The Wrong Pair of Shoes

 

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

 

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

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

Give This Thing a Title

 

Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay

Give This Thing a Title

Tell me what this is about straight away. 

Don’t leave me guessing.  

If your opinion is required, it should be clear from the start.

If your opinion is not required, 

don’t bother telling me what it is. 

I don’t really care. 

Next, tell me everything I need to know. 

Please do your research before you even start. 

Avoid first person singular. 

This isn’t really about you.

Avoid second person singular. 

We are not friends. 

Now wrap it up already.

You failed to convince me, but then

I never really cared about that thing from the title.

It was your thing, not mine.

GloPoWriMo Day 19 - write a poem that starts with a command

I teach academic essay writing, among other things and right now I have a bunch of essays waiting to be checked as soon as I finish with this poem. I also have a terrible headache, which is making me cranky. 

I am thinking about showing this "essay writing instruction manual" to my students. Hopefully, they find it funny and, you know, useful. They know I do care about them.

Five answers to the same question

 

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

Five answers to the same question

My heart’s desire.

A deep look into my soul.

That bottomless pit.

The darkness.

Too much left for interpretation. 

No solid answers.

A new morning.

Starting over.

Repeating it all.

Being weightless.

Flying or falling, there’s no difference.

Except in perspective.

Letting go.

Accepting that this is now

forever. 

GloPoWriMo Day 18 - giving five answers to the same question, without specifically naming the question

In case you haven't guessed already, the question is "What's your greatest fear?" and this is, without doubt, the darkest poem I have written this month. I think the poem itself scares me more than anything else.

What Max knew about us

 

Image by Péter Göblyös from Pixabay

What Max knew about us

Max loved us.

He would run down the street, wagging his tail furiously

every time we went by.

We bought him toys and dog treats.

Sometimes, we just petted him and he would stand there

patiently waiting for us to finish.

Sometimes he would come all the way to our door to greet us.

Until that night.

That night, Max didn’t know us any more.

He barked at us furiously, then went in and hid behind the fence.

From there, he watched us with fear.

We had treats for him that night, but he wouldn’t be bribed.

We offered our hands for sniffing, but he backed away.

He just refused to be taken for a fool.

That night, it was not us.

Some imposters had taken our bodies and possessed our souls.

I have been wracking my brains since, 

but I can’t remember anything special about the night itself.

A soft breeze was blowing, the way it always does in Greece.

The evening was warm, the air smelt of the sea and some nocturnal flowers, 

just like it always does.

We looked at each other, but we couldn’t notice the change.

The next morning, everything was as usual, but something had to be off.

I just couldn’t notice what it was, but Max knew.

Pity we couldn’t ask him and he wouldn’t tell us now, anyway.

Now we were the enemy, someone to be afraid of.

We went home that day, so we never saw Max again.

We never found out what it was he knew.

So, we just went back to our everyday lives

and pretended we had forgotten all about Max.

GloPoWriMo Day 17 - a dog I have known

Don't come crying to me later. You were warned.

 

Image by DEZALB from Pixabay

Don't come crying to me later. You were warned.

Sonnets and I do not get along.

I hate it when things are nice and neat.

My willpower has never been that strong. 

My poems have never been that sweet. 

Sonnet, you will try to own my mind. 

You will tell me where to go and why. 

A backseat driver, never too kind, 

grabbing the wheel. Well just you try!

It is from chaos that I create,

a messy old shelf full of junk,

old mementos, hungry, irate, 

stacks of letters from a dusty trunk. 

Don’t you dare delete a thing. These words are wild. 

They’ll bite and sting. 

GloPoWriMo Day 16 - a curtal sonnet

I used the Elizabethan rhyme scheme, I have 14 lines instead of 11 and my metre is all over the place. I probably broke a bunch of other rules along the way, but sonnets and I don't get along that well. I did enjoy truncating that last line, so this could maybe be a distant cousin of a real curtal sonnet. And, I am not going to lie, I enjoyed breaking all the other rules as well. I feel that the title gives a fair warning, though.

The Fix

 

                                Image by Pavlofox from Pixabay 

The Fix

GloPoWriMo - Day 15 - something I have absolutely no interest in (in my case, stock markets)

This is an erasure poem. The original article can be found here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-15/podcast-how-to-make-sense-of-today-s-upside-down-markets . I cheated a little and used the name of their weekly newsletterer to finish the poem.