biros in a half-shell

...oh shut up. I'm tired.

And I can't believe it's that time again. Oh well. I've done this twice, and both times I've won. I can't give up now.

Here goes nothing. I am incredibly, extremely, exceedingly rusty when it comes to writing, so it might take me a few days to produce something that I don't have to flinch at whenever I look at it.


April 1st - independence day

summer began in September
and dealt her gifts all around,
grinning without
a trace of equal division –
others got fortune, some got freedom
but most only got more freckles
like she who wore necklaces made of
shoelaces and faded pennies
and spoke jargon to fit in

no more would toothy smiles
with a prudish curtsey grant her
the daily bread:
she was old enough to stop
being the wrinkled ribbon that is
useless in royal court (unless ironed)
and find herself a route and
a future with a function

there would be tears
and debts
and empty cupboards
but fewer square metres to care for
and maybe when the last ray of day
has fallen from the balcony
she'll be proud to exist
here and now and on her own.

April 2nd - you wouldn't last five minutes in the middle ages

it's on mornings like this –
when the sky spreads above us
like surpriseless Moomin jam,
highly unlikely to ever be perforated –
when I wish I had a lance and
a custom-made armour
and someone's name to include
in a battle cry

did you ever think
you could start an uprising?

where there wouldn't be
any runs in my tights
or lipstick stains in slightly crooked teeth,
only bascule bridges and
lenient draught on my face
when the white horse gallops unsaddled
and countless knights call me lady

I know I never knew what was
so great about Saturdays
unless there's a world to fight for
(and I wouldn't have to cut my hair
to wear a helmet)

April 3rd - my little phonies

I'm in the cupboard
smarm is having a loud party in the living room
and the door is not entirely closed –
(since I am just as entitled to be here)
just so that I can keep the delicious amount
of pretentiousness oozing through the crack
like in a gas chamber
to the absolute minimum
and yes, I prefer the company of naphthalene
to that of nosetips caressing the ceiling
– oh! you are superior to me! please, won't you let me shine your shoes with my mouth! –
and I'm convinced it is possible to die
from drowning in this pool of phony –
that's right, you heard me, Holden would not want you either –

holding my breath, I step out, cross the floor to the front door
(with an occasional trip over Converse and/or Doc Martens)
and the grey-scale limbo of winter and spring
has never looked more welcoming
and I wonder how far I have to run before
my brain will stop being pierced by
the tunes I probably haven't heard of

and I do not want to be like them, so
shut up.

seriously.

it's on mornings like this –
when the sky spreads above us
like surpriseless Moomin jam,
highly unlikely to ever be perforated –
when I wish I had a lance and
a custom-made armour
and someone's name to include
in a battle cry

Thank you so much, Demeter. This is gorgeous.

April 4th - time travels

let's ride magpies beneath the gateway arch
and hitchhike to the mariana trench
you'll whisper fountains to me
and with your hand in mine,
climbing the uluru is an ordinary tuesday
though never twice in a row
and should there be half a latitude between us,
it would feel like a mere strait of gibraltar

let's sunbathe at svalbard
and build igloos in serengeti
I'll wear a garland with your
fingerprints on it,
like a rare stamp hugging a withered envelope
and we'll seal our secrets on a message in a bottle
and send it forward from the cape
of good hope

Spoiler

PenguinAttack: XD Metre. I adore you.
PenguinAttack: It's just "Uluru" without "the".

I post this here for everyone to see: Demi's poetry is scrumdiliumcious.

(Thank you so much, Kamas, and Hannah as well)

April 5th - drawing near

you know that wisp of smudged graphite
on your hand and around the fresh
5B sketches you do free of charge
on Sunday afternoons?
that I have to flick off the creases
on your forehead from time to time
when it looks like a shadow of work and due bills
but isn't?
that smudge is always a sign of
you losing the present to shades, tortillons,
contours of skin; as a vice and a virtue
it's sometimes neglect
– and then we sleep in different rooms,
but the mornings after
scent of coffee beans penetrates the keyhole
your knuckles on the polished mahogany:
may I sketch you over breakfast, you ask
and I say
yes,

you may.

I wanna be just like you when I grow up, mum! ^____^

April 6th - if you insist

be there where deergrass
gets its salt, be everywhere
in crane screams and long legs –
don't bother coming back
before the folded chiffon napkins fly
away like turtle doves from their dovecote
and our hollow oak tree has
been frozen all year round:
then you may come, step by step,
if you bring carnations picked up
in comb honey, five past midnight
and wrapped in the bobbin lace
meant for my mother,
only then you can come, step by step,
barefoot on glacial till
but don't expect
milk in your tea

April Sixth

This flows perfectly and your imagery and language are beautiful as always. I especially enjoyed the change of tone in the last two lines and:
"then you may come, step by step,
if you bring carnations picked up
in comb honey, five past midnight
and wrapped in the bobbin lace
meant for my mother".

Thanks so much, Jasmine.


April 7th - call it what you want

in the distance there's an enamel shriek
and my nails keep chipping off
a little more everyday
I am just not feeling it – for all I know,
you're the knob at the end of flagpoles
and I'm a piece of macadam
shaken out a road builder's shoe
and I'd rather not play
battleships with our secrets
or hide-and-seek with the affection
that used to define the moments spent
in the parlour loveseats, upholstered
with rare kimono silk and occasionally,
a crumb of lemon cake
remember?

April 8th - déanaim

eight times around the rough celtic shoreline
are you still not satisfied?
I guess not, I wish I'd known;
the hortensias need watering and I swear,
today I saw the clock on my wall
melt
into a puddle
which I really should be cleaning up
– so yes, cliffs of Moher are charming as ever
but it's not you
I want to see them with
so one of us should take an ayrshire
and ride into the sunset (or
off the cliff)
and I'd rather it was you.

April 9th - I'm not sure what's happening to me

the great wall of snow under the window
blocking the view like a partition
in a timid ballerina's powder room
(dim with candelabra and burgundy plush)
is gradually disappearing
into another winter somewhere else
dimension X, n, over the rainbow
but frankly, I don't really care;
I can't wait to see the shell suits
on their morning jogs again,
the 90s colours forcing themselves
into my consciousness
charming, yes, but a part of April
all the same,
like basketball shoes and dry asphalt –
colon, closing parenthesis.

Spoiler

let's call this the Failure Weekend

April 10th - the other three-eyed girl

what was extremely bizarre
for me, not being Anna or Emma or Maria
was meeting someone with my name
– for real, as the last one
was actually a Sigrid
and therefore didn't count –
but there it is, another me
who, I find, also knows what to reply to
fräulein, were you this much trouble at the abbey
and what's a motto;
what to listen to on Tuesday mornings
and which one comes afterwards
it's really very surreal, like losing a brook
in autumn fog or finding
ruby slippers somewhere unexpected
(make it anywhere)
and I would like to get know her
over a cup of something I love
which is naturally something she loves too,
because clearly, we're soul sisters
just because both her parents and mine
decided not to spare
any i's.