Young Writers Society

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH IN STYLE

Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.
- Charles Simic

It took me awhile to remember to post things. This is my second time doing NaPoWriMo. I totally forgot last year. Again, it's been some time since I've written any poetry, so bear with me.



Anything in brackets means alternate phrase.

TABLE O' CONTENTS

oo1 apr. Отцы и дети (Otcy i Deti) // (otcy.)
oo2 apr. Отцы и дети (Otcy i Deti) // (deti.)
oo3 apr. intelligensia.
oo4 apr. votum centurionis enim suum reginam.
oo5 apr. three-dog venus. // tre-cani amore gioia.
oo6 apr. bait and fish.
oo7 apr. je année une unicorn.
oo8 apr. the white moth.
oo9 apr. the old dun cow.
o10 apr. the thinking problem of dead grass.

oo1 apr. Отцы и дети (Otcy i Deti)

(otcy.)

(Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov.)

he makes you squint your eyes and bark in ways that
torts your voice to some foreign tongue. And, he is not even your own.
not ever your own son. you frown in his presence and remember your sphinx—your princess,
your принцесса, your R. and that leaves such a bitter taste
in your mouth,
you scowl
and turn.

Arkady calls him “nihilist”; but you are aptly aware in manner of his speech and
the profanity of his face that he is
anything but nothing.

1. Отцы и дети (Otcy i Deti): Fathers and Children; also, a Russian novel by Ivan Turgenev, published in 1862.
2. принцесса: printsessa, princess in Russian.
3. Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov: one of main character in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Children. He is the son of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov and close friend of Yevgeny Vasil'evich Bazarov.

oo2 apr. Отцы и дети (Otcy i Deti)

(deti.)

(Yevgeny Vasil'evich Bazarov.)

all you care about is stoff und kraft—matter and
force. no authority can sway you, you doctrinaire materialist.
you have no faith in the shape [offer] of the hand or the
memory of a face. no, the particulars of the whole, and the innard workings of frogs
possess your wits far more than the glow of summer fireflies ever could.
in England, you would have shook Herbert Spencer’s hand and
declared him a useful sort of fellow; after all
poets have nothing on you. And, poor Arkady, dutiful sidekick, trapped in
revolving justification of what is useful or not. what is advantageous or not.
once the great conversationalist, he now watches silently as you distill down
even the most prophetic faith into chemical elements.
matter and force.
all you say is matter and force. [and you say to him: matter and force.]

1. Отцы и дети (Otcy i Deti): Fathers and Children; also, a Russian novel by Ivan Turgenev, published in 1862.
2. stoff and kraft: a reference to Kraft und Stoff: Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien (Facts and Theories from the Scientific Life of Present, 1887) by Ludwig Büchner, a German philosopher.
3. Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov: one of main character in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Children. He is the son of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov and close friend of Yevgeny Vasil'evich Bazarov.

oo3 apr. intelligensia

guard yourselves well, oh intelligent ones.
hide yourselves in between the pages of
french grammar and english syntax
a double dilemma—of this—and that—.
i’ve hidden your letters in the old bookshelf,
the one that opens at the close of day to wild
unknown thoughts and figures under such
lamplight alluring—such spreading shadows
and darkening wood.
never let wild december romantic notions
be purposed for the sake of calculation of use.

all we are is what we are and
what we are is truth—all we are is
what we are and what we are is
truth.

I am so far behind in posting my poems for this year.

By the by, is anyone reading this thread?

I am!

Me too.

YAY! I feel loved.

so I wrote a poem in Latin. Following it, in the spoiler, is a trot of the poem in English.

oo4 apr. votum centurionis enim suum reginam.

ne rex quidem tam ferox
potuit ērubēscere reginam sequor
ea enim est in meum cor et meum oculum
sua venustas similis soli notat aras
optimorum deorum cum arce gratiā.
mori fortiter est omne rogo enim dicere:
placere suā molli ore; sua nomen in meum
labrum, sua audacia in meum scutum, sua
virtus in meum gladium.

ante meum oculos, saevam celeremque,
patriam favet mihi cum conspectum felicem—
praedae pugna enim meum reginam.

Once again trying out different languages in poetry. My italian is not too good, so scusi. Also, the italian title of the poem translates to: three-dog lovejoy.

oo5 apr. three-dog venus.
(fragment.)

she lies in sleep like ice in a vault:
tender face frozen in serene simplicity.
if only i could please the great dead men
and breath birth and origin into
her inanimate bones and frigid enchantment.


oo5 apr. tre-cani amore gioia.
(frammento.)

(ancora una volta in italiano.)

giace nel sonno come il ghiaccio in una volta:
gara viso congelato in semplicità serena.
Se solo potessi piacere ai grandi uomini morti
e il respiro di nascita e di origine in
le ossa inanimate e incanto frigida.

oo6 apr. bait and fish.

a fisher queen with eyes of green
pierced the hook with a worm and let her
feet hang over the bridge. I watch her from
my tower transfixed by her child-like, waif-like
ways and how her toes dip in and out of the
water.

she grins as she plucks a fish off her hook—it flops
this way and that; she juggles it expertly until it stills
atop her small, pudgy fingers. she lays the dead fish
across the worn wooden dock timber; I can see its one
dead eye unblinking up at the sky—a bauble of dark
dotted glass.

it seems so close that through my glass I could pluck
the round thing with my long, limber fingers and call
myself a wizard. for a moment, I fear I am witnessing
the gods at work for a trick of light flickers in the fish
scales and I suspect the fish alive again.

it is not.

she laughs, and I am torn from fascination of the fish—
from the fascination between existence and extinction.
I flicker letting her laughter gather me, and again
I am within her grasp; ready and willing, spellbound,
waiting for the next fish.

The line breaks in this are starting to annoy me. Oh well.

oo7 apr. je année une unicorn.*

I was born a unicorn—the horn of the
zodiac braced around my neck. When I heard the
learnèd mystic speak of my constellation in the sky,
I was blinded by the craft that bubbled under his fingers
and created the paths of light in the sky. I was born a unicorn—
delighting in the space and breath between existence and
imagination.

I was born a unicorn—with all the evidence of magic
and mystery within my breast, awaiting just for someone
to know my name.


* I know this is not a strict translation in the french for I was born a unicorn. But, it's the one I learned/remembered from high school french class.

This is an attempt at poetry in motion.

oo8 apr. the white moth.

the white obsession of many crinkled love-fooled
antennae battered the beating of the light and
lullabies.

oo9 apr. the old dun cow.

the old dun cow talks into the night,
to the old man in the moon, like a dog.
the fairies near the mill hear the bay and
howl deep into the dark; so they come—their
many-coloured wings fluttering fireworks against
an ever moving canvas of light and shimmer. the
little enchanters stay only for the witching hour;
they wait as good friends do until the old dun cow
ceases speech; for with the lighted coming hour,
it becomes just some dumb animal.

Another attempt at magnate poetry.

o10 apr. the thinking problem of dead grass.

I at home think mother not we:
the dead grass.