May 2013
1 post
April 2013
29 posts
4 tags
NaPoWriMo #20: Advice I cannot give my students.
My class sits,
silent,
each poring over another crucial essay,
desperate to gather one extra mark,
one extra point;
desperate to prove
they are worthy,
as if their whole life
(all sixteen years of it)
is and will always be
defined
by the score allocated to them
come December.
I hold myself to my chair,
bite my lip to hold the words in-
It doesn’t matter!
It doesn’t...
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NaPoWriMo #19.
Your words
nestle themselves like seedlings
in the corners of my hasty mind;
tiny, growing slivers of love
reaching skyward
seeking out the sunshine
of each new morning.
Your words,
slender tendrils
entwining my heart
creeping around my lungs,
down my arms
to the tips of my fingers,
so all I touch is dusted
with the pollen
of your wisdom,
and my breath
is oxygenated
by you.
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NaPoWriMo #18: Oh, Lovely One.
Come hell or high water,
come rain, hail or shine,
come mutinous pirates with cutlasses, daggers and swords,
come zombie apocalypse,
come deadly disease
that sweeps the world, leaving us wounded and weeping and sore,
come mutant uprising,
come alien attack,
come invading hordes of orcs, come impending death,
come vampires and ghouls,
come rabid wolf packs,
I will love you, and love you,...
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NaPoWriMo #17: A Winter greeting.
Hello Winter;
don’t think I don’t see you there,
loitering,
waiting for the final leaves to fall in Autumn’s farewell.
You creep your mist over our garden at night,
fogging our windows and stopping our breath in our throats.
I know you are arriving, Winter,
as the heavy clouds darken and the honey days shorten,
the light leaving us in favour of balmier destinations,
and...
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NaPoWriMo #16 (A haiku, completely unrelated to...
Each time I recall
your fingertips on my hips
I am slain anew.
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NaPoWriMo #15: a pantun.
The stress of the afternoon slinks away
with each breath passing from your lungs to mine.
The fading amber light, the drift and sway
of your shirts stretched along the washing line.
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NaPoWriMo #14: Underestimation.
My student said today
with the morbid drama that only fifteen year olds speak fluently,
“It feels like death is upon me every single morning now;
It feels like waking is death itself.”
When I told her
she should write that down,
that it sounded like a poem,
she scoffed self-consciously
and said,
“Miss,
I can’t write.”
I know I have said this before, but...
…my Creative Writing students rock my world.
THIS is why I became a teacher.
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NaPoWriMo #13: Autumn morning.
The white mist spills along the valley
like milk across a tabletop,
steadily covering all surfaces,
dripping into each valley.
Each blade of grass,
snap frozen;
ice sculptures of themselves,
as the pale blue sky yawns overhead,
coaxing the day into motion.
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NaPoWriMo #12: Things left unsaid.
The challenge
was to write all
the words I’d like to
say
(but never would).
Cleansing,
cathartic,
a purging
of spent emotion from the soul.
Trouble was,
the words found themselves tangled
in the keyboard,
in the pen,
in my throat.
Perhaps there are some things
not yet ready
to be said,
some truths
not yet willing
to be
heard.
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NaPoWriMo #11: (a tanka) Our Record Store.
We dream, you and I;
a record store of our own,
outstanding coffee.
The comfiest couches, and
old friends, and new, to fill them.
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NaPoWriMo #10: (an un-love poem)
When you find yourself stumbling
over heartaches and troubles,
look to the obstacles you planted for others,
how they have grown twisted and gnarled around your feet.
When your head is filled
with voices of doubts and insecurities,
hear the echoes of whispers you have spread
with others’ names attached to their wings.
When your dreams are strangled and tortured,
and you wake in...
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NaPoWriMo #9: (inspired by noir)
The leaves outside our window
sleek and glinting
in the lazy glow of the street lamps.
Cars slide past us,
as the rain dissolves the road
into mist,
swallowed by night’s shadows
in the distance.
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NaPoWriMo #8: (in ottava rima)
Still air, still house, a hint of light,
a stretch, a yawn, the warmth of skin.
In filters day, out tiptoes night;
let dreaming end, and now begin
these waking hours clear and bright,
this brand new day to usher in.
What simpler joy could ever be
than me for you, and you for me?
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NaPoWriMo #7: (a declarative poem.)
Love will make a better you.
You are not your broken heart.
You are not your wounded pride.
You are not your timid, teenage self.
You are not the names that have been hurled at you.
You are not who they would have you believe you are.
You are bigger.
You are more.
You are sunshine.
Are you ready?
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NaPoWriMo #6: Goodbyes.
A thousand goodbyes
to be said in a lifetime;
some with their claws tangled deep in your heart
tearing wounds that no number of passing days will heal,
others like a lungful of air
to one on the brink of drowning,
sweet and rich and hungrily swallowed.
A thousand goodbyes,
waves washing over
mistakes made
and wishes unfulfilled.
A thousand goodbyes
to wash us up
on the shores
of new...
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NaPoWriMo #5: Cinquain.
Love is
early morning
sun shine coffee kisses
you make my eggs I make your tea
just this.
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NaPoWriMo #4: Abundance of onslaught.
Onslaught
is something I have in abundance,
filling our cupboards,
overflowing our shelves.
This energy
hurled at me,
at us,
that keeps me taut,
aware,
poised to respond,
and which reminds me
every moment
that you are so very worth it.
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NaPoWriMo #3: Sleep haiku.
Sleep creeps up on me,
whisking all my words away;
no poem tonight.
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NaPoWriMo #2: Patchwork.
You look at me gently
and all at once
I become aware of the haphazard
stitches with which
I have sewn myself together after
each previous heartbreak.
I am a patchwork
of fallacies too long believed,
of harsh words too clearly remembered,
of mistakes too tightly held.
Yet you,
you look at me gently,
and all at once
my haphazard stitches begin to unravel
and my seams are bursting
with...
March 2013
8 posts
3 tags
NaPoWriMo #1: This house.
This house has seen more daybreaks
than the two of us combined;
I imagine a young family filling these rooms.
Children play hiding in the back garden,
laughter scattered like dappled shadows across the grass,
Mother’s smile watching from the window
Father climbing the front steps, home again from work…
I imagine children grown and gone,
an ageing couple listening to the radio...
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“I am not delicate.
I am not fragile.
I am primal
sacred
incandescent.
My...”
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She
These thighs of calm contemplation, that have welcomed love, and sheltered it, and felt its absence when it left. These tiger-striped hips, the evidence of a body that has reached out to the very corners of itself, stretching the skin, pushing the boundaries further, searching, searching for growth. These arms, these hard, strong bones all veins and sinew and scars that bear witness ...
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“You are the bright, clear sun,
in a world of fluorescent globes,
and I turn...”
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On French toast, goodbyes and hopeful uncertainty.
This is a photo of Birthday French Toast. That is, the cinnamon French toast I made to celebrate my 34th birthday about a month ago. And why yes, that certainly is vanilla- bean marscapone and yes, they are strawberries slowly and gently stewed in brown sugar. Damn straight.
My birthday was a magnificent day. When we woke to find rain streaming down the window panes after months of bright,...
February 2013
13 posts
3 tags
“Dear Life,
Thank you for laughter and kisses in the kitchen, for a chilled...”
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“Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months....”
– Tom Waits (via thestudyofmettle)
The one’s for you, oh Lovely One. xxx
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“When you call my name,
finally, when all is done,
I will be ready.”
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Gratitude.
When my eyes explore
the hills and valleys of your cheekbones,
the feathery shadows
cast by your lashes
over the fragile landscape of your skin,
when my breath is held
reverent
in my throat,
there comes a moment
when a dam of gratitude
is suddenly broken inside me.
The salty force of it
inundates my body,
flooding through my limbs,
filling my legs,
my arms,
my lungs,
until,...
“I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my...”
– Shinji Moon (via thestudyofmettle)
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“The truth can never be wrong, even if no one hears it.”
– Ghandi
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Across peopled rooms and crowded hallways
You saw me,
In veiled conversations and words unspoken
You heard me,
Despite old scars and reservations
You felt me,
Through secret fears and paths unclear
You held me,
Now in these days of bright new hopes
You lift me.
“(exists no miracle mightier than this: to feel)”
– e.e. cummings (via thepoetandthesiren) 