delish

i really really love tasty dishes

and i really love tasty food

(Harshita Chaudray, i’m a food lover )

I love ( it )  to the depth and

breadth and height

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, how do I love thee)

but

not thick brown rice and rice pilau

or mushrooms creamed on toast (!)

(Maya Angelou, the health food diner )

but

one thousand long slimy crocodile tongues

boiled up in the skull of a dead witch for 

20 days and nights with the eyeballs of a lizard

(Roald Dahl, james and the giant peach)

swish

oxtails languish on an earthen dish. Here are

wishbones and pinkies; fingerbowls will absolve

guilt

( Carol Anne Duffy, a healthy meal )

.

i really really love tasty dishes

and i really love tasty food

(Harshita Chaudray, i’m a food lover )

downhill i came, hungry, and yet not

starved

( Edward Thomas, the owl )

i follow the aroma that rose from the kitchen

( Ravinder Kumar Soni, food for death )

ate and ate my fill

yet my mouth waters still

(Christina Rossetti, goblin market )

when i think of all the lollies i licked

and the sherbet dabs i picked

( Pam Ayres, oh, i wish i’d looked after my teeth )

the slime of all my yesterday’s 

rots in the hollow of my skull

and if my stomach would contact

(Sylvia Plath, April 18 )

asked me for a kiss

( Langston Hughes, suicides note )

to perfume the sleep of the dead   ( ….  )

( Sarojini Naidu, in the bazaars of Hyderabad )

oh, 

but

.

what am I to do with this invasion, 

contamination of my pretty (?)

( Marion McCready, two daffodils lying on a window ledge )

spread it on bread

spread it on thick

wash it all down with a cold cup of sick (?)

( source unknown , remembered from school )

never – in Extremity,

it asked a crumb – of me

(Emily Dickinson, hope is the thing with feathers )

but 

i’ll make my point – enough’s enough

( Carol Ann Duffy, boys 3, stanley )

 i repent,

(btw )

to the depth and

breadth and height 

i lament,

(btw)

jam, and jelly; and bread;

are the best of food for me!

( Edward Lear, the quangle wangle’s hat )

.

not a haiku

.

https://www.napowrimo.net

Napowrimo Day 30

the final prompt

write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but you don’t have to write a long one. And a good way to jump-start the process is to find an online curation of poems about a particular topic (or in a particular style), and then mine the poems for good lines to string together. You might look at the Poetry Foundation’s collection of love poems, or its collection of poems by British romantic poets, or even its surprisingly expansive collection of poems about (American) football.

good nights

no

getting away

(from)

no

more good night kisses good nights

future

dreams

no

.

haiku

mam ‘n me wicked sister

they’s told me

me mam didn’t want me —ain’t that the truth ?

i’s cruelly tempted t’say she didn’t give me nuffin’— but life, she did, innit!

she give me over to me blood-sister

who wus just a year old ‘n knew no better

so i was a gift for her — a livin’ thingamajig for her to twist

‘n she did, bless her

.

so i wus told off ‘n played wif

so i wus pulled ‘n pulled ‘tween ‘em

bossed ‘n bent outta purer shape ‘n

i let ‘em ‘cos i loved ‘em ‘n just to fit in, innit!

‘n so i forgot what i wus

‘n what gifts i wus born wif

.

i wus told i wus too bold ‘n that wus wicked

but i wakes up to the trickery ‘n breaks old enchantments

wif a wham-bam, thank ye mam

i takes this present that is me

i owe nuffin

i own me

but me, ‘n

i is bold, i is kind, i is smart, i is important

i is perfect, i is a rose, i ain’t a thorn, obvs!

me mam didn’t give me nuffin

she give me me

‘n i is free!

now, ain’t that the truth!

.

not a haiku

.

https://www.napowrimo.net/

NaPoWriMo day 29:-

In certain versions of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, various fairies or witches are invited to a princess’s christening, and bring her gifts. One fairy/witch, however, is not invited, and in revenge for the insult, lays a curse on the princess. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.). I hope you find this to be an inspiring avenue for poetic and self-exploration.

silence of 1000 years

hope of stones to be

unseen, or thrown ; skipping water,

unearthed after years

.

haiku

Don’t Hesitate, by Mary Oliver

Don’t Hesitate, by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns …

Don’t Hesitate, by Mary Oliver

circular

.

not a haiku

.

https://www.napowrimo.net

 Napowrimo day 28:- prompt

write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” mimics curves, reinforcing the poem’s references to motion, rocking horses, and even the shape of a woman’s body. George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” is – you guessed it – a sonnet in the shape of a potted Christmas tree. Your concrete poem could be complexly-shaped, but relatively simple strategies can also be “concrete” —  like a poem involving a staircase where the length of the lines grows or shrinks over time, like an ascending (or descending) set of stairs.

forget-me-not

which have you become?

oyster or flower ? : hours

pass : i see you not

.

haiku

ordinary rapture ( pardonnez-moi)

.

at least we weren’t speaking french

there was another music etched between us

.

etched between us, music notes no other could sense

‘specially in this midnight light at the hush-hush bus-stop

.

stopped hush-hushed, this midnight light made ‘specially for us

cold lapping our bare legs, while tidal-tongues go lava-like

.

tidal tongues turned lava-like, our cold bare legs lapping each others’ shores

eyes closed, listening for the bus, but not, ear buds in, connecting us

.

us, listening, not for the bus, but for the budding connection without ears or eyes

goosebumps raised like brail, jingle-jangled to each touch

.

touching raising goosebumps meant as maps, like jingle-jangle trail

dead-scroll pilgrimage attempt washed up on bus stop bench

.

attempt a scroll on a dead-phone,stopped, this bench a washed-up pilgrimage

at least we weren’t speaking french

.

not a haiku

.

https://www.napowrimo.net/

NaPoWriMo day 27:-

to write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.

off the rooftop

not a question of

jumping

the answer was just

taking

a first step

.

haiku

defiant chill in the air

.

summer’s here, not gone, you insist

it’s beauty emptying and fermenting

tempting trees to bare their teeth and throw down arms

though barely September, winds whinge and whine

querulous as a passels of squirrels rustling and thieving stashes of nuts

but autumn comes in hobbling like two old biddies in dirtied petticoats —mouths

prattling, puckered as a skinny cow’s arse and just as fetidly malted

shocking as the hot stench of wolves on the cooled nostrils on a fist of horses

shivering, prickling as a torment of digits in agony on the return of blood as tips thaw out

summer’s not gone… you insist, hunkered into your nest of jewels and tattered letters —

like a tiny brown shrew nibbling whortleberries that stain like gossiped loot —

the colours, taste and scent that lasts well past memory, dribbled and inked in wines

behind preserving glasses- solitarily grasping at remnants of loves and leaves almost gone

to seeds, pulling heads in for a duration you shall not mention or admit —

except in the writing of this

.

not a haiku

.

.

p.s A whortleberry is a forest-foraged berry, also known as a bilberry or huckleberry. Traditionally, after a harvest of them was sent to the kitchens of London and other important towns, ( from Porlock and its environs ) remnants were sent to be used in the dying of airmen’s uniforms. (So i’m informed)

https://www.napowrimo.net

Napowrimo day 26.-

A couple of days ago, we played around with hard-boiled similes. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that contains at least one of a different kind of simile – an epic simile. Also known as Homeric similes, these are basically extended similes that develop over multiple lines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have mainly been used in epic poems, typically as decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject (see, by way of illustration, this example from Milton’s Paradise Lost). But you could write a complete poem that is just one lengthy, epic simile, relying on the surprising comparison of unlike things to carry the poem across. And if you’re feeling especially cheeky, you could even write a poem in which the epic simile spends lines heroically and dramatically describing something that turns out to be quite prosaic. Whatever you decide to compare, I hope you have fun extending your simile(s) to epic lengths.