Orphosis
Some body hair and a deeper speaking voice
seem poor reward
for thirteen years of dutiful
eating and shitting.
Boys should pupate,
and claw their way from the chrysalis
transformed into kaleidoscopic manhood.
Or at the least should
slough their skins,
peel off their old selves
and step out sleek and bright.
Posts tagged with ‘napowrimo 2006’
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#23 – Orphosis
5 May 2006 – 5:37 pm
napowrimo sitrep
29 April 2006 – 9:11 am
I’ve decided to try to get to thirty poems, but loosen the time constraints. Just FYI.
#22 - ‘the little screen’
26 April 2006 – 10:40 pm
On the little screen
that shows the progress of the flight
Europe is a blob of green
between the beige and blue and white.
Sand and sea and snow,
expanses that once defined
the limits of the known,
the limits of the mind.
We no longer need to wonder
at the unfamiliar;
the wild places just pass under
while we drink our cans of beer.
#21 - ‘Too much espresso…’
24 April 2006 – 7:01 pm
Too much espresso
on an empty stomach.
I’d almost forgotten what it’s like;
the jitteriness, the edges of the world exaggerated,
so each lamp-post is a monolith
against the sky.
How wise he was,
that Ethiopian goatherd who, seeing
that the berries of a certain bush
had made his flock
go wild-eyed and nervous,
decided he should try them.
He understood that sometimes, people need
to be uneasy [...]
#20 - ‘extreme sports videos…’
24 April 2006 – 10:30 am
Extreme sports videos
are always better with the sound turned off:
a restless arrangement of white and blue.
And at the centre, a twisting figure
fighting to find the simple path
through chaos.
Now three days behind. Oh well.
#19 - kitty ditty
21 April 2006 – 7:13 pm
How did I get two days behind? Oh well.
Kitty Ditty
Kitten pie, kitten pie,
it makes me sad, I don’t know why;
perhaps because their lives were brief;
perhaps the fur caught in my teeth.
#18 - Tarifa
20 April 2006 – 5:35 pm
Tarifa
It seems like this should be
one of the great myth-places of the world;
where the churning grey of the Atlantic meets
the winedark Mediterranean,
where Europe extends towards
an Africa which seems so close
that Jesus could lean out across the Strait
and share a manly handshake
with Muhammed.
It’s not, of course. It’s just
a windy beach resort
where sunburnt men in flipflops
drink caipirinhas [...]
#17 - ‘The mysterious…’
17 April 2006 – 1:35 pm
The mysterious translucence of candied peel
is a proof of the existence of God.
Stained glass just does the same thing,
bigger.
See also: rainbows, sunsets,
and backlit copper beech trees
in the spring.
#16 - a bit of Lorca. Sorta.
17 April 2006 – 1:34 pm
This requires a note of explanation. I thought I’d have a go at doing a version of one of Lorca’s Sonnets of Dark Love that maintained the form. I only managed the first quatrain, but it looks enough like a stand-alone poem that it’ll do. The poem this is taken from is much more interesting [...]
#15 - ‘Poetry is a prestidigitation…’
17 April 2006 – 1:32 pm
Poetry is a prestidigitation
of the tongue;
wordy gesticulation
designed to misdirect,
distract, deceive
and help the audience believe
you really do have nothing up your sleeve;
to make it clear
an elephant can disappear,
a rabbit can become a bunch of flowers
and a rose can be
death, or purity,
or love,
or all of the above.
#14 - a skipping rhyme
17 April 2006 – 1:31 pm
A Skipping Rhyme
These are the end times
how do I know?
Three little birdies
told me so.
‘Death’ said the robin
‘Famine’ said the wren
‘Plague’ said the sparrow
and just then
who came along
but old Jack Daw
and all four together said
‘War! War! War!’
1!
2!
3!
4!
Death!
Famine!
Plague!
War!
5 6 7
8 9 10
back to the start
and go again
#13 - a poet’s lament
17 April 2006 – 1:28 pm
A Poet’s Lament
I should try to write something good
instead of all this froth;
I should search out some inner flame
then find my inner moth.
napowrimo status report
16 April 2006 – 1:30 pm
I have been doing my napowrimo poems, but they won’t be up here until some occasion when I feel like putting them here. Just so you know.
#12 - two squibs
12 April 2006 – 8:46 pm
I spent about two hours in a bar staring at an empty notebook, and all I could come up with were these two bits of nonsense:
The Blonde Waitress
Although the conversation barely slows,
a dozen pairs of eyes watch where she goes.
Intelligent Design Explained
Creating both man and disease
might seem a tad ironic;
but think, without malaria,
we’d have no [...]
napowrimo 4-10. Or something.
11 April 2006 – 4:22 pm
I can´t work out how to do a hash sign on a Spanish keyboard. Ho-hum. In fact all the punctuation seems to be in the wrong place. I also notice that on IE version whatever this is, the site is displaying incorrectly. Fucking Microsoft. Why don´t they have Firefox anyway?
It doesn´t seem fair to do [...]
#3 – Cloisonné Flycatcher
3 April 2006 – 8:49 pm
I think there’s a good poem somewhere in the idea of a field-guide. This is not that poem; I would need to spend some more time working out what overall effect to go for. But that’s napowrimo for you; can’t afford to think things through.
Cloisonné Flycatcher Muscicapa umbraticola
L11-27cm Nests in dense clumps of burdock or [...]
#2 – Epigram
3 April 2006 – 12:33 am
Not in good poetry-writing form today, so this will have to do:
Epigram
Footballers are messengers of death;
a few short years from clear-eyed youth
to stiff and out of breath.
#1 – Siesta
1 April 2006 – 4:42 pm
Well, here we go again. Napowrimo poem #1 for 2006 is a ‘translation’ of a poem by Antonio Machado. I don’t speak Spanish (I was working with a prose translation and a dictionary), I haven’t attempted to maintain rhyme or metre, and I’ve allowed myself a degree of freedom. I’m by no means convinced by [...]