Day 8: Endings

Day 8:

Solar Eclipse

We were never meant to meet.

All those longing looks cast 

across dawn and dusk skies;

oh the light we made.

Every star a poem for you,

scattered map of love.

And you, turning the horizon aflame, 

heart sending out a flare,

gold furnace of desire.

Is this the closest we get?

April evening, pink blush on my face, Venus in the wings.

One blink and darkness winks.

I close my eyes: it seems

we almost touch -

silver and gold 

monumental moment

dissolving

into

translucence.

Sun-blindness 

is a real thing.

As for the moon? You knew

I was half mirage, a shimmering dissonance

of dream and romance. 

We can't ever meet.

The astrophysical axis

commands it so. In other words, Fate.

Too many shadows.

Too much afterglow.

Day 2: Platonic Love Poem

 To April

'April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers' ~Edna St Vincent Millay

A lullaby of lemon-light.

Days a procession of mellow yellow:

primrose, daffodil, saffron sun.

Easter chicks and bonnets when I was young.

I loved you then; promise of something brighter,

something new.

Dawn birdsong. Days jubilate into chorus.

Dusk serenade of sultry jazz,

blushing, blazing solo moon.

Applause of stars. Venus as wingman.

Inside, I'm singing (dancing too).

You dear are a balm after winter's harsh sting.

Honey bees alight in a dark cave,

dreaming of summer nectar.

Sustenance. Warmth and vigour.

Impressionist dots of buds on trees.

A flurry of lime-green daubed

by a giddy artist's hand. April giggles,

runs ahead, barefoot on new-green,

daisy chain in hand, dreams in head.

Floriferous fantasy.

Such softening. A dissipation

of everything that is tight.

April ruffles her hair and the breeze

is a rush of gleaming gold. Brazen rebirth.

Transformation complete.

The child of the year

hope shining

like cuckoo flowers at morning

lilac and wistful with dew's soft kiss,

day ahead a daydream

a mirage of youth

a wish for future mirth

a dandelion seed

airborne

a smile

the first thing you feel;

your newborn heart

alive now,

all the flowers

blooming.

Day 1: Early Bird Prompt & Book Prompt

 Welcome to NapoWriMo 2024!

Tried the Early Bird prompt of picking one of the chosen words, 'Flute' and writing a poem about it. 

As well as the Day 1 Prompt of writing about the plot of a book you read and liked but don't really remember. 

The Flute

Wind and wood combine

grace of air and breath and melody

entwine,

harmony

as thought becomes music.

I could get carried away

on notes as brusque as fairy wings

like new leaves budding on trees

a story of life's highs and lows

melancholy or mischief

intricately told by fingers

that move like grasses in a breeze

fluent in flexibility, dream-dappled light show;

a tune to carry within

as whistle or whim.

*Sensitive content*

Plot

There was a tiger, I'm certain of that.

Not just metaphorical, but real.

A stage hand of war. Lesson in a story.

A young girl, wise beyond her years.

Much hardship, violence. Trauma.

I don't know about love.

Love had no currency in those times.

Was there a butcher? A very bad man.

Women suffering. Tale as old as time.

The skulls beneath the ground

how they haunt the present.

The tiger like a flame

flickering through history.

As reality's seams tear,

strength and tenacity.

myth and dream.

-The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obrecht

Day 16: Negation

 

Today's prompt was to describe something in terms of what it is not...

    Memory

I am not tangible.

More substantial than a shadow,

but far from flesh.

I am not large, by any means,

more minute, made of fractions of moments,

filaments of light.

Neither am I false, but may be elusive with truth.

Sometimes I do not come into focus,

at others I shimmer, I glow; more real

than anything you can see.

I am not a footnote, but a testament.

I have no solid shape, am languid and fluid

like water running over rock, sun dancing

in the evening. I change, I flow

from small to strong, drip to flood.

I love music, it brings me to life,

fragrance too, the scent of a spring day.

I am not one thing, but many, a million pixels

of life developing and settling.

I am not darkness but love's afterglow;

the promise

that you will not ever be alone.

Not a figment of imagination,

but an imprint of thought, a fact,

the past reliving itself in the present.

Life's currency

that even death cannot deplete.

I am nothing and yet everything.

I have no life, but I live inside you,

a world within a world.

A sepia image that on demand puts on

a Technicolour show.

A vast repository of colour, I am worth and wonder

hoarded in the heart

forever.

Day 12: Meta

 

Today's prompt was to write a poem addressing a poem or poetry in general, perhaps interrogating our own style of writing or relationship to poetry. 

Dear Poetry

How light-handed you are,

how delicate and devious,

sieving moonlight

through timbre of rhythm,

and rivulets of thoughts

that flow like quicksilver.

Charged ions of emotion

in every rush, every trickle, every line,

every decibal drop.

How you translate so eloquently

the hieroglyphics of the heart

made indecipherable by doubt.

Blue true source of life,

alchemy of ink and paper.

How you reveal wonder

in a whimsical flutter,

wisdom in words

that draw from the inner well,

each brimming sip

a salve, a sensation,

an invitation to being.

Day 11: Overheard Speech

A poem today inspired by an aspect of overheard speech.

Rumuor

A whisper, a whim, word uttered

light as air. Careless, casual,

concrete as a cloud.

A sigh amplified,

silence magnified.

A slip of the tongue,

wisp of wonder

language lost

in a labyrinth of truth.

Where did it go, this courier of care?

Fallen between fences of sentences,

a flower in paved surrounds. But I can't forget it,

this filament of feeling

dandelion seed carried on the wind,

wildflower meadow planted

in the heart.

Day 10: Sea Shanty

 

Today's prompt was to write a sea shanty...

Sea Shanty

Though storms may surge and wind may blow

We'll ride it out til break of morn

In deepest ocean undertow

We'll ride it out til break of morn

In blackest night, strangle of woe

We'll ride it out til break of morn

Through fears and doubts, highs and lows

we'll ride it out til break of morn

Come high water or doldrum low

We'll ride it out til break of morn

At dawn's first light, a wondrous sight -

we rode it out til break of morn.

All reacti

Day 7: List

Today's prompt was to write a poem based on a list of some kind.

How to Live with Sadness

Revere in the colours of April:

saffron yellow mornings,

lemon-balm evenings, the pale lilac

of cuckoo flowers in morning dew,

their fragile beauty like a daydream.

The cheerful pink camellia

exotic on the lawn.

Take into your heart the word 'tristesse';

its pale blue satins that fold

around the tongue so luxuriously,

eloquent language of tears,

unfathomable depths

of melancholy

that pool in a quiet heart.

Become a watcher of the moon.

Trace its nightly trail of light,

luminescent to languorous,

fingernail chink, a smudge in all that dark.

Let if fill you with a benevolence

that is near to hope,

its moody shape-shifting

a promise of mutability.

Learn to solidify emotions into tangible things:

joy in a budding tree, Impressionist daub of leaves;

despair in a black moonless night;

happiness the brush of pollen on fingertips,

the hum of an unseen bee.

From the vague fugue of sadness,

feel yourself take shape again.

Befriend the colour blue - from midnight navy to

the dull bruise of a sunless sky,

the turquoise tint of a lucid dream.

All the ink of sadness -

let it write itself

on the cool white pages

of blank days

and learn to love itself

in the mirror of smiling faces,

unencumbered by this weight

that makes of every beautiful thing

a gift, a grace, an invitation

for living.

Day 5: Laughter

A poem inspired by awkward laughter...

Holy Show

A glut of giggles tumbles

belly forth forward.

We kneel and clasp our middles,

gasp at sombre silent air

as blurry candles serenely flicker.

Effervescent bubbles burst bold

on sacred stillness, every little look

a comic sketch of epic proportions -

an invitation

to a new fit of churning inevitables.

The tears start then, the laughter leaking from us

any way it can, a new kind

of holy water.

Day 4: Triolet

Today's prompt was to write a triolet... Today's in memory of my beloved wee cat Chrissy who died last week... :(

For Chrissy

You brought so much joy, so much love,

our little kitty up above.

Missed beyond all logical bounds

You brought so much joy, so much love

Each day without you a steep climb,

will this pain lessen with more time?

You brought so much joy, so much love,

our little kitty up above.

Chrissy, RIP 28/3/23