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Napowrimo

#23 – Orphosis

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.

Categories
Napowrimo

napowrimo sitrep

I’ve decided to try to get to thirty poems, but loosen the time constraints. Just FYI.

Categories
Napowrimo

#22 – ‘the little screen’

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.

Categories
Napowrimo

#21 – ‘Too much espresso…’

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 in their skulls,
to whet their senses until
they can almost see
all Plato’s demons in the walls.

Categories
Napowrimo

#20 – ‘extreme sports videos…’

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.

Categories
Napowrimo

#19 – kitty ditty

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.