autumnal mist hung
on cusp of winter’s tooth not
biting yet ~ waiting
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haiku
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apologies for the unseasonal nature of this haiku
Category Archives: teeth
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 )
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not a haiku
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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.
against all advice
.
salt-swooped, enticed
from the dark deep lake of his eyes
washed up on your shore
left there
balanced on a blade of his hair
bent-winged
you take a second chance at his skin
which has the look of tin
left out in a recent storm
yet glinting
dangerous as a virus starting
fished from his mouth
.
an unfamiliar curl of dull light like
a line of syllable struck on an infinite yet vacant sky
sickles you in its soiled embrace
he circles in again
patient like a surgeon
from a distant planet
.
you gulp you rumble yet fail
to notice sap that blooms and spills
ecstatic from his ruinous touch
that acts like a compliment, but isn’t so
conspicuous
.
you wilt you mumble
as he picks his teeth
larger than easter island monuments
as you swoon
sucked clean as a puckered scar
flapping there, un-speeched
beached on remnant happiness
no-one else gets
.
this vice is your
kryptonite
.
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not a haiku
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NaPoWriMo day 24
Hard-boiled detective novels are known for their use of vivid similes, often with an ironic or sarcastic tone. Novelist Raymond Chandler is particularly adept at these. Here are a few from his novels:
- A few locks of dry, white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.
- Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
- From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
- She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.
- He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile. Feel free to use just one, or try to go for broke and stuff your poem with similes till it’s . . . as dense as bread baked by a plumber, as round as the eyes of a girl who wants you to think she’s never heard such language, and as easy to miss as a brass band in a cathedral.
wear the yellow wellies
pray for rain, for darkest sun
say the word storm til it hums, honey
in the base of your tummy
hurry-flurry from home
wear the yellow wellies, silly
the spotted overalls, the lightning gnomes
everyone forgets to
. . . . .
pack only a ring of bells
one ( or two ) cracks of shells
a smack of berg-a-mots and cloves
three ( or four ) knocks and shoves
for good luck
smatter in some syllables
shuck some pebble-marbles
for kicks and giggles
then
. . . . .
leave them out on the porch
bring a torch
go insid
where you hid
as a kid
flash-splash beam-scream mutter-whisper
call to all your jammy jars of sea foam whiskers
tickles
you kept for later
watch
cock your ear
the path is clear
corkscrew your self to where you are young
find the poem – ( fully-fledged )
bouncing on your tongue – right at the edge
left right where you left it
catch its skin in your pearly teeth
like light from the storm beneath
bubble up, laughing
in your teacup, paddling
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not a haiku
.
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NaPoWriMo day 4: write a poem . . . in the form of a poetry prompt. If that sounds silly, well, maybe it is! But it’s not without precedent. The poet Mathias Svalina has been writing surrealist prompt-poems for quite a while, posting them to Instagram. You can find examples here, and here, and here.
mornings
greasy fresh lemons
filthy grind of coffee set
teeth on shaver’s edge
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haiku
barbaraturneywielandpoetess 