Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 5 ~ Flirting with Isaac

/ A. Gouedard / 5 Comments

My mother, looks vague

as we gather around her bed.

My sons, my grandchildren, my daughter-in-law

trying to make conversation

that doesn’t completely exclude her,

though she’s deaf and has dementia.

We struggle.

I consider her birdlike limbs.

She looks at me deeply puzzled.

She doesn’t know who I am.

Isaac her gentle carer

holds a drink to her lips,

stroking back her hair,

that inadequate cap to her skull.

He’s asking her how she feels.

‘Exactly the same’, she says

‘Exactly the same?’ he asks.

‘Exactly the same’ she says

‘As I was ten minutes ago

When everyone in here asked.’

We all laugh.

I see a diamond glint in her eyes,

a humourous flash of cunning.

She’s enjoying herself.

Ninety-five years old,

Flirting with Isaac

Teasing, smiling, still winning.

© A.Chakir 2023

Todays prompt was to use laughter and the juxtaposition between grief and joy, sorrow and reprieve. 

Day 4 ~ The Man with Lambs in his Eyes

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Today’s prompt was to write a triolet.

 A triolet is an eight-line poem. All the lines are in iambic tetrametre (for a total of eight syllables per line), and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines. This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet. Beyond this, there is a tight rhyme scheme (helped along by the repetition of lines) — ABaAabAB.

But I decided to play with it so I have written a double-triolet and a triad.

The Man with Lambs in His Eyes

the Ocado man came today
the sunshine arrived in his trail
he saw the spring lambs on his way
the Ocado man came today
he’d been watching the spring lambs play
they’d danced all his worries away
the Ocado man came today
and sunshine arrived in his trail

seeing the mirror this morning
I looked deeply into my eyes
I saw a strange sign and a warning
seeing the mirror this morning
no recognised face was forming
it gave me a total surprise
seeing the mirror this morning
I looked into faded dark eyes

the Ocado man came today
with lambs dancing in his eyes
and wiped all my troubles away

© A.Chakir 2023

Day 3 napowrimo ~ Sunshine

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the morning is gloomy and overcast
the weather forecast says it won’t last
but that voice on the radio sounds kind of dead
it might only be the state of my head

the day may improve when there’s more light
I was tossing and turning in dreams all last night
I forgot to turn the clocks forward an hour
outside the window primroses and daffodils flower

a ray of light is hiding from sight
a swallow appears in high looping flight
amassed clouds take on a fine luminescence
the sun breaks through, a glorified essence

a bright golden glow bursts through the gloom
a shaft, a sunbeam breaks into my room
I’m bathed in bright sunshine the room can’t confine
I feel uplifting joy, amazing, divine

burning and turning my heart is a choir
singing with joy and celestial fire
spinning and whirling, breaking free and ecstatic
knowing my moods are often erratic

the shadows have broken and I’m still alive
the sun has arrived

Participants’ Sites

© A.Chakir 2023

Day Two ~napowrimo ~ Hermes Drift

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Hermes Drift

a miraculous form wrapped in feathers
closing the eyes of the day
opens his own eyes wide
Athena’s child
flashes through beams of moonlight
his wing curves create an all-knowing smile in the cleft of night
how swift he is in bringing death
to the thoughtless feasting of earth

a confusion of eyes look upward

through milk-merged, mist-soaked, fur-fleeting air
he falls, tearing the skin of the firmament with his sudden cry

the river floats on by
filling the veins and arteries that lead to the vastness of oceans
where Neptune’s hair shelters the young, as yet unformed, children of gentle Salacia’s sighs

the right hand of Zeus slices the wind and the rain
above the sea-salt beds
where two brothers will never be parted
bound as they are by a miracle unsurpassed
essential to every life

silver-backed fish shoal, slip-witted and swift
driven by beautiful Hermes in a trick of the gods
and mercurial wisdom switches this way and that
in an image painted with fishtails
showing us moving atoms unseen by a naked eye

And what is longing, what is hiraeth, what is yearning
but a sense of old displacements
from banks of shifting sand?
It’s the magnetic current
spawned in our deepest wishes
that persistently calls us home on elusive tides.

© A.Chakir 2023

Day One #napowrimo (the prompt was a book title)

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Practical Taxidermy

Here I am
strapped to a frame,
a never changing armature
holds me in its tight grip,
preserved in formaldehyde,
polished and preened,
displayed on a shelf
under a spotlight
my guts torn out
and burned on the fire.
My skin is so cold.

How is this me?
Where are my entrails,
my being,
my soul.

The eyes remain dead,
despite all their efforts
to keep the light twinkling in glass.
It’s not me.

Why preserve a thing so lacking in spirit?
They should have installed me
inside a badger,
a crow or a fox.

© A.Chakir 2023

In Old Lore

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When politics sucks
Principles fly out the door,
Those values enshrined in our myths,
Those things the old heroes fought for,
Honour, valour, trust,
When the knights always stood up
In aid of the downtrodden poor.
When we created these stories
We already knew, we were sure.
Virtue was not often practiced
But it was enshrined in old lore.
When did we change the story?
When did we tip the scales?
When did our idea of justice
Fundamentally change?
When did the villains gain praise?
Isn’t life very strange.

Advice to a Very Young Poet

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Forget the alphabet of facts.
Savour sensual sound,
roll it round and round,
feel it on your tongue,
let it be your guide.
Use the harshness of the axe,
use the gentle kiss,
whisper, sigh and shout.
Cast ideas out,
dream and quest,
forget yourself,
follow words where they lead,
open wide your mind
and let the image in.
Turn beauty upside down.
Make the ugly beautiful.
Make beauty out of darkness.
When summer comes, rejoice,
jump up and down and sing.
In savage waves be sure to drown,
lose your breath and meaning,
experience every feeling.
Ask what life’s about,
seek the truth,
accept no less,
make an honest, brief beginning.

The Bards Legacy

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

By the river the blossoms are falling,
Disarrayed by unseasonably storms,
And worn weathered gravestones outside the church
Are granite grey, cold, threatening forms
Sheltering ash of anonymous dead.
Under stained glass windows inside the church
The genius poet lays his sweet head.
Rosemary’s remembrance overcomes age.
Words unforgotten repeat his own tale.
Across the long years his thoughts pace the stage.
Ill fated fortunes are storms we must sail
and love can win through to make good amends.
Love overcomes all that savage time ends.

Seaside

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On the footpath by the sea
the tourists come and go.
the summer flowers gleam,
salt breezes softly blow.

On the footpath by the sea
the children run and play.
Pirate games and treasure maps
sweep their hours away.

On the footpath by the sea
tadpoles swim in drying streams,
the dogs lap all the puddles up
while walkers eat ice-creams.

On the footpath by the sea
here come the volunteers
to clear away the plastic
and gather mermaids tears.

Miraculous Mare

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On a burning hot day
in the shade of an oak
a chestnut mare laying down,
chewing on buttercups, clover.

Young filly,
Arabian head,
with a star on her brow.
Essence of unicorn.

Blue sky, white clouds.
red horse,
vibrant green grass
nourished by summer showers.

Her skin quivers,
shaking off flies,
but it’s me who disturbs her
not they.

She raises her head,
poised to stand and depart.
I hold my breath and her gaze.
This magical moment can’t last.