NaPoWriMo 2014 Day 6: Promethean

The poet Maitreyabandhu said in a talk that Poetry is not therapy and I don't agree with him. I will acknowledge that therapeutic poetry can struggle to be good poetry as we are wrestling with something that we can't quite get to grips with but for me poetry can be exactly the tool for working with those things we don't understand yet. For bringing some light to them.



Promethean


My eyes are on fire.
She must know what she's doing
with the man in her charge.
Attended all legal training.
I don't want to do it.
Where is the line between
politeness and duty?
Stop sticking my nose in.
I don't want to do it.
The establishment is voiceless,
surely with approval?
Risk assessments in place.
Surely?

A silence falls in the room.

An insidious calm, that whispers,

pretend.

Pretend as if it never happened,
that everything is ok.
Until you are silly enough
to turn around.
Fool enough
to see him bound.
What emotion
surges from the sea
of consciousness?

A compassion for another's suffering,
which widens out to all those beings
who find themselves tied?

A fear that we might be next?
That the wheel turns onward
to tear all faculties from us.

The shame of the wrong choice?
That evil can occur this day
if we choose not to act.

Or can we finally stop lying
that people are fixed
and chained to one position.
Acknowledge the truth
that we are a vortex
of all these and more.
Including the part
you choose to abhor
bearing sympathy
for the jailor.
For the meticulous
accounting of events
that lead them there.

NaPoWriMo 2014 Day 5: Blossom

It has been quite a mild winter in the UK and with the sunlight it has brought out the blossom a lot earlier than usual. From the window of the community gym I go to there is a fantastic tree blooming with rich red.


Blossom


Not every ghost is there to warn or haunt us.

See how these play in the newborn sunlight,

speak of when winter couldn't clog your lungs.


Let them invigorate your dormant mysteries.

Escape from the shade of the new moon

to join and share your resplendent beauty.


This dance upon the branches is brief, so

inspire and do not resent the fatal wind.

Live within dreams of the following spring.

NaPoWriMo Day 5: Sheffield to St Pancras

On my way to a retreat centre so this is clumsily typed into my phone and the last published day until I return!

Sheffield to St Pancras

When it's a fiver more on the train,
always upgrade to first class.
It's worth it for the WiFi.
But I can only wonder
who I share the carriage with.
Are we all bargain hunters here,
smug with superior thrift?
Yet when the fare website
gleefully shouted I'd saved
one hundred pounds eighty pence,
there must be someone
who picked up that price.
Untaxed people steeped in plenty.
Barely noticing the 'hosts',
as if tea serves its self.
Surrounded by tablets, e-readers,
moving and spending sums
more than my net value,
with stamps of their disinterested digits.
To cast so much with disregard
while others are herded
by advances and railcards,
such comfort in the face of struggling,
it isn't right.

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Lost

Well this devolved from a misheard Seth Lakeman lyric from the song The Bold Knight. Can't really say how it got here and really not sure if the last line needs to be there.


Lost


Mused by beer
we sings of the arms and of the men
bought by the king's coin.
We've always an audience
'cause it's easier to laugh
than admit that ice of terror.

We lurch again by noon blaze
but carrion won't dare circle us.
Our hangovers are miasma,
sweat the screams of fallen women,
movements fraught with a violence
our muscles barely chain.

As we enter the next town you'd swear
that mortar could tense, could whisper,
'These are no caballeros
of the rueful countenance.
Just horrors
with no Dulcinea to guide them.'

We settle to drink once more,
failing again to gorge on oblivion
and I pray to the knights above.
By the vicious silence of first light,
let me know a true enemy.
One that isn't in the mirror.

NaPoWriMo Day 3: The rain still falls

So today the NaPoWriMo page suggested taking a prompt from this website
http://nateseubert.com/paint/pix_la/index.html
and number 1 spoke this to me.


The rain still falls


His thoughts are a cumulus
of things he could have been.
Scenes too beautiful for reality,
like the vanilla skies of childhood.

But rain drops turn his gaze
like the hands of dead men
forcing him to attest
his own underworld.

Raised on raped resources
with organs cast in concrete
that crumbles like ethics.
Rusted spine, ill fit for action.

Dear dupe of delusion
either look up once more,
and hide from those depths.
Daydream until the downpour.

Or part those talons
and act on your insight,
strive through suffering
to a structure that grounds you.

NaPoWriMo Day 2: Illume

Once again we find ourselves with a flurry of last minute writing - day 2 is go!

Illume


I write a love letter in foot steps
that echo throughout the ages.
Following the earth's rotation,
obedience is my kiss.

In dreams she chides me
to leave this moon lapse vigil
but I am stayed by reverence;
to trace her path is bliss.

NaPoWriMo Day 1: Words

So welcome to Day 1 of NaPoWriMo were poets across the globe are attempting to write a poem a day for the month of April.

It was looking a bit bleak when I hadn't actually spent any time writing during the day but after a particularly good puja at the Buddhist Centre led by Padmavajra this started coalescing in my head, which was cue to dash out the building - inspiration is happening!



Words


Some words reach out to me
like a potter's fingers.
Parting the soft clay of my ribs
so they might shape my heart.

massage aorta
dwell in vena cava
dance between atriums
unfurl
to the quickening pulse
dispelling that tightness
of fear and frustration
so that burdened muscle
can finally relax
my chest opening its tissue
to the beauty that ensues

The same constellation of characters
will not move me twice
but they've marked my rhythm,
the way a ripple never truly leaves a pool.