Day 19: Fairytale

 

A fairytale prompt - why not? 

There's something about that shoe in Cinderella, if things hadn't worked out so luckily (fairytale fate is always so helpful) that always reminds me of the irrevocable feeling of something meaningful being left behind...

Another Cinderella Story

It was all my fault. Romantic misadventurer. 
Treated suitors with flippant ardor.
Tried them on like I did new shoes, 
discarded them just as casually.
Love was a dream of hard won riches.  

I was too fussy, too aware of flaws:
some too tight, too big, too small,
too many laces, not enough bling.
Never saw the shoe for the places it would go
or the comfort it could bring. 

Always holding out for the perfect one -
that Cinderella glass slipper shoe-in,
a fairytale, a ball, everything moonlit
and yes, a prince that would fit. 
Love was nothing if not a magic spell.

You were utterly charming, there's no doubt. 
Could coax a smile from me every time, 
laughter lines to scale any tower or moat. 
Light skipped a beat when you were near. If this 
was love, it was easy as being barefoot.  

Then, one night at the ball. Moon and stars 
aligned. But I turned on my heel for the horizon -
didn't care for you there beaming beside me: 
a mirrorball romance, a midnight chance
I didn't take.

See, I wasn't willing to walk the miles. This love 
I thought, was premature, curfew-making.
So I kicked you aside like a pinching shoe.
Ran away and never looked back.
Knew, I had broken your heart in two. 

But that was years ago, once upon a time.
And this is now, real life. I don't know where 
you are, have no royal means to seek you out. 
No shoe, no clues. Your name is a wish 
I can barely say out loud. 

Now I tiptoe around any mention 
of happily ever after. With you, I felt
most like myself - that was true. 
Realise too late now I left behind 
my very best fitting shoe. 

But what can I do? Fairytales lie and brag.
This is a love story of riches to rags.  

Day 18: Saturday Bliss

Bliss

Saturday evening sun 
pours its gold in wine.  
Day dissolves in giddy bubbles,
goldrush particles, glad matter. 
Strawberries on the side
taste of summer, remembered
surprise: red and green and gold.   
Day plump and perfectly ripe.
Across the street, a window blushes
rose in an April dusk. 
The bubbles rise and pop.
Day is a kiss still fizzing on lips. 
I drink a shimmying gulp of stars 
and toast this modest 
but tremendous bliss.  
Day distilled into pure delight.

 

Day 17: Fact

The prompt today was inspired by social media. This little poem came to mind, not really from the prompt, but from a kind of epiphany of how we all keep to ourselves so much, even in social contact...

Fact


People live in parallel lines.

No matter how close, a gap always persists.

Day 16: Terzanelle

Today's prompt is to write a terzanelle, a repetitive form that mixes the terza and the villainelle forms. (For details see www.napowrimo.net)

I actually liked this form once I tried it. There's something very haunting about the repetitive lines... 



Terzanelle in Time of Nostalgia

I am nostalgic for so many things.
Those leafy green days of youth, gone.
The future a coin I was saving to spend,

possibility I could flip at will.
This is how it happens: fast but slow.
Those leafy green days of youth, gone. 

Age is no merry weather walk. 
The past a memory mixed with dream. 
This is how it happens: fast but slow.

Always on the verge of crossing over,
I lived on the threshold of days.
The past a memory mixed with dream.

Verdant vision in every direction.
Time advances in longings and leaps.
I lived on the threshold of days.

But now the years recede and horizon narrows.
I am nostalgic for so many things.
Time advances in longings and leaps.  
The future a coin I was saving to spend.

 

Day 15: Poem About a Poem

 

Well today's prompt, since we're halfway through NaPoWriMo, is to write a poem about a poem, sort of. 



A Poem Passes By

The air ripples
as a poem passes by. 

Lost like a fish that 
belly-flops into the deep.

Goodbye verses
I so longed to net.
Slippery rhymes, scaly meter.
Inspiration, carried upstream
against the current.

But most of all the last line -
that catches like a hook in the heart of the reader. 


 

Day 14: Riddle Poem

 

A little reflection on the craft today, using yesterday's riddle poem prompt. 




Poetry 

Sun and moon and stars. All 
the world in the flick of a wrist, 
the tense ticking of thought. 

Alchemical gaze of attention. 
Golden bird in the hand: gilded,
gift, glee; genie of light.

A means and an end. Questions more
than answers. Honeycombs of zen. 
Infinite eloquent ever-afters.

Elixir of immortality - if fame insists.
A puzzle, a wonderment, a Pandora's box
of tune and chime and happily, rhyme.   

Day 13: Magnolia

Today I'm revising some notes (eh - 3 lines...) I had scribbled a few days prior on a description of a magnolia tree, one of my favourite springtime blooms. And fascinating to try and describe! 

For example, did you know that magnolia flowers bloom before their leaves? And that the Japanese see them as symbols of a person's chi energy or life -force? They use the bark of the tree in medicine for reinvigorating that very energy. In the language of flowers they mean nobility, love of nature and the sublime, not to mention magnificence. They're also the emblematic flower of the American South. I happen to think they're just absolutely fantabulous! Not as popular as cherry blossoms, but more magnificent for their hybrid state between shrub and tree, flower and leaf and beautiful, unique blooms. Anyway...

Magnolia

Is it a flower? 

Is it a tree?
Early spring and

tulip-like cups 

held up to sky

drink in light, blush

deeper by the day,

bloom ferociously 

overnight.

A fluster of colour:

foliage rippled fuchsia

like the flush 

of a smile spreading.

Kindled keenness.
Tendernesses 
of love's timid touch. 

Bolstered by sun 

their shy hearts
soon unfurl (don't wait
for leaves) into 
goblets of delight, 
cups that runneth 
over. Flames of pink. 
Segmented stars. 
Water-lilies 
swept up into air, tepals 
poised like chandeliers.
A garden pageant
of grace. 

Behold, the definition 
of adorn. Array 
of flowers as big 
as your palms. 
Unabashed 
full swoon
sprawling beauty.

How in the blink 
of an eye - 

petal becomes bolder,

world becomes wonder. 


*tepals - the name for the leaf-like structures that we see as 'petals' on a magnolia flower

Day 12: Doubting Thomas

Just a contemplative thought today really... 



Doubting Thomas

But isn't it true
that we all need
to see the wounds first
to really believe?

Not just in miracles -
but in love,
in loss,
in goodness. 

Stick our fingers
in scar tissues
to truly know 
that love existed there,

extravagantly. 

Day 11: Epic

 

Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

Epic

Waves lick the shore in white tongues.
Above, the sky is a banquet of blue, 

grandiose; clouds are zen masters,
philosophies of thoughts.

The light is a new language 
we re-learn by the hour. 

Horizon billows and frolics,
full of heroics to come.
 
The entire day, a continual surprise 
of story unfolding.  

Day 10: Horizon Observations

Not following the prompt today - just going with the flow of outdoors musing. 


Heart Lines

A robin perched 
on the highest branch
of the tallest tree, 
wedged in a bare
favourite nook,
trills a bravado song
of claimed lines
and home territory.

The vapour trail puff
of a passing plane
in clearwater sky -
an arrow set
on the future,
an anchor always afloat -
begs to differ: 
horizons are endless.