Month: April 2020

Day 30 of NaPoWriMo! It’s Time To Stop

Day 30 of NaPoWriMo. It’s been an adventure! I’m so happy to have done it. Such a great way of creating and sustaining a practice. Of course I couldn’t have done it without mates from Rhymes With Orange collective and general support of friends. I learnt a lot and had a place to put my unsettling quarantine feelings. So if you followed this journey and read my poems, thank you ❤️

it’s time to stop now.

won’t make a shovel from a broken limb,

relax white knuckles, wipe red eyes

there will be time enough to fight

breathe. soothe. find love in clean windows

tidy a corner. enough. soul is small

enormous cares about meaning and outfits and

dust. for now I’m a lizard on a rock

see you in the sunny spot.

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Day 29 of NaPoWriMo: An Ode To Cat

For though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

Jubilate Agno, Fragment B, [For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry]

Christopher Smart – 1722-1771

Cat, I adore you for very little reason. 

You twine round my calves when mood strikes,

clamber up a diagonally placed plank, 

(with little grace, but you make it every time). 

Cat, you are black with white tie, white bits 

on your paws. Lying in a splash of sunshine. Watching 

you soothes me, gait neat and liquid, barely made jump 

to the top of the fence, your fluffy presence, 

trying to trip me in the kitchen with excess of joy

For all your affection, you look mildly suspicious

Or perpetually surprised. 

You hardly speak, but make your meaning known, 

You jump on my door handle when you want company.

Some days I pass by an empty room and you 

lift your head from a curled up bundle of body-fur 

gazing at me calmly, warm, sleepy. Cat,

your happiness is contagious. I breathe in when you purr, 

breathe out when you lean into my hands. 

I like how much music you make, noisy 

for a creature of tiptoes. Sometimes 

you catch my hand in your paws and bite gently, 

cat, maybe this is home. Or 

as home as London gets for me.

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Day 28 of NaPoWriMo: Cook With Love

what you put in the pot to cook and eat

makes you. you, the cook. you, the pot, too.

some days you’ll eat rot.

sprinkle cheap salt, bitter laughter.

some days, you’ll choke on, navy blue.

poison will snake its way through or kill. oh yeah,

healing’s on you.

you’re given, then you make do. do, make

make best of, live with. you

the pot, the cook, the dish. always

on heat. hot tin stove. stepping slowly, neatly

painting tomato Pollock on the kitchen walls

chopping tar into mozarella balls.

some foods, not forgiven. surviving

is first. swirling taste of lead

in my mouth. Saying “I have learnt to love”

that little trace of tar. forgive, not forget.

what you put in the pot to cook and eat

remakes you. you, the cook. you, the pot, too.

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Day 27 of NaPoWriMo: About Age

Apples and Snakes prompted on Twitter to talk about my age and this happened:

33. I don’t know how
to birthday. 30th was
kind of perfection. Solo show
first. In later years, I took
bull by the horns and threw
brunches, cooking up a storm, to listen to
friends from different zones of life
try hard. I don’t even know. I
tried hard. 33. Jesus age,
apparently. In the first 3 months
of it. Used to rush in
now I drag my feet. Trying
to get better. The end can come in
weeks, days. It was always so,
but now you can bring death home
from grocery store. I’m sat in sunshine
do not pass go. Billionaires will
get out of jail free. Never thought I’d see
a day just like this. Me,
33. Not very
good at it. who is

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Day 26 is Care Blanchett, Wearing A Suit, Doing Her Own Damn Thing

Is Twitter real life
or is it fantasy

I don’t know, but I
found meaning today
in a thread of Cate Blanchett
wearing a suit.

dove gray, chequered
loose or tailored
hair slicked back, spike-gelled
collars, décolletage
serious-faced, grinning
parted lips, spinning
posed, relaxed
open jacket, buttoned-up

all I ever want
is a library of suits

so I too
can move
like Blanchett.

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#NaPoWriMo Day 24: Climb Up My Spine

climb up my spine like dread

but with your tongue, melt it up

my chest, a spiral staircase

take me on a journey of myself as

you glide around and

around like you’re swirling ice cream, a shot of

mocha in vanilla, you smile, I feel

a jolt inside. I think I

ripped something. A part of me that thought

I cannot be loved

is currently bleeding relief.

.

and I don’t want you to see, I try

to wipe myself immediately, eyes

dry on command, bleeding now contained, internal

turmoil but you read it with your mouth, pull back

to frown at me

are you okay, you say

beautifully confused. I don’t always have

words, (for someone who has

all the words), when it cuts,

tears mostly tell the story. I tell you

I tell you, I tell you all of it.

You don’t leave.

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Day 23 of #NaPoWriMo: How This Goes

I know how this goes

Social media – a slippery slope

Lots of information, keeps you on your toes

I know how this goes

I know how this goes

Someone trusted has once laughed at Snopes

And your friends are smarter than your foes

And you’re smarter than average Joe

I know how this goes

Bill Gates’ name will surely be invoked

When I question, an offended moue

A suggestion to read up – no more

You have research on YouTube to show

All the while my disengagement grows

I say “science” and you say “I know”

scary times, under a microscope

this is how, it’s such a human trope

tell a villain story and then stoke

all the feelings, reel them in, how broke

information, media system, go

try and fix it, fail, it’s too big, low-

key give up, pray we stop this – hope…..

do you know, do you also know

do y’all know how this goes

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Day 22 of #NaPoWriMo: Tiredness Echoes

I’m tired. Have started several (so many!) poetry pieces that I can’t finish today. So here’s my poem and I’m going to switch creative media and go bake focaccia.

my head echoed, so
I had a look inside
there was nothing to find

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Day 21 of #NaPoWriMo – Today I’m Writing

today I’m writing a thing. I’m asking noone, today, I’m writing, my thing, noone allowed me – today, I asked zero people’s permission to write – and capitalism also didn’t bite – just me myself and I.

remember childhood. Heroines who wrote on stolen paper. Little girls who read books on hiding. My own sneaky ways reading books when I should’ve been in piano practice.

writing journals that would then get stolen or lost. How luxurious is this. I am here. No Margaret Atwood visions interfere with my holding of this pen. I’m writing in purple although that’s “not serious”, I’m writing longhand though it’s less “productive”, producing nothing, earning nothing, except my own, my own precariously held

peace of mind.

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