The hellcats

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She marks the battlefield
for them to come
she invites them for their fury

Propelled by knives’ blades
the rumbling noise
travels up higher
pushing, cracking bones
grinding teeth
until the light falls

Then with thunderous claws and lightning
she challenges the hellcats
up their miscreant steamrollers
intending the mist to spring alive
for even inimical armed forces
wither to end small

She foretells
the season will change immediately
because for this constellation
Lethe will come

When I saw this picture in March, I knew straight away I wanted to use it during #NaPoWriMo. So it was perfect that today’s prompt called for using a photo and a poem in a language you don’t understand. We were invited to translate a poem into English, with the idea that the poem is actually “about” our photograph.

Luckily Eric, the talented photographer, kindly allowed me to use his picture. I totally recommend his Tumblr page, for he makes you look at things in a way you’ve never done before. If you like painting you might be particularly impressed with his more abstract pictures (I know I am!). He’s also on Twitter.

I’d also like to highlight the poem I used to create this one. It’s in Swedish, and it’s from a fellow #NaPoWriMo participant, Ileea. I have no clue what her day 2 poem was about, but I loved traveling through her words and enjoying their unfamiliarity. Right now, I start to get worried that the meaning of my poem might clash completely with hers, or be offensive in any other way. If so, I apologise!

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Copyright picture, created by http://ericrebaser.tumblr.com/post/171841515897/achterdijk, who kindly permitted me to use it

Hard reset

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He suggested a hard reset
I was glad he found me electrifying
but as advice
against the flu
it seemed a bit too much

LFI Juna Biagioni lesson

The NaPoWriMo day 4 prompt was description. I’ve always believed that’s not my thing. Even the wild invitation to describe something abstract “in the form of relentlessly concrete nouns” couldn’t tempt me. Then I read this poem: Conflicted emotions. It’s strong imagery really works. I realised there’s fun and inspiration in this prompt, I just have to go and look for it. Thanks for showing me, Kevin!

Two festivals of me

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If I was to organise a festival of me
I’d be playing in all the bands
The line up in random order
– surprises solicit creativity

Dropdancing
Best Leftovers
Patient no More
For Fun’s sake

A get-together like you’ve never seen before
leading up to six days of exhaustion
– a seventh day for cleaning up

There’d be drug-free drugs
healthy vibrations
letting go

dragoncorns

If you were to organise a festival of me
you’d let me watch all the bands
The line up carefully chosen
to have a desired effect

Cook Daily – It’s no joke (ska)
Shoes Weren’t Made for Lying in the Room – Revolation (blues)
To do To do To do – Rest for the Crickets (doowop)
Freaky Fuckin’ Fun Fest – Anonymite (metal)

There’d be craft beer and great snacks
Toilets with no queue
Ear plugs for free
A secret room for throwing paint at walls
A pottery shatter barn (all shards to be recycled)

Both would make me cry

Charcoal Portrait Colour

For those of you who don’t know him, I’d like to introduce you to David Ellis from Too Full to Write. He’s an incredibly hard working and generous poet, and on day 1 he took guilty pleasures to a whole new level!

On a side note: I wanted another picture for this poem, but I haven’t painted or drawn anything with the right vibe. A more festive vibe.

I could work on that today, but on my business blog I’ve openly promised to work on my administration this week… I’ll start working on that in 15 minutes, and will make reading your #NaPoWriMo poems a reward. So administration, reward, administration, reward, administration, reward it will be. And maybe celebrate my accomplishment with a happy blog on the business site 🙂

Fray

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When I first met me
I was the bee’s knees
promising like a spring day
fertile as cow dung

When I met me again –
waxing eloquently
on everything I didn’t know
as entertaining as I’d ever be –
I was just full of it
and I knew it

We lost touch
my pen pal promise
a face in the crowd
our sense of soul mate
homeopathetic

#NaPoWriMo day 2 is done, and I managed to work from the prompt. Yay!

Today’s inspiration came from an essay recommend by the NaPoWriMo page. I’ll copy paste both their description and link here: “an essay by Katie Rensch on the poetic “I” – you know, that mysterious self who sometimes speaks in your poems. Rensch discusses how the use of the first-person voice affects a poem, and how the poet can draw the reader in or push them away by the selection of a voice, and how even within the first-person voice, both the identity and complexity of voice can change.”

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Things Facebook doesn’t know about me

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I love dogs
I do
I just don’t like them
often enough
for Facebook to notice

April Poetry Month is on again! Wether you consider it #NaPoWriMo or GloPoWriMo (NAtional or GLObal), the invitation is to write a poem every day. Using a prompt or not. Sharing the poem or not.Editing it, or not. It’s the best month of the year for poetic licence – just as #OctPoWriMo (OCTober poetry month, I know, two is confusing… but double as much fun!)

I always check the prompts at napowrimo.net. It’s also a great place to find the pages and poems of fellow participants.

Today’s prompt: It’s based off of Lauren Russell’s collaborative poetry exercise. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that is based on a secret shame, or a secret pleasure.

Declutter haiku

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DeclutterHaiku

Officially I don’t do haikus, because I don’t really understand English syllables. But yesterday’s thread in the declutter Facebook group was contagious.  The haikus themselves, because they were clever, funny, or simply real. It got even more fun when Lisa started turning them into images.

Behold, my first haiku 🙂

Pest

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Droplets of conversation
Dripped into veins

Words resurfaced
Festering boils

(nothing a quack couldn’t cure)

Freedom

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hearing everything
and feeling no obligation to respond

feeling everything
and feeling no obligation to act

seeing everything
and feeling no obligation to take it in

All is possible
Nothing compelled

The door to another life

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And she looked around for the door to another life

One of those soap adverts where
The mother smiles
The children are just naughty enough to be adorable
The husband ruffles hair instead of feathers
The dogs bark at the right side of the moon

She found a black door
painted red
its hinges cleverly hidden

Innocent laughter came from behind it/she could almost smell the freshly mowed grass

When she tried the door handle
(trying in vain to block the noise)
she only noticed the small print
because she stepped on a lego brick

Don’t fall through the rabbit hole – knock on wood

Victor’s happy ending

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When Victor entered the afterlife, he kept on writing.

He wrote stories
with happy beginnings and happy endings
He wrote poems which oozed joy
He wrote television shows that were hard to watch
(too many belly laughs is exhausting)

He wrote to his grandparents to thank them
for all he learned from them
He wrote letters to his parents, explaining everything he felt
(he knew they wouldn’t read them anyway)

He wrote a love letter to himself
He answered it

Victor kept on writing
The love of his life
was also the love of his afterlife

After a comment yesterday that started with ‘poor Victor’, I realised he deserved some more words.