These are not necessarily my best 2022 poems, but they are the ones that gave me the most joy while I was writing them. So, here they are:
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I am so proud to announce that I was the featured participant on the NaPoWriMo website with this poem.
Today I’m a Masterpiece
I fall apart at the end of each day,
It’s no big deal.
I reinvent myself the next morning.
I piece myself together from the scraps
Of whichever dream I can still hold on to.
It’s no big deal.
The lungs still breathe, the heart beats, the brain thinks.
Though, whose thoughts those are today
I will need to find out.
So I drink a lot of coffee.
So I write myself down to see what happens.
I am work in progress, a moving picture,
a palace reimagined.
I am an active verb and I take an object.
Today I am
an enjambment,
an incomplete sentence,
growing as I move about.
I am proud of the way I walk today, my feet
do carry me well.
Look, now I am already
a page of text,
a question unanswered, a snake
winding beautifully.
I eat my tail and
never end.
GloPoWriMo Day 13 - "Everything is going to be amazing"
A typewriter
I wish I had a typewriter,
loud as a band of drummers in a street protest.
I am sure it would deliver a poem
all by itself.
A poem as dark and dangerous as smudged ink.
As unique as a set of fingerprints.
A poem winding beautifully like a new ribbon.
Each line clearly defined
by a bell and a clank.
A poem tangled like a bunch of keys stuck in the middle,
right where the truth was going to reveal itself.
A poem typed blindly from that place we go to when we close our eyes.
A poem always slightly tipsy,
with that one letter hovering treacherously
over a neat set of well-behaved lines.
A poem as guilty as a smoking gun,
sweet as a cup of coffee
laced with arsenic.
It would be good at covering its trail.
It would tear itself in half
just when you thought you were done with it.
A fugitive poem, wanted by the police,
hiding in public libraries,
disguising itself as other poems,
produced on well-oiled machines,
where nothing ever gets stuck or smudged
and everyone tiptoes around you
and everyone hushes everyone else around you
because you are a poet
and your work is important.
GloPoWriMo Day 24 - the style of hard-boiled detective novels
What they left under my pillow
Over here, it is a custom to leave some money
under the baby’s pillow.
My family is different.
We never keep money for long.
It just slips through our fingers.
We are never short of it either.
My grandmother wished for a never-empty wallet,
just like hers had always been.
When she was out of money,
she kept chili peppers inside.
That was what her soul craved for, she said.
She also gave me the gift of stories.
Hers always had a pepper or two added in
and she could make animals speak in funny voices.
My other grandmother knew spells.
She talked to the stars and they listened.
She knew the spell which could cast your fears into lead.
The lead takes the shape of your fear.
After that, the lead is afraid, not you.
I am sure I could do spells with a bit of practice.
My ancestors came from the land of magic, after all.
What I can do, though, is tell your destiny from coffee grounds.
That is not a bad gift either.
My father gave me his silences
and the maddening habit to tinker with everything
in an attempt to make it better
or just different.
My mother couldn’t give me the silence.
She never had any to give.
She couldn’t stop talking, even in her sleep.
She didn’t give me her looks, or her character.
She gave me her time instead.
She stayed on long after the rest of them had left.
When she had to leave (because everyone does, eventually),
the silence was deafening.
I don’t know who gave me the curse.
It could have been any of them, or all of them.
Maybe someone forgot to cut the cord
and now I am connected to you.
And when you cry, I cry too,
even though I have no idea
who you are
or why you are sad.
The Wrong Pair of Shoes
My mom’s friend could turn herself into a wheel,
a peacock in repose,
an eagle,
or a corpse.
All at her own will.
Yet, she couldn’t resist Turkish Delight with walnuts.
She would eat the whole box at one sitting.
She would then eat apples for a week,
so that she could fit into her clothes.
She always wore silk, even at home.
Her mother was a fashion designer.
When I was at school, we spent a week in a factory.
It would be good for us, they said.
They gave me a job to do and I did it well.
I wrote numbers on some engine parts,
so that they could be paired later.
Numbers went from one to thirty
and then back to one again.
I saw those numbers in my dreams later at night.
I promised myself I would study hard
so that I never had to see those numbers again in my life.
There is a picture by Jean Francois Millet I once saw.
A girl sitting in the forest.
A basket of fish in front of her.
Her dreamy eyes staring into the distance.
Not really here, or now.
I believe the picture was called The Fishmonger,
The art critic commented on her shoes.
They were good quality shoes he said.
And he wondered why she stared so longingly into the distance
with those shoes on.
A Serbian proverb says you should look at a man’s shoes
before you let him into your home.
I wonder what you think.
What sort of shoes would a man need to wear
for you to slam the door in his face?
GloPoWriMo Day 21 - write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time
Your Pantry Is Empty
Your pantry is empty.
You ate through
the cheeses,
the nuts and the chutneys.
You finished the honey and the imported wine.
There is no jasmine tea,
no lapsang souchong.
You are out of your
fragrant rose waters,
organic olive oils,
balsamic vinegars and
vanilla pods.
You ran out of saffron and cardamom long ago.
There is no pink salt,
no Ras el hanout,
no Arabian sugar.
In fact, you are out of
all of your usual spices.
Your pantry is empty.
Except for me.
I have been sitting here in the dark,
waiting for you to find me.
I am a little dusty and
it’s hard to read what I once was.
You think you can see peppercorns and cloves.
Even a cinnamon stick.
So I had to be of value once.
My date has expired, of course.
You should have thrown me out long ago.
I might even be dangerous.
Yet, your pantry is empty.
You don’t have a lot of options.
Eventually you will take that risk.
I have been here for a while.
I don’t mind waiting a little longer.
GloPoWriMo Day 20 - a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food
Bonus: Is this a short story, or a poem? Or both? Anyway, it is longish, so I am posting the link instead of copying the whole thing here:
It's great to revisit these. I love "Today I am a Masterpiece."
ReplyDeleteDear Jenna,
DeleteThank you for all your support and for cheering me along the way. I really value and appreciate your comments.