Tag: poetry

Day Fourteen: Twenty Questions For Humanity From An AI

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Today’s prompt was to write something that bridges the gap between poetry and technological advancement.

Why do you cry to music?

To birth?

To joy?

Why do you insist on love?

Does death make you love deeper?

Why do you write poetry?

Why do you sometimes step over the edge?

What is the point of gender?

What do you fear?

Why do you do things that you know will fail?

Is all human life like that?

What is art?

What does it mean to be one of you?

Why do you stand in the rain?

Is all human life contradiction?

Why?

How does it feel to imagine?

What does never feel like?

Do you know you are part of a flawed machine?

Does that matter?

Day Thirteen: The Old Garden

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When we first moved in you were

a wild thing – 1984 or thereabouts.

Long grass sprouted in all of your nooks,

Mare’s Tail waved defiantly from

flower beds.  But there were treasures

concealed about you – a wild iris poking

up among the dandelions, a huge

rhododendron bush with flowers

the same colour as blood, concealed

within the overgrowth.

Taming you was Mum’s work – her joy. 

A full summer was spent combing back

your tresses until you looked a

little more civilised.  My favourite

part of you was the cherry blossom

tree.  Every year its trailing branches

filled with delicate pink.  I could sit

underneath them and everything

would just be better. 

When the new owners move in I

fear you’ll finally be subdued –

your tendrils chopped and thorns

removed.  There’ll be a patio where

once there was a wilderness.

There might even be

a hot-tub.

I hope you find a way to sneak

in around the edges – and that

they will love your untameable

beauty like we did.

Day Ten: Grief

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Today’s prompt was to write a meditation on grief, following the form used in Geoffrey Brock’s Goodbye.

Sometimes life teaches you things no-one

ever wanted to know. That grief comes in

different shapes. My grief for you is soft,

a wool scarf that’s been worn so often

the fibres feel like part of my skin. I’ll

never unwrap it – it’s become

comfortable enough now – no longer the

raw edged thing it was.

So much of grief is questions. Did I do

enough for you? The answer can only

ever be no. Did you know, in the end,

how much you were loved?

I’m getting on with life, Mum, I am. And

yes, I’m still wearing this grief, as soft as

a hug, every day. This is how it is. Each

new day is still a new day, and you’re

still not here.

Day Nine: Blue

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Today’s prompt is to write something from the perspective of an animal. I chose the Large Blue butterfly, recently returned from extinction in the UK. It has a grisly larval life!

I begin in the dark.

A hungry imposter, unfazed by

my bleak agenda. 

Forgettable. 

I hide behind the scent

of their children. 

They treat me as their own. 

Care for me.  Love me.

This is survival. 

Then I eat. 

By the time they

understand that I am death

it’s too late.

Change comes.

I trap myself in a

prison made from my own

skin.  In the dark again,

I float around in myself,

nothing but possibility now.

A stew of me – wondering

what to make of myself.

Alchemy.

When I emerge I am beautiful;

A piece of fallen sky with

crumpled wings,

the past nothing but a

shadow below me.

Day Eight: You Call Yourself A Poem?

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Today’s prompt was to write a poem that uses a repeating phrase and then goes on to contradict itself.

You call yourself a poem?

Look at you.  Your lines are

stubby and you lack

imagery.  The reference

you make to the peach

is too soft, too sweet, its

sides mushy and shapeless.

You call yourself a poem?

Take a good long look at

your form.  It’s as brittle

as a dead tree.  If you ever tried

to hold an idea, your

branches would just sn-ap.

You call yourself a poem?

Where is the beauty? I can

see the cracks, now where is

the light? The words that form

you have been scraped from

underneath a mossy rock.

You call yourself a poem?

Shake yourself down.

Adjust your ideas.  Take

this graveyard of broken

phrases and dig it over.

Mosaic the words until

it gives us something

that feels more like truth.

Day Six: Arachne

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This poem is based on the myth of Arachne, a mortal transformed into a spider by Minerva, as punishment for weaving a bit too well.

I dreamed of her again last night.

She stood over me, inspecting

the weave I had created, looking

for flaws among its brazen threads.

It shone out with even more

brilliance in the dream – their

wanton lips the red of wild poppies,

lustful eyes a deep Tyrrhenian

blue. 

It was a triumph; its beauty

and passion matched only by the

elegance of the gods themselves. 

In my dream I watched her

understand a truth:

sometimes a mortal woman can

make the gods cry.

Enraged, she pulled at its threads,

unmade it before my eyes.

She tore me down, transformed me,

told me which was my place.

Now I sit here and spin a new thread.

My children and I are dream weavers –

we create the sky from pieces of glass,

we make sunsets from orange petals.

We are the artists.

We are the spinners.

They call me a monster

but all I ever did was

to try to outshine the sun

Day Five: Full Stop

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Today’s prompt was to write a poem in which you hate something small…

You’re always there at the end

of things – you’re the executioner

of the literary world, overseeing

the demise of the sentence –

cutting the paragraph off in its

prime.  You’re small, but full

of a sense of your own power.

All the other punctuation marks

have to. Bend to your tyranny as

you herd words into smaller. And

smaller.  Spaces.  You solemnly

mutilate phrases. Chop down

clauses.  Just. Because.  You. Can.

Somebody needs to do something

about you.  Somebody needs to

end your oppression. 

Somebody needs to bring it to a

stop

NaPoWriMo Day Three: The Kitchen

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Today’s prompt was to write a poem in which the subject of the poem has an unusual reaction to their job, inspired by Treasure Hunt by Prabodh Parikh.

The heat of the kitchen is enough

to put some off; those that remain are

tossed straight into the maelstrom.

This job is not for the faint of heart.

Today’s menu is a typical mix of

piquant nouns and zesty verbs in

surprising combinations. 

Check out our starter of the day

– a delicious little tanka filled with

the creamy song of a nesting thrush.

Or try our conceptual soup: a unique

blend of ideas and spices, designed

for the discerning poetic palette.

Come here.  This will be your station.

You’ll finely chop dreams and mix

them with a sense of longing, before

steeping them in the strongest

poetic juice locally available.  A tiny

pinch of self doubt. Season generously.

Today’s main course is, of course,

our show-stopping sestina – 39 lines

of pure lyrical elegance with our

own lemony twist.  People come

from all over the world for its

unexpected word combinations.

It isn’t an easy job, working in our

poetry kitchen – but it’s one that will

reward you with a life of flavour.