Saying When

It's that time of year again! I've been informed by my superiors that I'll be living where I'm at for another year, and the hockey season just ended, so I'm gunning for the classic 30 poems in 30 days challenge this year. And sonnets on Sundays, as always.

Cheers!

Warm-Up #1: I pushed a girl

I am a goalie and I do not condone violence. Lyrics enspoilered!

Spoiler

This was never the way I played
Not my intention
But her team keeps playing this game
Sans sporting action
She's hanging way too close
Just sitting in my zone
Got rebounds on the nose
Too bad that puck has flown

I pushed a girl and I liked it
I got in her face and smacked it
I pushed a girl just to try it
I hope her teammates don't mind it
It felt so wrong; it felt so right
She'll need to ice that tonight
I pushed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

If I start an actually original song now and don't finish it until partway through NaPo, does it still count...

Spoiler

What am I doing with hexatonic scales? What chords do I even use? What am I doing??? Also the tempo is SO SLOW with the way I notated this haha. But I wanted the beat emphasis that all those eighth note strings would imply. Ugh.

1

Eleven-fifty-nine is the breath in tandem,
the curve of torsos,
knees, thighs, hips, ribs: each connection checked off.
It is the quiver before the unfurl,
the wind-up before the swing,
the hesitation before the dance.
As one, we wait
for the beat to say
when.

Spoiler

I have been thinking about this idea for literally a week... I may come back to it later lol.

2 | Wèn

In Mandarin, the verb “to ask” is 問 (wèn).
Spoken in sharp, downward, tone number four,
it demands an answer.
My mother’s “when” becomes 問 (wèn).
Wèn will you get a boyfriend?
Wèn will you stop travelling?
Wèn will you get married?

媽媽!
(Mama!)
你什麼時後停止問?
(Nǐ shénmeshíhòu tíngzhǐ wèn?)

Annual Song | Post 1

(Chorus)
As the iris blooms every May,
you return to me again.
You return to me, and then
in every word unsaid, convey
what you told me before,
what you'd not repeat, you swore,
what I long to hear once more.

(Altered final chorus)
As the iris blooms every spring,
I return to you again.
I return to you, and then
in every solemn song, I sing
that I loved you before,
that it’s you I still adore,
that I’ll love you ever more.

Spoiler

Yes I have been working on this since before April. No it may still not get finished. Songs cannot be contained by the NaPo.

3 | #safetymoment

I am going to fall tomorrow just go splat right on the pavement I know exactly where it will happen there is a spot where the sidewalk ends and the apartment is older than ADA so there’s no ramp just a step and the step coincides with the long downhill away from the gutter spillway on the end of the detached garage building and so all the melted water from today trickles down and down and down and freezes overnight and last time we had this freeze-thaw thing I nearly tripped there just barely caught myself in the goofiest wide stance thank god no one was in the parking lot but it snowed this evening and covered all the ice so I will probably forget about it when I roll out of bed at six and stomp to the garage and then I will fall and hit my head and get a concussion.

It’d get me out of work at least.

4 | To-Do List

Sort documents on my bedroom floor into the filing cabinet
File taxes
Clear craft desk by making WIP storage and putting things back where they belong
Clear kitchen table so nothing breakable is up there
Clear couch arms so nothing can be knocked off them
Vacuum
Wrap cords and put them somewhere safe
Clear top of dresser
Clear not-too-dirty-clothes chair
Buy not-too-dirty-clothes stand
Deep clean kitchen
Clear counters of food sitting out
Say hi to a neighbor

Cat

Iris (Annual song working title?) | Post 3

(Verse One)
As the flowers of youth grow spindly from the root,
every breeze teases ruin, every frost is felt acute.
On the far horizon, blocked by mountains high
lies the life that we seek,
life that we reach
for the life we won’t find ‘till we climb.

(Chorus)
As the iris blooms every May,
you return to me again.
You return to me, and then
in every word unsaid, convey
what you told me before,
what you'd not repeat, you swore,
what I long to hear once more.

(Verse two)
In that summer sweet you spoke your solemn vow
Trying brave for your cadence, though we say bravado now
‘Fore the words half-formed could float upon the air
I saw mountains arise
mountains that I
couldn’t dare climb ‘till I’d made it there.

(Chorus)

Verse three (altered melody)
Bridge

(Chorus)

(key change)
As the iris blooms every spring,
I return to you again.
I return to you, and then
in every word and song, I sing
that I loved you before,
that it’s you I still adore,
that I’ll love you ever more.
(x2 of altered chorus)

Spoiler

This is coming along faster than I thought it would... not super happy with verse two yet though. I'll have to keep thinking about it. Maybe I'll actually get to some instrumentation this year too : )

5 | Skirts

Circle skirts swing, and circle skirts sway,
Make sure to wear shorts, since there’s things they might betray.

6 | When do you know someone well enough to cry at their funeral?

I met you ten times total.
I learned to love you too late.

阿公, does the time I was the youngest baby in America with a passport count?
Does 舅舅的 wedding count? I only remember it from home video,
a hazy, two-second loop of myself and a second-cousin I never saw again.
Mom brought that camcorder everywhere.

I know some times that do count.
Dad used to tear my splinters out with tweezers,
but you sat me on a rickety bench in Yellowstone from before it was crowded
and wiped my tears with a handkerchief before pulling out a
sewing kit and coaxing out every tiny sliver with that tiny, silver needle.
Maybe the only time I told you 我愛你,
in the car, on the treacherous drive up to 阿里山,
you replied with 不錯 because I said it right
while you gripped the grab bar through my dad’s driving–
which is better than yours! Just FYI.
You clambered behind me up a hundred steps in Japan,
over half-circle bridges at 日月潭,
past roaring waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge.
The quiet week I spent in the family home, on break from uni,
no Dad, just Mom and me,
too wrapped up in myself to wish we were having earthquakes
instead of what we knew was happening to you.

阿公, does the last time count? You couldn’t speak. You couldn’t walk.
I watched 舅舅 and Dad lift you from your wheelchair.
You took ten steps before they had to lower you back.
I held your hand, and it shook me up to my shoulder.
It shook me 在我的心.
It shook me too late.

阿公，你可以聽我嗎?
抱歉我太遲學中文。
抱歉我不說我愛你。
我愛你! 我想你! 我愛你!

Spoiler

No pronunciations, Friends. This one's for 阿公.