flitting in salty fluid, hundreds and thousands of breathren holding strong, dazzling and eluding fanged predators, swirling and swarming writhing in a blue-green brine, darting twirling, whirling, curling, unfurling together they sustain trophic levels and life, nourishing the largest among us. life of purpose, eating, fleeing, evading and finally, resting in the belly of a giant so that life continues on tomorrow and onward in this prismatic broth of flesh and bone and so they persist, energised and rapid I have a dream for thousands of kin cooperating fighting for mutual protection and universal aid, a life spent dancing in beams of golden sunlight
Prompt: To write a poem named after – and inspired by – a piece of music.
Close up of a small mammal skull by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Gloomy Sunday
the seabirds are squawking again not that they ever stopped these seaside horizons are chocka they split open a magpie that wronged them tearing its red belly asunder fighting over choice morsels herring gulls with vicious bills sharp as carving knives showing no mercy idle dock belongs to the birds this weekend and every other a wailing law in sky and on high sea you eat or you get disemboweled
Today’s prompt was to describe a place or object and end the poem in a seemingly irrelevant statement.
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In A Southern England Cafe
Espresso pours into earthen mug Settled on laminate wood-effect Tabletop with faux-iron leg Bumblebee-embroidered cushions line A railway sleeper banquette The barista busies with cleaning Their precious monstrous machine Whistling and whirring Behind bouncy radio tunes Soft spring sun glow Spreads through the windows Five-thousand protestors demonstrate on Downing Street.
The prompt for day 15 is to get inspiration from peculiar stamps! I chose the following as it is simply adorable.
CW. Animal abuse mention.
Danmark, July 1973 in golden font. Blue stamp featuring a black cat cartoon and a milk dish.
Skogkatt and Other Felines
Dr. Eva-Maria Geigl concluded that Vikings likely helped spread the joy of feline companions around the globe. From wildcat to lap pet, they still stalk weary critters hiding in dark corners, under brambles, in the overgrown dirt, in your jumble-sale basement.
We know these furry friends are ancient, sacred, clever, agile. From sandy-coloured African Wildcats haunting the Nile Deltas to frosty Freya’s gib-cats with blue-black hair, large enough to pull a chariot carrying a goddess of war. These wily creatures are thought to have sailed the world on the back of knarr.
Legends speak of a poor man who found his princess in the head of a cat. Whispers of ghost cats roaming the Danish wilderness, larger than a house, traipsing misty spruce woodland. The cats hunted stowaway rodents, protecting Viking food supply on the high seas.
In the darker recesses of history, it is thought they skinned cats for their fur, farming them to survive brutal Nordic winters. In Nonnebakken, 68 cats were found in a well, broken necked and sliced. Cat-burnings were allegedly a Medieval ceremony in which cats, thought to be witchy familiars, were lowered onto bonfire. The haunting yowls were said to be the evil spirits exiting the singeing flesh.
Ancient Egypt held the cat in high regard, mummifying their remains like those of a nobleman. These cats became divine symbols of deities such as Sekhmet and Bastet. Sculptures and paintings were made in their honour. These fierce predators killed venomous snakes, protecting villages, chasing birds from precious crop fields. Later, these cats were considered clean for their self-cleaning habits. The cat gardens of Cairo heaving with purrs, laden with furry paws.
It is said that the Prophet Muhammed cut his sleeve off to avoid waking his darling Muezza from a nap. According to Hadith, a woman burns in hell for animal abuse. And so, the world rotates on its axis, cat-mad, and starry-eyed.
Photo of olive tree by Rafael Rodrigues on Pexels.com
This Land
the denizens of this bucktoothed, ramshackled land weary-eyed, stiff-browed, sharp-nosed land like to toast grapes and flatbread to this land these people like to square off their fields of land gated like a precious secret patch of land and salute a half-masted flag in love of this land they kill for this land, they bleed for this land they starve for this land, they die for this land praise the lord and the heavens for this land then later curse gods and angels over this land become heathens and heretics for this land torture neighbours and friends for this land trample wives and children for this land lynch medics and journalists for this land deny humanity and life for this foreign land their greed will come for your homeland next
Today’s challenge is to write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.” When I think of tall tales, I think of myths, urban legends, fairy tales, folklore, anything a child might hear from a superstitious or imaginative grandparent before bed…
She told me tales of a land so isolated and distant it doesn’t feature on any maps. They farm dinosaurs, gargantuan monsters, and serve them up for supper, she said. That’s why they’re extinct… The village at the end of the world hunted them to wild extinction, saving a few for their farms. They employ the services of three-headed hounds straight from the underworld to herd them, receiving diplodocus thigh bones as a treat. This village is closer to Hell than to the rest of Earth, she explains. Demons come out at night to trade with the farmers. They offer crimson coal, said to burn for a century, in exchange for a pound of sauropod. The villagers themselves predate humans. They are thought to be from another world, settling in this remote nowhere, intermingling with succubi and heretics risen from the grave. They grow a flower there, she continues, that is so vivid in colour it hurts mere human eyes. A petal of this dropped into the ocean will end all life, she warns. It is so toxic the air around the village is unbreathable. No human would ever make it there, thanks to fields of these noxious flowers perfuming the atmosphere. Sometimes, she says, if you get too close, you can feel the heat of their century-long furnaces carried through the air, heavy with the seared flesh of theropods…
Finally one-third of the way through Poetry Writing Month!
Today’s prompt is to write a poem inspired by a retro newspaper article. I chose the following, regarding a woman who refused to roll up her stockings, risking jail.
Today’s challenge is to write an ode celebrating an everyday object, inspired by Pablo Neruda’s multitudinous odes.
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An Ode to a Teapot
oh you with the steaming brass-lipped, tulipping (per)fuming, seething boiling spout of wisdom harbinger of peace, energy and warmth singing in flageolet notes minty, zingy, lively tomorrow with jasmine petals and crisp orange zest pour us a cup swirling with blooming magnolia and hibiscus flowers fresh chartreuse green or aged-amber gold
Dihya Ammar 