Don't be late like Ilija

 

Don’t be late like Ilija

I  have time management issues. 

In other words, I am always late.

Even God has noticed. 

In fact, He has been worried about it.

In my dream last night God spoke to me again.

Don’t be late, he told me.

Don’t be late like Ilija.

I wonder who Ilija is.

Is it Elijah from the Bible?

Or did he mean Ilija, our old neighbour.

I don’t remember him being late.

Though once he got drunk on my mother’s brandy.

But only because he thought it was wine.

I have never been truly drunk.

So, it can’t be that.

Maybe it is someone else completely.

It’s quite a common name over here.

Whoever he is, he has a problem with time management,

and so do I.

I tend to daydream,

I tend to linger and hesitate,

and there is no time for such activities

in this day and age.

For example, here.

I have been sitting here for a while.

I have been staring into the void.

I have been waiting, patiently, for something to shift,

for the air to thicken,

so that I can finish this poem

and go to bed on time

at least once.

GloPoWriMo Day 6

I hate notebooks

 

I hate notebooks

I hate notebooks.

The way they look at me accusingly 

from across the room.

I hate little scraps of blank paper.

They seem to pop up wherever I go.

I hate book margins and paper napkins,

pencils and ball-point pens,

word documents and phone diaries.

They all seem to judge me.

They all seem to expect something from me

whenever I walk by.

GloPoWriMo26 - Day 5

The night the river remembered

 

The night the river remembered its true size

All night, it rained, and in the morning,

from our vantage point on the hill we saw 

the maps had been re-written while we slept. 

There was an angry delta where the bridge had been and

our road home had turned to water.

GloPoWriMo Day 4

Painting a Wall

 

Painting a Wall

 

On my wall I paint a house and a sun and

children going to school.

On my wall I write words.

They flow through me.

There is a river of words on the wall.

Noisy words.

I don’t control them, I never did.

They jump and run

and stomp their feet all over my wall.

Silly words.

And the painting on my wall grows.

There is  a house and a sun and a road.

A white road.

And it keeps growing.

And it is already a mile long.

And the wall stretches to take everything in.

I love my walls the way they are,

not white, not boring,

but full of words.

And poetry runs here like a river.

I try to contain it, but I can’t.

So, I put a full stop and

hope for the best.

 

GloPoWriMo Day 3

My Kingdom

 

My Kingdom

A math lesson on a hot day.

Thirty children, their eyes

eager, their hands

raised and I on my throne at the back,

a fairy queen, observing

my kingdom, while my subjects

suspect nothing. 

GloPoWriMo Day 2

The Key

 

The Key

 

The key did not fit

in the lock, at night someone

had changed all locks and

now I stood outside, the key,

a flightless bird on my palm.

I waited for the 

dream to find the lock that my

key fit in. Somewhere

an old memory opened

and beckoned me to walk inside.

GloPoWriMo Day 1 - a tanka

A silly idea my friend had

 

A silly idea my friend had

When we were in Stratford-upon-Avon, a friend of mine sat

on Shakespeare’s bed. He wanted, he said, the spirit of Shakespeare

to enter him and help him write. I want that too.

In Stratford, there were tourists everywhere.

They filled the little room, they stood in the doorway.

How did he manage to sit on the bed without anyone noticing?

He was brave, I am not.

I want to be brave too.

I want to go to people’s homes

and sit on their beds

and later, I want to write

about the experience.

Was the bed soft?

Was the pillow fluffy?

How many blankets did the person need?

I want a bed that turns into a magic carpet

as I dream. 

I want magic quills and parchments

that write on their own.

I want magic ink smudges

that form themselves into landscapes and trees. 

I want this poem to grow like a tree, organically.

Now, I am not implying Shakespeare had a magic carpet,

a magic pen, a magic parchment, 

magic ink or magic trees.

That was just a silly idea my friend had

as he sat on Shakespeare’s bed

back when we were in Stratford-upon-Avon

that one time.

GloPoWriMo - GloPoWriMo Eve