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An Endangered Species of Flightless Bird



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Tue Mar 20, 2018 11:41 am
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StellaThomas says...



An Endangered Species of Flightless Bird

the poetic musings of Dr Tessa Chambers, ship's physician, as she embarks on her first voyage

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2017
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:22 pm
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StellaThomas says...



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1st April - You hate long goodbyes so let me trouble you with this:

You pinpricked my heart a thousand times.
You always said I couldn't stitch straight
but see? I am closing them
with sutures as neat and even as a wolf's teeth

She was young and foolish,
that girl who stood outside your locked door in a thunderstorm
- all night - with an apology you didn't even want.
She saw the whole world in your hands.

She hadn't yet learnt the thrill of a struck match.

I am leaving - and with each breath
I am further from the chaos of melted steel
that was once the bridge from me to you

I am a typhoon in girl's clothes.
I will shake continents
and you will weep
to see what I have become.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Mon Apr 02, 2018 1:43 pm
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Audy says...



She hadn't yet learnt the thrill of a struck match.


There is something bone-chilling in that line, and I think made even more powerful by that point of view switch where we are yanked from that moment into a kind of omniscient space :> it serves very well dramatically too! Lit matches always seem cool, mysterious, alluring! But they can also be destructive, so there is this will-she/won't-she, where I am trying to figure out is this a match that is going to end up in destruction, stamped out at the end? Or is it going to set things in motion, her soul ablaze, her spirit powerful! By the end, it's kind of a bit of both and open ended which I enjoyed :3 Brilliant piece! ^_^ Can't wait to see more!
  





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Mon Apr 02, 2018 3:43 pm
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StellaThomas says...



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2nd April - I am running away with a man made of snow and seafoam

He is built
out of beaten leather and seaspray,
Thick spirals of pipe tobacco,
A face of maps piled one on top of the other so all the roads converge
On the cities of his black eyes.

He is built, I am sure,
Of a clockwork heart, well greased,
And bellows-lungs that crackle under hand,
A liver full of rum and protest.

But he is also built
Of a laugh that fills you up,
Good broad soled feet that never lose their balance
Hands with knotted memories.

(He sums me up: I am too
small and soft and sour but I too
am built of memories and
a leather bag of tricks.)

My saviour who needs my saving -
he reaches out his hand.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:46 am
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StellaThomas says...



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3rd April - anticipatory nausea is easier than it sounds:

your body is so excited
it is turning inside out.
tremulous fingers,
that lub-dub-dub crescendo -
your adrenals are chrysalises
nervous wings dwell within.

There are a hundred languages inside you,
your tongue just doesn't know them yet.
You know the way to a thousand secret places,
but your feet have not walked the paths.

That pounding on your sternum isn't what you think - it's you
pounding on the door of the world,
to let you out of here and into everywhere:

(you can't fly,
you'll just dance to that drumbeat
and learn he isn't the one who plays it.)
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:29 pm
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StellaThomas says...



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4th April - in transit

teach me the patience of
the in-between
teach me how to fling arms open
with the expanse of oceans
teach me how to love emptiness on its own

(will it love me back?)
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:42 pm
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StellaThomas says...



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5th April - this is a pilgrimage but not the one you think

Faith is hard.
Vanity is easy.
Here is fragrant blossom and burning incense.
Here is gold and lacquer and things we shouldn't love.

We are all pilgrims - you seek treasures known,
I am chasing the top of a pyramid.
We none of us are saints but all the same,
Reverence costs nothing and I liked the way you bowed your head -
Like me, before he clipped my wings.
Remembering that was miracle enough.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:10 am
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StellaThomas says...



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6th April - sometimes the scramble is the easiest place to exist

He picked me out of a crowd.

He was older. Sharp suit, clipped words,
swagger that spoke of his own glory.
I liked the way he said my name
Like I was a ventricle.

He was important
So I was important too.

The fever of him stole from me.
I forgot to learn anything but him.
He only taught me anatomy -
counted my vertebrae,
felt the ridges of my pelvis,
traced the great saphenous vein behind my knee.

He was heady perfume: I was dizzy
And I thought others loved the smell.
I don't think they ever noticed.

He tore me up eventually.
I walked alone, and I wasn't important.
I was just a bee in a swarm.
It rained. I sighed with relief.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Sat Apr 07, 2018 5:33 am
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bluewaterlily says...



I'm seriously loving your NaPo. I'm just in awe at the creativity of writing poetry from the persona of a character. It's honestly brilliant. I love that innovative approach, the pictures you choose, the sentiment and emotions captured in each poem.
"A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language." - W.H. Auden
  





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Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:59 am
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StellaThomas says...



Spoiler! :
@bluewaterlily - thank you, you're very kind <3 the persona is mainly to give myself some structure. Regarding the photos I'm roughly trying to use one of where I was that day - I might compile a list on the last day!


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7th April - fernweh

I think I am the opposite of homesick.
There should be a word for it:
I dread the return journey to soot and sleet
To begrudgery and serpent tongues

I think I'll stay away with you:
We'll be Magellan
(but without the poison arrow)

I'll keep you safe if you keep us sailing.
We can chase every bright place this world has to offer.
Every glittering city, every star sky sanctuary,
Every salt cave and volcano.
I'll learn every colour the sea can be,
and wave "goodbye" in every language.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Sat Apr 07, 2018 6:07 pm
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bluewaterlily says...



@StellaThomas Please do. I'd love to see the places where you got to travel!
"A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language." - W.H. Auden
  





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Sun Apr 08, 2018 11:15 am
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StellaThomas says...



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April 8th - I think that sakura mean new beginnings

It happened before. Resusc. A year ago.
Vital signs rattled off, and terror creeping over her skull,
at the light-seeking pallor, the clammy grasp of near-death.

And something clicked. She threaded veins and called out figures, squeezed bags and tilted beds,
made landline calls with a definite, "no, now."

When the fight left her lungs,
and his lungs were inflated with TIE-Fighter BiPAP,
she didn't remember fear. Just rush.

Last night I was alone. There was no one to call.
A man's blood filling his belly.
I knew from the start, with heartbeat drum:
airway, breathing, circulation
I taught a different crew our tricks -
Lift up his legs.
Hold his hand.

I have something he stole from her.
We crept onshore and there, everywhere,
pink cherry blossom wavered on the wind.
Spring comes after winter, and morning after night,
And I came second too.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:11 am
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StellaThomas says...



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9th April - things his mother should have taught him:

1. A woman is this:
Kind, effusive, ever-flowing,
Ever-nurturing.
Keeping ledgers of needs,
Neat rows, colour coded.

2. A woman also:
Is warm to the touch,
Crackles with life force,
Smells of sulphur and the things below.

3. And also, a woman is this:
Bubbling, lying in wait,
Until the day she roars her battlecry,
Destroys all in her path.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  





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Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:54 am
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Mea says...



I love all of this so much! Your poetry is beautiful and breathtaking and I love love seeing all the pictures (and knowing all the Japan places is super fun). I think my favorites are "fernweh" and "transit" - they capture so much of what I feel about change in such a short time with such poignant images.
We're all stories in the end.

I think of you as a fairy with a green dress and a flower crown and stuff.
-EternalRain

I think you, @Deanie and I are like the Three Book Nerd Musketeers of YWS.
-bluewaterlily
  





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Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:24 pm
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StellaThomas says...



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10th April - you went through me like a bullet

I didn't expect those lightbulb dimples
in your warehouse face.
I didn't imagine the diplomacy lacework of your words,
the computing power of a mind with fingers too thick for a keyboard

Not all men are bamboo; legs without heart.
I'd forgotten it, but you reminded me
Of how a belly laugh is contagious
When it is as full and rich as yours.

You held me just to make me feel better;
And planted a kiss like a candlelight on my lips.
It ripped me open, tore the fibrous tangle in my chest wide apart,
And with sailor's knots you tied me back together.
"Stella. You were in my dream the other night. And everyone called you Princess." -Lauren2010
  








The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading.
— Edward Hirsch