Skillz

I have some pretty serious talents. I can craft a pithy one liner to send the masses of my Facebook audience into modest chuckles. I can fold a napkin into a fan in almost no time. I can fall asleep and miss my bus stop even when I am not tired. I can draw cartoon spiders in MSPaint that would make you gasp audibly.

I know you are jealous.

Unfortunately the assortment of talents my fairy godperson saw fit to bestow upon me don't include much useful stuff. I can't fold a fitted sheet. I can't motivate myself to do laundry until I get down to my less-pretty undies. I can't draw a realistic human face. I can't finish long term tasks (poetry month for example) without some pretty serious motivation.

This is my first non-poetry entry on this blog, and hopefully not the last... Though the list of things I have finished lately includes a chicken sandwich, a phone call, a case of beer, and not much else. Wouldn't hold your breath.

April 5 - NaPoWriLess?

I tried to work on a poem at lunch today. I failed. As per usual on Thursdays I am being kidnapped and forced to consume my weight in hard liquor while playing board games and telling off colour jokes. I will write you multiple hangover poems tomorrow.

Okay, I feel I need to confess... I will not be playing just any board games... I'll be playing Cards Against Humanity. It's like Apples to Apples, but for people who are terrible human beings and think things like Glenn Beck catching his scrotum on a curtain hook, raptor attacks, and Harry Potter erotica are funny.

Anyways... for anyone who was hoping to find some half-passable creative word-vomit from me today, I'm sorry. To make it up to you, here is a picture of a box all dressed up for the long weekend:

NaPoWriMo - April 4 - Sestina

Day 4: Blues poem Sestina

Today's prompt was to write a blues poem. After spending about 10 minutes attempting it, bashing my head against the proverbial wall, I did what I often do when faced with something I don't really feel like doing... I decided it was stupid and quit. Instead, I chose to write a sestina. For those unfamiliar with this poetry form, a sestina has 39 lines and a distinct pattern wherein the last word of each of the first six lines is repeated at the end of the lines in each of the following 5 stanzas. In addition the 7th stanza, which is only three lines, must contain all 6 words. Three must go at the very end and the other three allocated one per line and placed wherever it fits. I got many conflicting answers as to the rules on this last stanza, so I made it up.

I chose to be a bit tongue-in-cheek with this one... I deliberately chose six words which are often used in love poems and the like, to write an overly melodramatic piece which was mostly about loss/hate, on a topic that is mostly ridiculous. The piece is not particularly good, but the juxtapositions tickle me somewhat, and so it stands as my submission for day 4.

A sestina in mourning of my first boyfriend, who was lost to World of Warcraft. 

I often close my eyes and imagine your face.

Not in the affectionate way of a friend or a lover,

but in the manner of cartoons in the early morning,

where an explosion destroys your skull from within,

leaving your neck a great smoking hole.

It is an activity I undertake with great pleasure.  

I shiver to imagine what might bring you pleasure.

The red handprint of a blow struck to a lady’s face, 
or perhaps ensnaring an infant in some deep, dark hole?

Surely you have never known the passion of a lover,

looking into their eyes and finding a blaze within.

Of all the ways to start a day, that would not be your morning.

You know, it is the way I used to start every morning.

Every awakening was softened by the pleasure

that I took upon examining my bed to find him within.

After four years, I still thrilled to examine his face,

to find in every contour and crease the familiarity of a lover,

allowing the easy expanse of it to swallow me whole.

Through your machinations, I now find myself less than whole.

You delighted at the prospect of forcing me into mourning,

your mind fixed on a way to ensnare my precious lover,

introducing him to your twisted, mechanical pleasure.

I remember the day I saw a hint of it in his chiseled face,

the day I first caught a glimpse of the draconic beast within.

When you first placed that fertile and malicious seed within,

it carefully wove blackened roots through the whole.

Eventually he wore an blank mask in place of his face.

He would be drowning in you when I woke in the morning,

his body clenched in anticipation of your sickly pleasure.

He was courting you the way he had courted me, his lover.

And now you, most demanding of partners, are his lover.

If I were to look inside his heart now, I would find you within.

Your desire, your every whim, is now how he seeks pleasure,

leaving, in place of the warmth he had, a cold and rocky hole.

We are worlds apart now, when my alarm chimes in the morning,

and I doubt I will ever again find myself in his weary face.

I would face you, finally bursting with the rage I have within;

to awaken one morning and pry from your claws the soul of my lover,

but I cannot save him from your pleasures, for you are a bottomless hole.

NaPoWriMo - April 3 - Epithalamium

Day 3: Epithalamium

Today's theme is a type of poem called an epithalamium. It is my understanding that it was used in the middle ages and such quite regularly and is intended to be a tribute to the married couple, though it was occasionally just addressed to the bride.  Once upon a time it used to be recited through the door to the newly married couple after they retired to the bedroom. Modern ones are usually just read at weddings, and are not very common at all anymore.

I feel like there is more opportunity in modern society to creepily hang out and have poetry recitations in the hallway while a newly married couple attempts to celebrate their special night, but maybe that's just me...

This day will end.

The ribbons untied,

and tangled lace

heaped on the floor.

This day will end.

A coat cast aside,

and a black tie

on the nightstand.

This day will end.

Paired left hands adorned

in cool, new gold

and intertwined.

This day will end.

Whispered promises

and hopeful dreams

in hushed voices.

This day will end,

but this one moment,

this memory,

is yours to keep.

NaPoWriMo - April 2 - Songs of your birth

Day 2: A poem inspired by the song that was #1 when you were born

My adventure into discovering what song was top of the charts on the day I managed to become a human being ended in my discovery that it was Prince's 'When Doves Cry'. My first thought was that this was obviously going to be a super happy joyful poem (*eyeroll*) and my second thought was that there was no way I would be able to bring the cheese enough to do it justice. I was wrong, on one count anyway.

Through the lines on your skin,

the purple circles beneath your eyes,

it seeps out of you as shadows.

You’ve heard the echoes

a dove, weeping in the night.

You’ve touched its cheek,

you’ve felt its chest heaving in your hands.

Similarly, you’ve heard it laugh,

though the memory is fading away.

You couldn’t be vulnerable,

not in the way he needed.

You let him be the weak one,

and tenderly cared for him,

nursing his broken wings.

An injury which healed completely,

but turned him to the skies.

You can still hear it,

the echoes of before.

It is haunting and lonely,

the song of a thousand missteps,

the song of an empty bed.

That is what it sounds like,

when doves cry.

NaPoWriMo - April 1 - Triolet

Day 1: Triolet

April 1st's theme was a triolet. A triolet is a poem with a very specific and repetitive pattern (ABaAabAB) and often written in iambic pentameter. The first, fourth, and seventh lines are the same, as well as the second and final line. It was first commonly used in medieval French poetry. It is relatively easy to write a triolet and practically impossible to write a good one. This is my mediocre one:

The clock could not possibly move any slower;

It ticks and it tocks and it sighs.

With every second, my heart sinks down lower.

The clock could not possibly move any slower.

Despite my very best efforts to show her,

She constantly breaks down and cries.

The clock could not possibly move any slower;

It ticks and it tocks and it sighs.

NaPoWriMo 2012

This is the culmination of a perfect storm of creative smothering. I have not painted in weeks. I have not written in months. I have been badgered mercilessly by some well-meaning friends into starting some form of blog.

This one is ugly. That may change, or it may not. At the very least it will become populated.

To kick off the new blogging habit and get me into a life pattern where I actually make time to post on the regular, I am going to post my NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) exploits for the benefit and mockery of friends and strangers alike.

Having avoided poetry for a few years now, I am participating mainly because an incredibly charming and attractive manfriend of mine is doing similarly and, let's be honest, I would follow an attractive person into the sun. I'm shallow like that. I discovered, once I had agreed to do this with him, that other people who know me were also reasonably interested in the fact that I was writing and expressed a (masochistic?) interest in reading my work.

Having not posted for the last couple days, I will post April 1st's, April 2nd's, and today's. After that I should probably have my life together enough that I can post them as I write them and not just sit around in my sweatpants lamenting my lack of creative talent... but we'll see.