Alterations

Photo Credit: Markus Grossalber via Compfight cc

So you
don’t think I can make it fit,
turn it into
something  new, then pretend it has always belonged to me?
You say you don’t like
this thing I created with a
pair of scissors, or this hook
I used to button it up? This cocktail dress altered into
a skin graft creation, best worn as an
undergarment? Let me tell you something -  the eye
of this needle has seen a
lot of action. And my fish
bone and latch hook
stitching is impeccable. Yet you say an
overall result is that of an open
wound sutured with a button eye?

It is Day 7 in NaNoWriMo, yet I went back to one of the older challenges - the golden shovel.  This was quite a difficult challenge and I have been working on the poem for the past three days. It is still work in progress and it will probably take me months, or even years, to fix this "cocktail dress". Every tailor will tell you that alterations are often more difficult than making a new piece of clothing. 

Still, the poem has reached the stage when it can be blogged. Isn't NaPoWriMo all about lowering your inhibitions and teaching you to share even the poems you are not completely happy with?

Photo Credit: Melly Kay via Compfight cc

And the original I used for this golden shovel is the following poem by Margaret Atwood:

You Fit Into Me

you fit into me

like a hook into an eye

a fish hook

an open eye

Insomnia

Running water
a treadmill
(do these people ever sleep)
that electric guitar again
(though rock is all right)
washing machines
(electricity is cheaper after midnight)
creaking floorboards
fridges
a single bird
then, the dogs
the elevator
running water, again
muffled conversations
is that the hour already
this night is ridiculously short
doors banging
car engines
a single vacuum cleaner
and the sounds of hatred
right above my head.

It's NaPoWriMo Day 6. Instead of following the prompt and writing what I can see, I focused on what I can hear during a sleepless night. The Day 6 PAD prompt was to write a night poem, so I combined the two. 

The Expedition

Midway across the field
I turn and look back.
Our footprints are gone.
No one is holding my hand
and I have forgotten my backpack.
The field is not a field.
The walls are closing around me.
You were never there
and my burden is my own. 

It is Day 5 in NaPoWriMo. Today I used the April PAD prompt, which was to write a discovery poem. 

Why I Do This

Photo Credit: `James Wheeler via Compfight cc


Since you insist
On a plausible explanation why
I do this:

Not for fame,
Or money. Just trying to
Survive the night.

It's NaPoWriMo Day 4 and the challenge today was to write a lune, or a string of lunes. My first version of this poem consisted of just one stanza (the second one), then I decided to add the PAD prompt into the mix, so I ended up with two stanzas. I am not sure whether the poem would work better without the first stanza. What do you think?

#NaPoWriMo2014

The Letter

                                       

                                                    to my grandfather

In my dreams, Chicago looks like Gotham City
with gray buildings towering over you.
People push past as you walk slowly
with your cardboard suitcase, pretending
that you are going somewhere.
Not long ago you were on a train.
Homebound.
How did you end up here instead?
In my dreams there is a hotel.
The lobby looks like the inside
of a cathedral.
You are very handsome
in your uniform.
Years go by and you can no longer remember
her smell.
In your letters you both pretend
that this arrangement
is temporary.
Yet, you know
how it is going to end.
You know I’ll be the one to find you
one day.
You know I’ll spend a night
in this hotel.
How could it be any other way?
You have chosen a room for me.
You have made sure that the bed is extra comfortable.
There will be fresh flowers on the nightstand.
In the drawer, your letter.

This is my NaPoWriMo Day 3 poem. I combined the Day 4 April PAD prompt (write a message poem) and the We Write Poems prompt 207. My grandfather spent the last 15 years of his life as a political refugee in Chicago. All I know about him during that time is that he worked as a concierge in a hotel (though probably not the Marriot). One day I am going to retrace his footsteps and find out what really happened to him. In the meantime, I am reinventing his history.

#NaPoWriMo2014

Morana

I am the cold.
People say I am evil
because my breath turns everything
into ice.
They fear my beauty
and the wolf that sleeps inside me.
I am Perun’s daughter,
my mother is the Sun.
I am born every winter
As the clock strikes midnight
And the New Year begins.
With me, my brother,
My husband, my only one.
Stolen from his cradle, he wanders
the underworld.
Forgetting who he is,
He seeks the warmth of the fire.
I wait.
He comes to me
in summer.
He never stays long.
The winter makes him restless
and he slithers underground
where it’s always hot.

This is my NaPoWriMo Day 2 poem. The prompt is mythology and the inspiration for this poem was one of the many versions of the Slavic myth of Morana, the goddess of winter. In this version, Morana's twin-brother and lover Jarilo marries her in summer, only to leave her and disappear underground in winter.

#NaPoWriMo2014

Not for Cowards

"Thank god there’s at least one thing we
can always agree on. Scars are left by
even the most delicate love."
from “DEAR CORPORATION,” by Adam Fell

Are you sure you want this?
Things have changed, you know.
You can’t leave a girl abandoned
in the forest
and expect things to be the same
a year later.
A lot can happen
to a girl
alone in the forest.
She has to do things
if she is to last.
Things you don’t talk about
in polite society.
A girl has to eat, for example.
I’d rather not go into details.
Your stomach was never too strong.
You say you still want to follow
wherever I decide to go.
Are you sure that is safe?
You will see things.
There will be nightmares.
You will have to do
whatever I tell you to do.
And what if you find out
you like it?
Don’t come crying to me
afterwards.
This forest is not
for cowards.

This is my 2014 NaPoWriMo Day 1 poem. I combined the NaPoWriMo Day 1 prompt, which was to use a quotation from Bibliomancy Oracle and the Day 1 April PAD challenge, which was to write a beginning poem. Hope I can keep up with the challenge for the whole month.

#NaPoWriMo2014