Day 27 Leylandii review

Leylandii review

Encompassing saw-edged stalks

from far-off floods of donated water,

polluted air, winter warmth, brassy

with faint sun flashily

emerging from clipped electricity

neither inclusive nor entertaining

though emboldening more esteemed

hawthorns that empower diversity

of blackcaps and warblers 

singing more like Plath, Eliot, Duffy,

or Angelou rising every year

to give us a virtuoso collection for walking.

It has been no pleasure to discover

this suburban menace;

we would hope to see less of this kind of thing

brought to light on a garden canvas.

Day 24 Dreamies

This 'poem' is what happens when you do a Zoom workshop on cut out poetry. First you try out the up to date version of the Paint software. Then you eventually - by the end of the workshop - learn how to put your words into paint. Following that you transfer them into a Word document. Here is where I learnt it. And these are the resulting words so far. If you understand these words then you're one step ahead of me. They were cut out of a selection of Facebook posts.

I am giving these away

again this week

who has panic bought all

families

I would like to keep

nature still legal

or swap simple

dreamies or lockdown

much appreciated

Day 23 Shakespeare's birthday

So here we are at Day 23, Shakespeare's birthday, and I've drafted a (sort of) sonnet. The prompt was a letter of the alphabet but I've been greedy and encompassed various forms of writing.

Ethereal writing

It doesn’t matter if it’s not written in stone

with ink, pencil, biro or on your phone.

Those hieroglyphs and cuneiform held weight

carefully carved, hammered, lines all straight

with meaning whether weighing up the deal

or telling us how they invented the wheel.

Chinese characters didn’t mess with an alphabet

images on scrolls misty mountains beset

with flowing gowns and lofty thoughts

conveying to the hoi-polloi what they ought

to do as sons and daughters. Will ghost lines

of Times New Roman leave behind

messages for the artificially intelligent

or will it be as if they’ve never been sent?

Day 20 Cat in a sack

Photo by Zane Lee on Unsplash

Taking my prompt today from a German expression. Now I've worked on prompts like this before and it hasn't been very productive but I keep trying...

Here's the first part of a draft poem:

They told me

German idiom: Di Katze im Sack kaufen

English equivalent: buying a pig in a poke

When you get older you can ride a bike.

As time goes by things will get better.

If you wait for your birthday you can have it

or save your pennies if you want that doll.

Wearing sensible shoes means you won't fall over

the ones beneath you who aren't worth it anyway

and people who get caught by the police 

end up in prison. You should never sleep...

Day 21 Anywhere

The last few days, during this Corona pandemic, have at last begun to make me feel the pressure of timelessness, and this might be seen in this poem. The prompt was seeing my reflection in a clock face.

It'll be interesting to see in the future just how many poems, and other writing, the Covid-19 outbreak has engendered worldwide. It can be difficult getting sidetracked into other subjects.

Anywhere

I caught myself like a ghost in the clock face

Hands took hold of my time and stopped

in the germ of a green ocean.

It was like seeing my twin but as foreigner

and not at all myself...

Day 19 Wild garlic at the cinema

The prompt today was a 'walking archive' which nicely suited a walk I have already done from home today. To be continued, and worked on.

Wild garlic at the cinema

You have barely made it into this season

yet have a movie to watch with actions galore

brief encounters with two reservoir dogs

Bonnie and Clyde holding thoroughly clean hands

Dr Zhivago hunting for sugar at Tesco

little Lexie running around Close encounters...

Day 10 Washing

This started life, from the prompt today, as a hay(na)ku, a three line poem where line one has one word, line two has 2 words, line three has 3. Then I just carried on. Very conscious it's set in Covid-19 times.

Time stretches

Dark

blue pillowcase

yellow towel blowing

in mild breezes heavy

branch acting as washing line

pole carefully crafted by woodsmen last

spring only looking back one year already nostalgia.

Day 15 Ingratitude

Day 20 of NaPoWriMo
Channelling a piece of music, in my case a song which you can find here sung by the inimitable Johnny Cash. From the point of view of a 'vulnerable' person who must isolate at home - apart from a daily walk - and rely on others to buy their food. At the same time this person is relatively privileged in global terms. I think you'll realise which product is currently in short supply.
Here's a chorus and the first verse:

Ingratitude in the time of Covid-19

You are my shopper
my only shopper
You'd make me happy
if flour appeared
I never know dear
if you are listening
Please fetch me some bread flour today

The other day dear
I wanted bread flour
I dreamed I held it in my arms.
When I awoke dear
I was mistaken
it was a chocolate bar instead...

Day 14 cleaning up

First draft for Day 14

Cleaning up

Such a lot of noise across the road

water gunning her block paving

splashes of dark grey muck swept

from side to side into the gutter

self-splattering her flowered crop

pants and shirt. She won’t stop until

the blessed bricks are as clean

as a freshly imagined house

that will bear no memories

of how they did this together

laughing at the dirt on their clothes

and him only dead this past month.

Day 13 Bot pairs

Trawling various prompts today I used a Twitter bot, having recently discovered these little AI tropes. These particular ones are all iambic pentameter which I've tried to stick to, but I don't usually find them easy to put in a poem.  Next I dipped into a book, The Craft to find a prompt from Harry Man (the same that I was paired with at a Poetry Business workshop at my first attendance there?). The idea is to find two things/sentences/adverts that would not normally be paired.

Here are the two pairs I chose:
addicted austin stole the loot and ran
and
One must imagine Kafka happy too.

So you can see how I altered the first one in the extract below. the second one forms the last line of the poem.

In addition I used the napowrimo prompt of something being stolen.

The baby didn't come till later.
Addicted Alan stole the loot and jumped
garden fences of us windowed neighbours.
In the pocket of his jacket the heart...