Return to the New Normal

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Return to the New Normal

Let’s break this down, shall we?

According to Collins

“When you return to a place,

you go back there after you’ve been away.”

That I can understand.

I went shopping yesterday and

all the landmarks were still there.

The building across hadn’t budged

and the street still bore the same name.

But, according to Collings,

“If you are new to a situation or place, 

or if the situation or place is new to you, 

you have not previously seen it or had any experience of it.”

So, maybe this street was not my street after all.

Maybe it was somewhere I had never been before.

I have to admit that it looked normal to the naked eye,

since Collins claims that

“Something that is normal is usual and ordinary, and is what people expect.”

That seemed to apply.

While I walked to the shop, I saw nothing unusual

or extraordinary.

Birds still looked like birds

and the neighbour’s dog still had four legs and a tail.

So, now I am afraid to go out again.

if everything I know about the street where I spent my childhood is wrong,

if the dog, the birds and the landmarks had all conspired

to trick me,

then who knows what sort of danger lurks in the shadows

waiting for me to drop my guard.

GloPoWriMo Day 30 - something that returns

Leo the Turtle

Leo the Turtle

He knows the Earth is flat, but he's not telling.

He keeps his secrets to himself.

He is the descendant of Great A’Tuin.

He has inherited the title and the duties.

He carries the world on his back.

Therefore he must never stop swimming.

If he should ever lose his strength,

if he should slip,

he would bring about the end of the world.

Therefore he is always eating,

so that he may be strong and steady.

He never sleeps,

for he must keep constant vigilance.

Therefore he props himself on his hind legs,

to see whether something is approaching.

He rolls on his back often, to avoid collision with other worlds.

He eats asteroids for breakfast.

The sun shines only for him,

so that he can rest and warm his bones.

His life is hard,

though he never complains.

GloPoWriMo Day 29 - a paean to a pet

Inspired by Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart and by the legends of Discworld.

Dedicated to my turtle Leonardo, who is all these things and more.

The Spinning Ballerina

Photo on Flickr by Tilemahos Efthimiadis

The Spinning Ballerina

My aunt lived in a museum. The room was always plunged in darkness and it was full of artifacts from her past lives. Plastic tulips bloomed in shoe-shaped pots, rosy-cheeked children hugged lambs and chased rabbits on the walls and there was a large collection of family photos under the heavy glass of the coffee table. The shelves were full of gold-leaved cups and porcelain shepherdesses with dreamy eyes. I was fascinated by the spinning ballerina, but my aunt would never give it to me, even though I usually got whatever I asked for. It was a gift from her first husband, she said. She showed me family albums, which had some pictures of me I had never seen. She was also a keeper of documents and an ardent collector of chocolate foils, Italian dolls and Christmas ornaments. She showed me the only remaining picture of Julka, my great-grandmother, who had been an evil woman, according to family lore. Julka had also been a great beauty, though you wouldn’t know that just by looking at that old photo. My aunt was a keeper of memories too. She remembered everything and forgave nothing. She was good with Tarot, and could knit a sweater in a single afternoon. Her own future was not easy to read. It had been mislaid somewhere, between the presents of her past lovers and the pictures of other people’s children. She had been cursed as a young girl, she said, sentenced to this life which couldn’t possibly be her real life. She had moved many times and had made few friends. Still, the curse found her every time.





GloPoWriMo Day 28 - a room from our past

The News

Image by PDPics from Pixabay

The News

Some people say it should be avoided at all costs,

just like sugar and nicotine.

I wouldn’t go that far.

I don’t believe in restrictive diets.

They do more harm than good.

You end up craving the very thing you have cut out

and you find yourself there in the middle of the night,

secretly binging on it.

Know, however 

that it is full of additives.

It will give you indigestion.

Wean yourself off gradually instead.

Crowd it out with healthy stuff.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you have an occasional lapse.

You are human, after all.

GloPoWriMo Day 27 - a review 

The Postcard of My City

Image by stevanaksentijevic from Pixabay

The Postcard of My City

My city, after sunset.

I don’t see you, but I hear you.

Fight them with noise, the newspaper said.

My grandmother told me to stay away from politics.

My memory is vague, but I know

this has all happened before.

We export angry people,

though you wouldn’t know it

if you could hear this silence.

Neat rows of red windows, closed.

Two dogs and a bird.

Acacias in bloom.

A sunny day.

When I was a child

I thought I would be able to fly

one day.

I have always been afraid of the dark.

Once I found a wedding ring in the floorboards

in my hotel room.

I gave it to the receptionist.

I don’t know if it was returned.

We export angry people,

those who stay are the musical ones.

He proposed to her on a cruiser, our guide said.

She turned him down, of course.

so he threw her passport overboard.

I don’t know how she returned home.

Maybe she never did.

I hear there is a shortage of angry people

in some countries.

Conspiracy theorists say this is all a lie.

My school uniform is a pair of silk pijamas

and an elegant blouse.

Sometimes, in my dreams,

I am riding a winged horse.

I know this has all happened before,

I am not sure when.

Fight them with noise, the newspaper said.

My grandmother told me to stay away from politics.

Everything was different once upon a time.

And what a good time it was.

He said in his letters that he missed her,

but I am too old to believe in fairy tales now.






GloPoWriMo Day 26 - Almanac Questionnaire

River, at Springtime

Image by Peter H from Pixabay

River, at Springtime

I remember the day you came.

You built a bridge first, then a house on my banks.

My flow was interrupted where your dam now stands.

I don’t complain.

I am a well-behaved river these days.

Not that you would notice otherwise.

I haven’t seen much of you lately.

Spring came and you were not there to witness it.

I don’t miss you much, to be honest.

The sun still shines and lilacs are in bloom.

I wake up every morning and stretch my limbs in my narrow bed.

I wait for the change to come.

Do you remember what happened to your bridge last spring?

One day I will do the same thing to your dam.

Then I’ll take back what’s mine.

Just you wait.

GloPoWriMo Day 25 - Hoa Nguyen's prompt

For the record, I was following the exercise and free-writing for a while when my mother interrupted my free flow. This made its way into the poem and, in the editing stage, everything I had written before the distraction was removed.

Don't Look Inside

Image by candoyi from Pixabay

Don't Look Inside

What Cherries are For

You can wear them as earrings. 

You can use them to draw hearts on walls,

or you can throw them at passers-by.

Still, I advise you to eat them.

Whatever you do, don’t look inside.

Image by candoyi from Pixabay

You will never be able to unlearn this

According to Mark, Jesus cursed a fig tree because it was barren. The tree then wilted and died. Figs are flowers that bloom inwards. A flower needs pollination and this is what fig wasps are for. The female wasp crawls inside and lays her eggs. She loses her wings in the process and dies a lonely death. The young hatch and mate inside the flower. The male is born without wings. He will die inside the flower where he was born, but not before he burrows a way out for the female. The female will break free in order to lay her eggs and die inside another fig flower. You shouldn’t worry, though. The enzymes in the fig digest the wasps completely and it is the pollen that gives the flower its sweetness.

GloPoWriMo Day 24 -  fruit

Q's Love Song

By either an unknown master or „Frater Rufillus“ - http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/cb/0127, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23229542

Q’s Love Song

U complete me.

Without U, I have no voice,

no meaning.

I am a giddy balloon.

Unless U hold me tight,

I will drift away.

U say I am clingy and possessive.

U say I am jealous and mean.

It wasn’t always like this between us.

U loved me once,

or so U said.

Now it is too late. 

My tentacle is wrapped around U.

U will not get away.

U can squabble as much as U want.

U are mine

forever.

GloPoWriMo Day 23 - a letter of the alphabet

Better Safe than Sorry

Image by Jazella from Pixabay

Better Safe than Sorry

For the sake of your children, do not build a new house where the old one once stood. Move in when the Moon is full. Light your first fire in the new home early in the morning. If the fire won’t burn, rainy days are coming. You will be rich if you eat every last crumb from the table. Do not sweep after someone, you will sweep their luck away.  Do not sit on the threshold. Never bring water from the well after sunset. If you hear someone knocking in the middle of the night, on no account open the door. If your guests leave without sitting down, they will take your peace of mind with them. 

GloPoWriMo Day 22 - idiomatic phrases and proverbs from different cultures

This poem is based on old Serbian superstitions. 

The Passage of Time

The Passage of Time

Time changes everything

Why should it spare our lonely star?
This snow and this wind will be forgotten.

These daffodils will wilt.

GloPoWriMo Day 21 - a "homophonic translation"

I feel the need to explain my process today. What I did was not exactly a homophonic translation, which would be "translating" a poem based on its sounds. I chose a Turkish poem, since I am trying to learn a bit of Turkish on my own. There were some words I could understand, but my "knowledge" of Turkish is so basic that the general meaning escaped me. So, I started with what I could understand and came up with a very basic and terribly wrong "translation". Then I did what I always do - kept deleting, until I was left with something short that I could almost call my own. As a penance, I promise to learn the poem (the real poem, in Turkish) by heart. I still believe learning poetry by heart is one of the best ways to learn a language.

The original poem is here.

My Father, the Handyman

My Father, the Handyman

My father’s baking skills were legendary. Whenever we had guests for dinner, his bread was the star of the evening. He never used recipes. With time, his breads became more and more unusual, until one evening he added figs to his dough. Another time, it was medlars. Luckily, the large clock in the hall stopped working soon after the medlar experiment. My father knew nothing about clocks, but he firmly believed you could fix anything by studying its insides. He managed to fix the clock by removing a large coil, which he concluded had caused the clock to malfunction just by being there. When I was 14, my father decided to build a house in the country. He knew nothing about building, so he decided this was a good time to learn. He wanted it to be circular like a tent, but his architect friend said there was no way he could make it stand. His next project was an octagon, but that too was refused. He ended up with a drawing of a hexagonal house, which was a bit too ordinary for him, but his friend gave it the green light. In the years to come, he had the pleasure of building it, brick by brick. He told me he had never been bored in his life. There was always something that needed fixing in this world, whether it was people, or things.  My father has been gone for 27 years, but the clock is still working, even though that coil has been removed. I imagine some of his patients are out there too, though they must be quite old now. The house is still standing too. No one bakes these days, though I have been meaning to learn.  

GloPoWriMo Day 20 - a handmade gift

The Inkwell, the Mirror and the Globe

The Inkwell, the Mirror and the Globe

I can’t remember who gave the inkwell to my father. Turns out the symbols at the front are masonic. I believe it is quite old. Someone must have used it once. I like to imagine that person dipping their pen into the ink, then drawing beautiful lines in their notebook. The mirror, on the other hand, has a different history. My father found it on his brother’s rubbish bin. It was in a bad shape. To my mother’s horror, he took it home. It was full of worms and my mom says they had a party in our living room. It took my father months to clean it, but now it is really beautiful. Except that it adds at least five kilos, or so we have always told ourselves. My father loved flea markets. You never know what you will find there, he used to say. He bought a globe once. Apparently that was quite old too. It showed the world as it had been before the world wars. I don’t know where the globe is now, I haven’t seen it for a while. 

GloPoWriMo Day 19 - a "walking archive"

What Else Is There?

>

What else is there?

A touch of cardamom in my coffee.

Billie Holiday in the background.

That lilac tree in bloom.

What else is there?






GloPoWriMo Day 18 - life's small pleasures

With One Star Awake

With One Star Awake

When I was cleaning the other day, I came across that audio cassette you recorded for me. I think we had been dating for a month then. It had some Irish ballads, a few songs by Leonard Cohen (you were not a fan, but you knew I was), Brass Buttons, which was to become Our Song. Some Cowboy Junkies. Bonnie Raitt. There was more, I can’t remember everything. You even wrote a dedication. “With one star awake”, it read. Which is from Wedding Day, sang by Van Morrison on the tape. Now, back then, when a boy liked a girl, he would make her a compilation cassette. He would hide his message inside. Nothing too obvious or cheesy. She would listen, over and over, wondering what he was trying to tell her. I have no idea how they do it these days. I still keep all my old tapes, though. They might come in handy one day, in case they start making cassette players again.

GloPoWriMo Day 17 - forgotten technology

To Sleep

Image by 【微博/微信】愚木混株 【Instagram】cdd20 from Pixabay

To Sleep

You come and go as you please,

oh mighty one.

You bring rest and sweet oblivion.

In your infinite wisdom,

you show us the right way.

Those who drink from your well

shall not thirst,

nor crave sustenance those whom you feed.

You are sweeter than honey, headier than wine.

Innocent like the first kiss or wanton like a harlot,

you have many faces.

Sometimes you bring mirth, sometimes nightly horrors.

Please come tonight, my beloved.

Whichever shape you choose, I will welcome you.

I have been waiting for too long.

It will be a long day tomorrow and

I really need my eight hours

to look the part.

GloPoWriMo Day 16 - over-the-top compliments

That White Road

Image by Wendy Corniquet from Pixabay

That White Road

If I could remember the words of the song,

if I could speak the language again,

I would find a way out of this dream that is my life.

If I could read the map,

I’d be on that white road again,

the taste of dust in my mouth, 

dragging behind my horse

towards those distant fires

that were once our home.

GloPoWriMo Day 15 - Music as inspiration

Inspired by this song

What Branko Said

By Unknown author - Own work, Public Domain, Link

What Branko Said

“U ovoj noći mene nije stid

što pevam iz zida lepše no na slobodi.” 

Branko Miljković

These white walls at the end of the road that leads nowhere, let’s not be ashamed of them.

Rivers run, but they say nothing.
The Sun has other things to worry about.

The strongest ones have given up first.

He did say only rascals would persevere.

Life is deadly, but it resists death, he said.

Let’s not be ashamed of that walled-in ship

and that scary love that rules the world.

GloPoWriMo Day 14 - the poets that inspired us

This poem is a riff off the poetry of Branko Miljković

To My Teachers

Image by Silviu Costin Iancu from Pixabay

To My Teachers

You probably never noticed me as

I sat there at the back

taking notes.

You probably thought I was busy  learning about

irregular verbs or whatever you were teaching

or thought you were teaching,

while I took in your every move, your mannerisms,

the way you pushed your hair back, the way you paced up and down the classroom.

your colourful skirts, your sensible neckties, the way you bent the textbook in the middle.

I stole it all from you – your strengths and weaknesses, your laughter and your silences.

I stole it all and copied it and made it my own.

Enemy from within, I stole the tricks of your trade.

For better or for worse, I am your exact copy.

I am all of you and

none of you.






GloPoWriMo Day 13 - a non-apology 

You Haven't Fooled Me

Image by Speedy McVroom from Pixabay

You Haven’t Fooled Me

Does this even have a meaning?

Just random words on a string.

I don’t want to be demeaning.

But, does this even have a meaning?

I can see you’re intervening.

That has always been your thing.

But, this still doesn’t have a meaning.

Just random words on a string.

GloPoWriMo Day 12 - a triolet

What the Roses Said about Love

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

What the Roses Said about Love

Love.

Early attachment.

Reward of virtue.

Unity.

You deserve all my love.

Happy. 

Pure and beautiful.

You are the ambassador of love.

Thy smile I aspire to,

my anxiety.

Love is dangerous.

Bashful shame.

Pleasure and pain.

Winter. Old age.

Pride.

Beauty is your only attraction.

Waning love. Jealousy.

Secrecy.

War.

Call me not beautiful.

I am worthy of you.

If you love me,

you will find it out.





GloPoWriMo Day 11 - the language of flowers
This is a found poem. I used this glossary of flower meanings, the section on various types of roses.

Our House

Our House

I

have to 

believe it exists.

A 

red roof.

Six white walls.

Flowers

in bloom.

A lazy river.

The Curfew

Neat

rows of

windows. All closed.

GloPoWriMo Day 10 - a hay(na)ku

The Hourglass

GloPoWriMo Day 9 - a concrete poem

Preserved

Preserved

                                                                 "I am not ready for anything to happen."

                                                                          Sylvia Plath

This moment in time

preserved, two cups of coffee

and some dark chocolate.







GloPoWriMo Day 8  - a Twitter bot
I used https://twitter.com/sylviaplathbot 

Iron Rain

Image by Susan Cipriano from Pixabay

Iron Rain

At one hot, faraway world,

a tiny new moon,

moving quickly across the sky,

roughly the size of a car.

At one hot, faraway world

it’s always daytime on the day side, 

with clear skies.

At one hot, faraway world

it’s always nighttime on the night side,

always cloudy with a chance of rain.

At one hot, faraway world,

like droplets of metal falling from the sky,

it rains iron on the night side.

GloPoWriMo Day 7 - In the News

This is a found poem. I have used the following articles:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2235427-earth-has-acquired-a-brand-new-moon-thats-about-the-size-of-a-car/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/iron-rain-exoplanet-wasp-76b_n_5e696a08c5b6747ef116adc2

The Owl

a detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch

The Owl 

I hatched this world.

Tree by tree, creature by creature,

I created you and everyone else inside.

I have laid thousands of eggs and my work is far from done.

I gave you everything so you may never want.

Now you tell me you are not happy.

You tell me this world is corrupt and evil.

I am sorry to hear that.

I followed my creative vision.

If you want something else instead,

go hatch your own egg.

GloPoWriMo Day 6 - an ekphrastic poem based on The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch

What I Learnt from the Birds

Image by Terri Cnudde from Pixabay

What I Learnt from the Birds

Life is waiting in a line.

Nothing else is real.

On my balcony, the birds are singing to stale bread.

The roads smell yellow after rain.

My neighbour’s name is Violet, she lives at Number 13.

If we stock up on tinned soup, 

we’ll never need to go out again.

Na zidu stari sat.

On my balcony, a nest.

GloPoWriMo Day 5 - Twenty Little Poetry Projects

A Nightmare

https://pixabay.com/images/id-3017138/

A Nightmare

So, in my dream I am a dog walker.

I visit people’s homes late at night 

and ring the bell.

The owners are no longer inside, but someone opens the door

and the dogs run out.

This kind of thing can happen in a dream.

The empty homes remind me of Chernobyl.

The TV series, not the place on the map.

Except that I don’t kill the dogs.

I walk them.

The dogs lick my hands and my face.

For some reason, they are all white poodles.

Soon I have over 50 of them on my leash.

I don’t know why this scares me so, I love dogs.

We could say this is my dream job.

Forgive the pun.

A whole flock and me as a shepherd.

I wake up from this nightmare and then I decide

that I will never, ever count sheep in bed again.

GloPoWriMo Day 4 - a dream

Insomnia

Image by 【微博/微信】愚木混株 【Instagram】cdd20 from Pixabay

Insomnia

A rhyme 

at bedtime.

Sweet dreams.

Awake

at daybreak,

I don’t give a dime for your rhyme.

GloPoWriMo Day 4 - a rhyming dictionary

The Balcony

Image by DarkWorkX from Pixabay

The Balcony

The girl likes to draw on the balcony wall. The blue wall is a sea and she can draw boats on it. When her best friend visited, they drew a house together. They showed each other scars where the pen had scratched. Inoculation. The girl knows this word. She knows many words now. The girl is five years old. She can see a road from the balcony. Across the road is a desert, or so she would like to believe. When she looks hard, she can see camels and white tents. This place used to be a swamp, her mother says. Swamp is another word she knows. And variola. There is sand on the playground, but the girl is not allowed to play in the sand any more. That’s how you get variola and it is forbidden. The girl is not really afraid. Variola is a word and she knows many other words now. She doesn’t mind staying on the balcony, either. She looks at her arm, where a scar is forming. The girl will carry this scar in the shape of a flower for ever.

GloPoWriMo Day 2 - a poem about a specific place
Here's more on the smallpox outbreak in Yugoslavia in 1972: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Yugoslav_smallpox_outbreak .Sadly, this is one of my earliest memories. 

The Back Seat

Photo Credit: JLaw45 Flickr via Compfight cc

The Back Seat

They say you can’t unlearn how to ride a bike or drive a car. I am not so sure any more, not after I fell off that bike two years ago. When I first drove a car, my leg shook on the clutch. The instructor said this was normal. Soon after that, he tried to grab my leg. Then he said I had no talent for driving. That’s how I learnt talent is necessary. Taxi is my favourite means of transport. I stare out the window and daydream. I never tell you how to drive. I will not argue with you about the route you chose, or the price. I always pay whatever I owe, no questions asked.




GloPoWriMo 2020 Day 1 - self-portrait as an action metaphor