____the most melancholy jester, who could never tell a joke.
____My livery is on trees and silver leafing, rimmed round the sides of text.)

Here are the tangents looping out from the
spool of ethics class and murmuring in the back of my mind,
like they’re speaking underwater (sound always travelled faster in the water, but almost too
fast for the delicate bones in my ear to catch their warnings)
____I can only laugh as bubbles rise from concerned mouths and they gape
as I take another step to the edge, forgetful of
Kant and Kierkegaard and the cynicism of Nietzsche.
____Let me write my own philosophy (one page paper) and burst
____into the streets between sentences
____(where in the world is your wristwatch?!).
I’ll cradle my typewriter to my chest with all its clicks and clacks
until I find a publisher, who will laugh and slap their
knee, and maybe smoke a cigar.

I never wanted to be a hypocrite—but my fingers
brush the bridge of my nose with a habitual push and I squint and drink my tea
and wonder where my live-your-life evangelism is, other
than at the bottoms of my feet which rest on my desk.
____(I should really go for a walk, but they've sunken in, and they've made their beds in the oak.)
I’ll sit here and set my pen on the desk and I’ll
try to conquer my mind with its passivity
on the side, but my eyes are hollow and they don’t know
how to speak, they never really did, not really.
____(What's all this going on, and why haven't I ever known?)

You may ask questions, modern-day Socrates, but
my mouth is numb and stupid and here my hands
refuse to move other than to express my confusion as much as I want otherwise.
I’m so sorry for my failings.

Persephoneia wrote:I dun even know. Feel free to ignore this completely.

Sometimes you make me mad



No more, k? And I'm the nicer one you'll get this from and we both know it.

Wanted to tell you what my favourite part in this last poem of yours was, then realised I couldn't decide.