OctPoWriMo Day 31. The Last Halloween

OctPoWriMo Day 31. Happy Halloween

Here we are, Halloween. Congratulations!! I hope you’ve felt inspired and had a lot of fun.

Example Poem: “All Hallows Eve” by William Baer from Poems Dead and Undead(Aal)

All Hallows Eve

Standing above her open coffin,
within that pestilent place,
he stared at her colorless corpse
and stared at her lovely face.

Sensing a sense of accusation,
“Leave us alone,” he said,
and the others left the mausoleum
and left him with the dead.

He placed his hand at the top of her gown
and broke the clasps apart,
staring down at the purple scar
above her silent heart.

Then he bolted the lid, locked the door,
and saw in the lightning’s light
three ghouls who craved her rotting flesh
in the blackness of the night.

Maggots who dig up and eat the dead
in the pits of no-man’s-land,
who scented the scent of the newly-dead,
who lunged and scratched his hand.

But he smashed them back with his walking stick,
and they staggered from the shock,
then slithered away from the dead one’s tomb,
as he double-checke the lock.

But wwaiting near the graveyard gate,
under the hemlock tree,
a seuctive vampyr smiled and sid,
“Come away with me.”

He saw the fangss and famished eyes
of the tempting whore of pain,
who swiftly moved into his path
and touched his jugular vein.

But he lifted a hand of garlic flowers,
and the creature jerked and hissed
into the winds of the coming storm
and vanished in the mist.

At the ege of town, he saw the monster
nearing the torch-lit gate,
looking for its human god,
looking for its mate.

Enraged by the thunder’s thunder,
it stepped away from its place,
but calmly he grabbed the flaming torch
and burned its ugly face.

Later he heardd the werewolves howl,
up along the ridge,
as suddenly they blocked his path
before the wooden bridge.

Ravenuos, they moved to strike,
but it was far too late;
he lifted up a silver bullet,
then his .38.

He fired at the alpha-wolf,
hittinng the vicious gray
and blowinng apart its little brain
as the others ran away.

Nearing his gate, he saw the daemon,
but never broke his stridde,
and when it saw his hollow eyes,
it nodded, and stepped aside.

At last, the storm fell from the night,
as he entered the house of pain,
it fell in torrents, flashed and crashed,
and pounded sheets of rain.

Upstairs he found the silent ghost
sitting alone, undressed,
with the sharp and bloodless knife
protruding from her chest.

Being the one he’d just entombed,
his daughter, the jilted bride,
who’d come back home to nothinng
but a shocking suicide.

The specter poinnted at her heart,
but he stared across the room,
into the mirror, into his eyes,
each an empty tomb.

No wonder the creatures had cowered away,
and surely they were right,
those predators of human flesh,
those vermin of the night.

For they could only murder the body,
the part but not the whole,
but he was a far more deadly thing:
the assassin of his soul.

The storm fell down from the blackest night,
over the house of pain,
the torrents flashed and thunder-crashed
and pounded the slashing rain.

~William Baer

Prompt: Write a narrative poem about a Halloween Night.

Possible Form: Quatrain stanzas with an XAXA rhyme scheme, or Freeverse.

~

The Last Halloween

At dusk, the windows whispered grief,
 the jack-o-lanterns grinned;
a brittle moon hung low and sick,
 like bone beneath the skin.

He walked the road to Hollow Glen,
 its gravel speaking lies;
behind him, distant children laughed,
 a chorus thin as sighs.

The churchyard gate was open wide,
 a gesture half-polite;
the yews bowed down like ancient priests
 who’d long abandoned light.

A single grave, fresh-turned and neat,
 awaited candle’s gleam;
he set one down and its trembling wick
 less flame than fractured dream.

The wind rehearsed a nameless hymn,
 no saint had ever sung;
he felt it thread behind his ribs,
 where all his secrets clung.

Her name was carved in hurried script,
 the letters cracked and worn;
he pressed his palm against the stone,
 so cold it felt like scorn.

“Forgive,” he said, though silence reigned;
 the night refused reply.
Just then, the leaves began to stir,
 as if they asked him why.

A shape arose; no ghoul nor ghost;
 but memory re-arranged;
her face, still soft, yet edged with ache,
 the same, and yet so changed.

She did not breathe, yet somehow spoke
 without a tongue or breath:
“You buried what was still alive,
 and called it love, not death.”

He staggered back, his lantern fell,
 its shard of flame set free;
a moment’s spark, then darkness; pure
 and black as memory.

The earth beneath his feet seemed thin,
 a seam to worlds below;
he felt the graves sigh open wide,
 like lungs that learned to grow.

From hollows deep, the quiet rose:
 no claws, no fangs, no roar;
just every truth he’d locked away
 come marching to the door.

They circled him: the nights he lied,
 the words he never said;
the gentle hands he failed to hold,
 the tears he left for dead.

He tried to run, but time had snapped;
 the road dissolved to bone.
The moon watched on; unchanged, unmoved;
 a still, indifferent throne.

She reached again, her spectral eyes
 not cruel, but grave and wise;
he saw within them all he’d lost
 to fear he’d dressed as pride.

“Come home,” she said. “No punishment...
 just truth without disguise.”
He bowed his head, and stepped toward her,
 beneath the hollow skies.

And though no monster stalked that night,
 nor wolf nor vampire fed,
the living learned to fear his name,
 the man who walked with the dead.

By dawn, the grave was sealed once more,
 the lantern soot and stone;
but villagers still swear they hear
 two footsteps, not one, home.

Some hauntings are not chains or screams,
 nor curses etched in bone;
the worst are those of choices made,
 and made again alone.

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 30. monster over heart

OctPoWriMo Day 30. Fear from Out of Space

This year, James Wyman of Burlington Writers Workshop is offering a poetry 101 course, for free. When he sent out the syllabus he recommended we read Perrine’s Sound and Sense(Aal). It’s a wonderful, intense “Introduction to Poetry,” and I wish I had read it years ago. The title is from a poem called Sound and Sense by Alexander Pope.

A poet has a full tool box to for commanding the sounds of language to imbue each line with mystery and emotion. The work of the poet is to use these tools to match sound and sense: to make the poem sing with its meaning.

Example Poem: “Lightning ” by Mary Oliver from American Primitive(Aal)

Lightning

The oaks shone
gaunt gold
on the lip
of the storm before
the wind rose,
the shapeless mouth
opened and began
its five-hour howl;
the lights
went out fast, branches
sidled over
the pitch of the roof, bounced
into the yard
that grew black
within mintes, except
for the lightning—the landscape
bulging forth like a quick
lesson in creation, then
thudding away. Inside,
as always,
it was hard to tell
fear from excitement:
how sensal
the lightning’s
poured stroke! and still,
what a fire and a risk!
As always the body wants to hide,
wants to flow toward it—strives
to balance while
fear shouts,
excitement
shouts, back
and forth—each
bolt a burning river
tearing like escape through the dark
field of the other.

~Mary Oliver

How do the sounds of these words in these lines convey the meaning of the poem?

Prompt: Think of the onset of a specific fear. Write a poem using short, punchy phrases to express the immediacy and speed for which we feel fear.

Possible form: The Blitz poem

~

I referred to the Writers’ Digest article on the Blitz Poem for this form. I started numbering the lines just to keep track, and I’m not entirely sure why I left the numbers in, but once they were there, I decided to keep them.

~

monster over heart

1 write a dream

2 write a monster

3 monster over table

4 table under moon

5 moon keeps watch

6 watch through branches

7 branches hide eyes

8 eyes save secrets

9 secrets sink deep

10 deep beneath kitchen

11 kitchen hums quietly

12 quietly making warnings

13 warnings taste metallic

14 metallic like rain

15 rain over tent

16 tent inside forest

17 forest holding breath

18 breath turns brittle

19 brittle like vows

20 vows stitched crooked

21 crooked threads humming

22 humming small gods

23 gods in drainwater

24 drainwater names futures

25 futures bend gravity

26 gravity gripping ankles

27 ankles learn trembling

28 trembling around truth

29 truth stalks doorways

30 doorways leak stories

31 stories trade monsters

32 monsters borrow voices

33 voices chase silence

34 silence learns hunger

35 hunger loves sorrow

36 sorrow keeps Oizys

37 Oizys guards memory

38 memory bends light

39 light splits mirrors

40 mirrors hold shadows

41 shadows map bodies

42 bodies lose weight

43 weight leaves echoes

44 echoes taste iron

45 iron forgives hands

46 hands cradle fear

47 fear meets heart

48 heart chooses witness

49 witness

50 heart

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 29. Who Does It Follow Next?

OctPoWriMo Day 29. Other-worldly Monsters

If you read a lot of older poetry, you may notice that many poems didn’t have titles, only numbers, or were the same as the first or last line. These days, titles are expected to not only grab a reader’s attention, they are expected to do work. How does a title do work? A title may:Orient the reader: in space and time, or introduce the character or speaker and what they’re doing
Allude to a story or myth
Set the tone
Offer interpretive framework
Create a Striking Contrast
Provide a revelation about what the poem is about that the reader won’t understand until they’ve read the poem

With all these ideas in mind, after you write your poem, don’t just throw your first idea for a title at the top. List as many possible titles as you can think of and go for the one that makes the reader re-read the title, say “Aha”, and want to read the poem again.

Example poem: “The Abduction” by Stanley Kunitz from Poets.org

The Abduction

Some things I do not profess
to understand, perhaps
not wanting to, including
whatever it was they did
with you or you with them
that timeless summer day
when you stumbled out of the wood,
distracted, with your white blouse torn
and a bloodstain on your skirt.
“Do you believe?” you asked.
Between us, through the years,
we pieced enough together
to make the story real:
how you encountered on the path
a pack of sleek, grey hounds,
trailed by a dumbshow retinue
in leather shrouds; and how
you were led, through leafy ways,
into the presence of a royal stag,
flaming in his chestnut coat,
who kneeled on a swale of moss
before you; and how you were borne
aloft in triumph through the green,
stretched on his rack of budding horn,
till suddenly you found yourself alone
in a trampled clearing.

That was a long time ago,
almost another age, but even now,
when I hold you in my arms,
I wonder where you are.
Sometimes I wake to hear
the engines of the night thrumming
outside the east bay window
on the lawn spreading to the rose garden.
You lie beside me in elegant repose,
a hint of transport hovering on your lips,
indifferent to the harsh green flares
that swivel through the room,
searchlights controlled by unseen hands.
Out there is a childhood country,
bleached faces peering in
with coals for eyes.
Our lives are spinning out
from world to world;
the shapes of things
are shifting in the wind.
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?
~Stanley Kunitz

What work is the title doing for this poem? Without the title, would you have understood the poem differently?

Prompt: Write a poem about hearing someone else’s monster encounter. Do you believe them? Or just play along? What convinces you, or doesn’t? End the poem with an open-ended question?

Possible form: Narrative poem

~

Who Does It Follow Next?

He told me the thing came at dawn,
shoes in his hands, mouth full of copper,
like the sky had been peeled
and something darker was underneath.

He said it wasn’t tall—
only wrong.
Its joints bent in ways
bones don’t bargain for.
He swore it dragged a sound
like a violin string pulled too tight
but never snapping.

I nodded.
Of course I nodded.
We’ve all had nights that misbehave,
dreams that wake up before we do.
Still, he looked like a man
whose shadows whispered back.

He remembered its eyes
too well.
Not glowing—
not anything dramatic—
just patient,
like it knew a name
he’d forgotten to answer to.

When he showed me the scratch
on his shoulder,
I recognized it—
three neat marks
as if trimmed by garden shears.
I wanted to believe
in an animal,
in anything ordinary,
in something the world
already had a word for.

But the way his voice flickered
when he said it spoke—
I’ll admit
I felt my stomach lean
in the direction of wonder,
then fear,
then both.

He asked if I believed him.
I checked his eyes,
steady as nailed-down stars.
I said I believed enough.

After all, what’s truth
to a story that still bleeds?
If a monster chooses someone
once,
does it ever stop coming back?

And if it does… who does it follow next?

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 28. The One with Iron Fingernails

OctPoWriMo Day 28. The Monsters We Make

We’re getting close to the end of this wonderful journey. We’ve explored sensory detail, gone deeper connecting sensory detail with personal thought and memory, and then deeper connecting sensory detail with personal thought and memory and universal themes and symbolism. So today, let your persona take you even deeper, freeing you to explore the fears you’ve been avoiding. Let him or her sit with the discomfort and free you to write what you see, feel, want or don’t want. Let her or him ask the deep questions that you haven’t yet felt safe to ask.

Example Poem: “Neurotics” by Philip Larkin from Collected Poems(Aal)

Neurotics

No one gives you a thought, as day by day
You drag your feet, clay-thick with misery.
None think how stalemate in you grinds away,
Holding your spinning wheels an inch too high
To bite on earth. The mind, it’s said, is free
But not your minds. They, rusted stiff, admit
Only what will accuse or horrify,
Like slot-machines only bent pennies fit.

So year by year your tense unfinished faces
Sink further from the light. No one pretends
To want to help you now For interest passes
Always towards the young and more insistent,
And skirts locked rooms where a hired darkness ends
Your long defense against the non-existent.

~Philip Larkin

Prompt: Sculpt a protector with your words. What does it look like? Send it out to fight a fear, to get your revenge.

Possible form: A Ballad

~

The One with Iron Fingernails

(ABCB rhyme — loose iambic tetrameter / trimeter)

I carved him from my sleepless hours,

steel ribs and burning bone;

I stitched his jaw with thunderclouds—

to guard me when alone.

His eyes were coins of river glass,

unspent, unsold, unowned;

he learned the map of every fear

my shaking hands had shown.

I sent him to the door of dreams

where childhood monsters breed;

he tore their velvet masks apart

and fed on what they’d bleed.

He marched into my office halls,

where deadlines hissed like snakes;

he crushed their clocks to silver ash

and gave me back my breaks.

He cornered all the whispered doubts

that said I’d fail again;

he pinned them by their paper tongues

and wrote my name as “when.”

Yet gently, he returned at dawn

and placed his helm aside;

“You don’t need me,” he told my chest,

“but I will walk beside.”

So now he stands behind my thoughts

when sorrow tries to speak;

his iron fingernails click slow...

a promise, not a threat, to keep.

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 27. Two Questions Before the Clock Strikes

OctPoWriMo Day 27. Too Big To Fail

One thing I love about poetry is the way poems can manipulate time. A poem can represent the real time it takes to read it, or an entire lifetime. It can encapsulate the past, present and future, or one fleeting second.

Example Poem: “Days” by Philip Larkin from Collected Poems(Aal)

Days

What are days for?
Days are where we live
They come, they wake us
Time and time over
They are to be happy in
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

~Philip Larkin

How does this poem use and explore time?

Prompt: Write a brief, condensed poem that asks two related questions. End by describing something unexpected that will happen when one of the questions is answered.

Possible form: Nonet – A nine line poem that starts with nine syllables down to one.

~

Two Questions Before the Clock Strikes

10 Why do mornings always return to us? (why do morn-ings al-ways re-turn to us)

9 Where does night go when it sleeps each day? (where does night go when it sleeps each day)

8 Tea cools; ink forgets the message. (tea cools ink for-gets the mes-sage)

7 Calendars dissolve softly. (cal-en-dars dis-solve soft-ly)

6 Hours unspool mindlessly. (hours unspool mind-less-ly)

5 Until that one sound... (un-til that one sound)

4 Night folds its wings (night folds its wings)

3 Answer found: (an-swer found)

2 Cold rings. (cold rings)

1 Snow. (snow)

~ Oizys.

P.S. I was having fun with the cascading syllables until the counter drove me completely mad. I surrendered at “one.”

OctPoWriMo Day 26. Inventory of Goblins

OctPoWriMo Day 26. They Muck Things Up

When writing a poem, we think a lot about ordering our ideas. When thinking about fears we may order them from things we only think are a little scary to our deepest fears, or fears we think are personal to universal fears. But in poetry, jarring juxtaposition can grab a reader’s attention. Juxtaposition is placing two things next to each other to compare and contrast for an interesting effect. We may follow what we consider to be a small fear with a huge fear, then a personal fear with a universal fear. We might put a monster we don’t believe in next to the monster that lives under our bed.

Example Poem: “Fear” by Ciaran Carson from Poets.org

Fear

I fear the vast dimensions of eternity.
I fear the gap between the platform and the train.
I fear the onset of a murderous campaign.
I fear the palpitations caused by too much tea.

I fear the drawn pistol of a rapparee.
I fear the books will not survive the acid rain.
I fear the ruler and the blackboard and the cane.
I fear the Jabberwock, whatever it might be.

I fear the bad decisions of a referee.
I fear the only recourse is to plead insane.
I fear the implications of a lawyer’s fee.

I fear the gremlins that have colonized my brain.
I fear to read the small print of the guarantee.
And what else do I fear? Let me begin again.

~Ciaran Carson

How does this poem use juxtaposition for effect?

Prompt: List your fears that have come up this month. Then list all the little things that have gone wrong lately and how they led to change in behavior. Did any of those slight differences lead to good conclusions? In your poem mix your deepest fears with the daily goblins and gremlins that come up in daily life.

Possible form: Villanelle

~

[NOTE: Carson plays a deliberate game of scale-whiplash and it works. He jumps from “the vast dimensions of eternity” to “the gap between the platform and the train.” It keeps the reader slightly off-balance and makes us realize that our brains don’t distinguish between the cosmic and the petty. Fear is fear. One is life-ending; the other is… caffeine jitters. The pairing reveals how irrational and wide-ranging fear can be. He’s flattening all fear into one emotional plane. The mythic feels real. The real feels absurd. There’s almost humor in how earnestly arbitrary the list is, so fear is democratic. Some fear belongs to him alone (books not surviving acid rain). Some fear belongs to society (lawyer’s fees, murderous campaign). He bounces between personal neurosis and collective anxiety. The poem loops; fear is endless. He juxtaposes the illusion of closure with the reality of chronic dread. Carson deploys juxtaposition as a disruptive ordering strategy with alternating cosmix, mundane, fantastical, bureaucratic, personal, and communal. This creates emotional volatility, comedic relief, and a sense that fear is an infinite portfolio with no prioritization schema. The poem lands because the contrasts feel both absurd and familiar. A risk register where “existential void” and “bad referee call” are equal items.]

Inventory of Goblins

I fear the silence after a name is said aloud.

I fear burnt toast and urgent emails sent too fast.

A cracked cup can shame me more than a thundercloud.

I fear the late-night thought that God isn’t proud.

I fear the elevator button glowing, then staying cast.

I fear the silence after a name is said aloud.

I fear the train that never comes, the too-still crowd,

and shampoo stinging eyes with memories of the past.

A cracked cup can shame me more than a thundercloud.

I fear the monster waiting beneath the parent-approved shroud—

the kind that knows your secrets; the kind that lasts.

I fear the silence after a name is said aloud.

I fear a form I filled out wrong, and the humble, shrinking bow.

I fear forgiving myself too late, too slow, too last.

A cracked cup can shame me more than a thundercloud.

I fear the dark that follows daylight like a vow,

the lock that clicks and laughs, the future vast.

I fear the silence after a name is said aloud.

A cracked cup can shame me more than a thundercloud.

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 25. Department of Ghost Differentiation + Lanturne chain

OctPoWriMo Day 25. Making Faces

Like jack-o-lanterns poems can have many faces. A poet can write about one topic in a hundred different ways in a hundred different poems, or express many different points of view in one poem. Something that terrifies me may not scare someone else at all. They may not even believe it exists. Within each fear, each monster, we are each represented in different ways.

Example Poem: “Ghosts” by Anne Sexton from Poems Dead and Undead(Aal)

Ghosts

Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract nor pale,
their breasts as limp as killed fish.
Not witches, but ghosts
who come, moving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.

Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
fat, white-bellied men,
wearing their genitals like old rags.
Not devils, but ghosts.
This one thumps barefoot, lurching
above my bed.

But that isn’t all.
Some ghosts are children.
Not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink tea cups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.

~Anne Sexton

How do the similes and negations in this poem make the ghosts more real and more frightening?

Prompt: Write a poem about diversity within one type of monster. Use specific physical details along with similes. Use repetition. Use negation.

Possible form: A series of Lanturnes—a five line verse with the syllabic pattern: one, two three, four, one

~

[Pre-craft note: I love Anne Sexton. Sexton’s similes (“breasts as limp as killed fish”) give the ghosts tactile, almost gross body-ness; her negations (“Not witches, but ghosts”) carve away cliché so what remains feels shockingly specific, and therefore scarier. And. Thank you for the prompt! I went granular on “one monster, many faces,” using similes as texture and negation as a knife to carve cliché off the ghost until the specific body shows up. Also played with a lanturne chain for an echoing, breath-like cadence.]

Poem: Department of Ghost Differentiation

(diversity within one monster; uses similes, repetition, negation, negation-as-knife)

Some ghosts are salt,

grain-fine, clinging to wrists like the sea’s last word—

not angels, no—

they crust the lip of a teacup and call it a shoreline.

Some ghosts are copper,

pennies under the tongue, tasting like kept secrets—

not miracles, not relics—

only small economies of regret.

Some ghosts are laundry,

still warm, folding themselves as if hands were there—

not wives, not servants—

crease by crease they remember your shape.

Some ghosts are keys,

cold as bitten moons, rattling in ribcages—

not doors, not locks—

just the idea of exit, rehearsing.

Some ghosts are knives,

bright as a father’s Sunday shoes—

not murder, not warning—

only the polish of a story told too often.

Some ghosts are bees,

humming behind the sternum like yellow industry—

not honey, not hive—

only flight that forgot where to land.

Some ghosts are paper,

soft as old prayers in a wallet—

not scripture, not law—

just folds that know where to break.

Some ghosts are mirrors,

silvered water with a rumor of your face—

not truth, not omen—

only a corridor of unlearned angles.

Some ghosts are rooms,

dust motes auditioning for sunlight—

not childhood, not museum—

just air that remembers the shape of your name.

Some ghosts are salt—

yes, the first and the last are the same, like grief—

not circles, not traps—

only tide: it goes, it returns, it salts the wound to keep it.

Additional: Lanturne chain (form option)

(5-line stanzas, 1–2–3–4–1 syllables; repetition + negation)

shade

not wing

not blessing

smells like cold iron

ghost

dress

not bride

not widow

hangs like rain-soaked gauze

ghost

key

not door

not leaving

tongue tastes like pennies

ghost

bee

not hive

not honey

hums in my ribcage

ghost

salt

not tear

not ocean

grains on my wrist—stay

ghost

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 24. Cauldron Bubble (In trochaic tetrameter, after the witches of Macbeth)

OctPoWriMo Day 24. Predicting a Return for Revenge

Each poem could be seen as a spell: words put together with the intent to have control over another human being: to make them think, to make them feel, to make them read the poem again.

Think of all the ways that your poem might put your reader under your spell:

• onomatopoeia
• rhyme
• rhythm
• repetition
• nonsense words
• alliteration
• assonance and consonance
• euphony and cacophony

Example Poem: “The Apparition” by John Donne from Poems Dead and Undead(Aal)

The Apparition

When by thy scorn, O murderess, I am dead
And that thou think’st thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see;
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou sstir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleep will from thee shrink;
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
A verier ghost than I.
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

~John Donne

Prompt: Write a poem to keep your reader spellbound. Match the sound of your words to your meaning as you predict what you will do if you come back for revenge.

Possible form: Rhyming couplets in trochaic tetrameter (each line has four feet of DUM dah—8 syllables with stresses on 1, 3, 5, and 7) after the witches of Macbeth. You may also try using occasional Catalexis —which is the omission of the final syllable at the end of the line—to mix things up.

~ 

Cauldron Bubble

(In trochaic tetrameter, after the witches of Macbeth)

DOUble, DOUble, TOIL and TROUble;

FIre BURN and CAULdron BUBble.

FAces FOLD and FAdes and WRINkles,

SPINning FATE with GOLden TWINkles.

WHISpering DEath in EARs a-GLOWing,

SEWing TRUst while EVil’s GROWing.

SInners FALL and SAints get BRAzen,

MAking VIce the BEAstly FAshion.

MAny WOrds for MAny WIcked,

LIes for LOVers, TRUth be TRIcked.

NOne can KNOW the THOUghts they HARbor,

UNtil THOUghts beCOME the ARdor.

FOOLS are MAde from PROpheCYing,

WIcked MEN are DOomed from LYing.

DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL and TROUBLE,

CAULdron BUBble, CAULdron BUBble.

~ Oizys.

“Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

— from Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I (Shakespeare)

OctPoWriMo Day 23. The Body Remembers Differently (A Cento) // When Morning Hesitates (A Golden Shovel)

OctPoWriMo Day 23. From Pieces and Parts

There are many types of poems that “frankenstein” other texts. Blackout (or erasure) poetry and cut-up poems find poems by choosing words and phrases within prose. The Cento, combines lines from several other poems, making sure to reference each poem and poet at the end. The golden shovel takes a line of a poem and uses each word as the end word of each line in the new poem. Can you think of others?

Example Poem: “Pineola” by Sy Hoahwah from Poetry Foundation

Pineola

Severed finger of a convicted murderer uncurls like a waking pet.
Demonic compass points toward the most dangerous direction to get home.

Its long yellow fingernail can pick any lock.

On the fishhook, the finger resembles a long, fat mealworm.
Most times, it’s lodged in the throats of my enemies
or hiding among the tampons of cops’ wives.

It avoids gold rings, bad luck.

When wearing this rot relic on a chain,
sunlight smells like stale curtains in a worn-out hearse.
Rain never hits my clothes.

Rooms seem hotter.
Radios turn on by themselves, always to the same Lucinda Williams song.

Use any mirror as a doorway, I come out into the same sweaty
bedroom from a previous life. I forget who is wearing whom.

I pierce the fingertip to draw up a will.

I dip the finger in water. I point it toward the sun. I flick it to make it rain.

Hanging on the wall,
I sleep under this bird, booger-picker, dream catcher,
missing piece of an inverted crucifix, rotting pencil.

It sleeps over me like an accusative God.

Around midnight, I wake up, the finger is typing in the next room.
What is it composing at this time of night?

Letters to a parole board,
love letters to the rest of the hand,
midnight sermons,
ransom notes pertaining to me,
memoirs about life, hanging from my neck …

~ Sy Hoahwah

Prompt: Use one of the “frankenstein”-ing poetry forms to write a poem about a dismembered body part.

Possible form: Blackout poetry, cut-up poetry, cento, or golden shovel

~

Poem 1. The Body Remembers Differently

(A Cento written in homage to the many voices that haunt my own.)

This is my mother’s land, and it was her mother’s before. (Celeste Foo, "Burial")

Our memory, suddenly sharpened, / examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, / promised walks never taken. (Maya Angelou, "When Great Trees Fall")

Tell all the truth but tell it slant— (Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant—.”)

When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me; (Christina Rossetti, “When I am dead, my dearest.”)

My heart in hiding / Stirred for a bird,— (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Windhover”).

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2)

Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect, (Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”)

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”)

How selfhood begins with a walking away, (C. Day-Lewis, “Walking Away”)

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30)

table mat stitched in blue. (Naomi Shihab Nye, “Blood”)

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, (T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”)
These fragments I have shored against my ruins. (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” section 52)

~ Oizys.

Poem 2. When Morning Hesitates

(A Golden Shovel, after “Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.” from the poem Speech To The Young : Speech To The Progree-Toward by Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks)

The hands tremble, but they still hold, even

as the air thickens with undone prayers, as if

each exhale were a confession. What you

bury beneath your ribs is not gone — you are

a cathedral of unfinished songs. Do not

mistake silence for peace; it only sounds ready

when it stops echoing. Wait for

the hour that forgets your name. The day

will come limping toward you; it

won’t ask permission. Grief cannot

stay folded forever. Shadows always

rise and scatter; there will still be

birds rehearsing light against the night.

~ Oizys.

[Notes: Thanks to Maria for introducing so many different forms of poetry. I was motivated to learn more about Golden Shovel so I read an article on Poetry Foundation and was instantly fascinated. I’ve always adored Gwendolyn Brooks, especially her poem “A Song in the Front Yard”, so finding a form born in her honor felt like uncovering a new language for reverence.

I learnt more about the relationship between the Golden Shovel and the Cento on how both breathe life into borrowed words, but in different ways. The Cento stitches fragments together until they hum in one voice, while the Golden Shovel hides the borrowed line inside a new poem, like a secret spine. Both feel like conversations with the poets who came before, both ways of saying: I remember you, and I’m still writing because of you.

Blackout poetry and cut-up poetry have always been my favourite to consume on Pinterest; someday, I’ll try them too.]

OctPoWriMo Day 22. We Do This Every Day

OctPoWriMo Day 22. They Were So Well Preserved

Rituals help us see death in terms of what it is not: It is not an ending but a passage to something different and new, something better and easier. Though this month is about exploring our deepest fears and for most living things the deepest of our deep fears is death, rituals are how we keep that fear at a distance even when it is in front of us.

Example Poem: “Our Fear” by Zbigniew Herbert from All Poetry

Our Fear

Our fear
does not wear a night shirt
does not have owl’s eyes
does not lift a casket lid
does not extinguish a candle

does not have a dead man’s face either

our fear
is a scrap of paper
found in a pocket
‘warn Wójcik
the place on Dluga Street is hot’

our fear
does not rise on the wings of the tempest
does not sit on a church tower
it is down-to-earth

it has the shape
of a bundle made in haste
with warm clothing
provisions
and arms

our fear
does not have the face of a dead man
the dead are gentle to us
we carry them on our shoulders
sleep under the same blanket

close their eyes
adjust their lips
pick a dry spot
and bury them

not too deep
not too shallow

~Zbigniew Herbert

What does using the inclusive “our” do in this poem?

Prompt: Using rituals and ritualistic actions, describe a fear—a specific fear, or fear in general—in terms of what it is not.

Possible form: Etheree

~

We Do This Every Day

Ash.

Folded.

Name unspoke.

We light the lamp—

three wicks, not one, please—

a superstition, maybe.

We set out bread for the unseen,

salt for luck, water for the past.

Every morning we practice dying right—

quiet hands, clean corners, breath held just so.

We wash our faces like mourners do,

press palms together, bow to absence.

Our laughter comes rationed, respectful.

We call it peace. We call it patience.

We do not run, we endure beautifully.

Fear, you sly embalmer,

you made us saints

of small tasks,

of stillness,

of dust.

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 21. I will not let the rain in; I bar the weather with my teeth. (Puente)

OctPoWriMo Day 21. Guarding the Hoard with Fire

I recently took a screenwriting class during the Gotham open house. The instructor asked us what is everyone’s major want / motivation? Then he concluded that all people, and thus characters, always want happiness. Thus the conflict of every story is what stands in the way of happiness, and the conclusion is whether or not they achieve happiness. Since happiness is abstract and defined differently for each person, this isn’t untrue.

However, since happiness is always the want of the character, doesn’t that tell us that happiness is lost just as quickly as it is achieved? And wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that our motivation is a fear of losing happiness? Even when we are happy, we know it will end, and we fear that loss: there is so much to lose at every moment.

Example Poem: “To Failure” by Philip Larkin from Collected Poems(Aal)

To Failure

You do not come dramatically, with dragons
That rear up with my life between their paws
And dash me butchered down beside the wagons,
The horses panicking, nor as a clause
Clearly set out to warn what can be lost,
What out-of-pocket charges must be borne,
Expenses met, nor as a draughty ghost
That’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn

It is these sunless afternoons, I find,
Install you at my elbow like a bore
The chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m
Aware the days pass quicker than before,
Smell staler too. And once they fall behind
They look like ruin. You have been here some time.

~Philip Larkin

How does the poet use negation to show what failure is? What does the dragon symbolize in this poem?

Prompt: Write a poem about something you are afraid to lose. Something you would protect with the fierceness of a dragon. Use all of your senses to describe it, then use all your senses to describe its space without it.

Possible form: Puente

~

I will not let the rain in and bar the weather with my teeth.

The thing I’d scorch the sky to keep is the first hour,

steam rising off the mug like a tame dragon,

cardamom and leaf turning the air sweet-bitter,

the balcony rail warm as a palm,

ink whispering along the page, a cricket stitching silence,

pigeon wings clapping like a soft applause,

sunlight pooling in the spoon, an oval of molten brass,

the kettle’s small quarrel ending in surrender,

bread blistering, butter bright as a bell,

I keep it in my mouth like a coal.

~I will not let the rain in; I bar the weather with my teeth.~ 

Without it, the room tastes of battery and rust,

the walls smell of wet stone and resigned towels,

light goes grey and thin, a hospital broth,

the kettle forgets its language and the silence fattens,

paper feels like cold bark under the hand,

dust shows its yellow teeth on every surface,

footsteps echo with an empty-metal ring,

the window glass chills the cheek bone-deep,
my tongue holds a coin’s cold taste,

and the air, flat as a shut book, won’t turn the page.

[Some craft notes: 

How does Larkin use negation to show what failure is? He defines failure by subtraction: not dragons, nor contractual clauses, nor a theatrical ghost. By ruling out the dramatic, he corners us into the ordinary: “sunless afternoons,” staleness, the slow creep. Negation shrinks the grand myth into a drab fact that failure isn’t a spectacle of life, but it’s sediment. 

What does the dragon symbolize?

The dragon is the catastrophe we almost prefer, that is, a visible enemy that justifies panic and heroics. Larkin’s point: real failure rarely roars. It accumulates. We don’t get a boss fight; we get dust and dimness.
And, what's Puente?
A Puente uses a repeated line as a bridge between two stanzas; here, the sensory “have” and the sensory “without” are joined by that ember in the mouth.]

OctPoWriMo Day 20. Part Man, Part Fish (a blessing)

OctPoWriMo Day 20. Part Man Part Fish

The saying “actions speak louder than words” says a lot about human nature. We often act against our better judgement, act in ways that contradict our instincts and beliefs. Why do we do that? This is one of those mysteries in life that poetry explores.

Example Poem: Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton from Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection(Aal)

BLESSING THE BOATS

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

~Lucille Clifton

How does this poem evoke anxieties about water? Is this poem about sailing, or something else?

Prompt: Write a blessing poem.

Possible form: Loop poetry

~

[Before the poem, a quick take on Clifton’s “Blessing the Boats”: It’s a benediction that smuggles dread. The sea is framed as care (“carry you out”) but also as threshold: “the lip of our understanding,” “beyond the face of fear.” Water is both cradle and risk; the blessing asks for surrender to a force that can drown or deliver. It’s not really about sailing, I think. It’s about courage, release, and trusting motion when control is impossible. So, in my poem, there’s a blessing in that current leaning into a loop form, where each line’s last word starts the next, to mimic waves and human backsliding.]

Part Man, Part Fish (a blessing)

May your hands learn the weight of letting go—

go where the tide would carry, not command—

command nothing of the dark except a breath,

breath that remembers gills you do not have,

have mercy on the part of you that swims,

swims toward what glints, not what is safe,

safe being sometimes only a smaller cage,

cage that rattles when lightning finds the lake,

lake that keeps your secrets without judgment,

judgment soft as fog on a Sunday hull,

hull rocking less from fear than recognition,

recognition that your shadow is a kind of guide,

guide who knocks once—twice—under the boat,

boat holding while the old stories rise,

rise with the hunger you try to out-argue,

argue less; listen more for the plankton glow,

glow that is work done by smaller lives,

lives that bless without asking your belief,

belief that actions can outsing your words,

words that will follow once you move,

move and let the water name you home—

home being wherever you surface whole.

May it be so. May it be so. May it be.

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 19. In the Dark Wet Deep

OctPoWriMo Day 19. In the Dark Wet Deep

A poem is a great place to explore “what if” scenarios. One stanza or section can be a happy what if  and the next a scary what if, the next can be another possibility and wander about exploring the unknown.

Example poem: “The Kraken” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from Monster Verse(Aal)

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson

What “what ifs” keep this poem moving?

Prompt: Write a poem about what fears lie in the depths. What shines light on them? How do they appear? How are they defeated?

Possible form: Extended metaphor

~

In the Dark Wet Deep

What if the trench is not an ocean

but a mouth held open under years,

salt-rimmed with kept opinions,

teeth like shipwrecked chairs.

What if the current is an inbox,

threaded weeds of “later” and “soon,”

and every eel is an unfinished sentence

that sparks when you reach too soon.

What if the dark is not absence

but a crowded auditorium, lights off,

everyone breathing in unison:

you clap, and the echo claps back.

What if the monsters are indexes,

old griefs cross-referenced by touch,

a catalog of dorsal fins

filed under “things we didn’t say.”

What if the lantern is a question

lowered on a rope of breath,

and the answer is a fish-eye

too honest for the net.

What if light arrives sideways,

not a flare but plankton glow,

small work done by smaller lives

making maps no god would draw.

What if the kraken is a rumor

you feed with your own tide,

swelling each time you whisper

that you cannot be survived.

What if defeat is not harpoons

but pressure equalized at last,

your ears learning how to open,

your heart unscrewing its mask.

What if we skim the dark wet deep

with a skiff named Afterward,

and each oar stroke is a syllable

that rows the monster into word.

What if, when it rises roaring,

we don’t panic, don’t perform;

we stand, hold up our names like lamps,

and it mistakes us for the dawn.

~ Oizys.

[Each of my “what if” reframes fear, not as a single beast, but as many small, ordinary mechanisms (inbox, echoes, indices) that gain power in the dark. The anaphora (“What if…”) creates motion and possibility, letting opposing moods (menace/comfort) coexist without breaking the spell. The deep need not to be conquered; it’s negotiated with breath, naming, and the discipline of small lights.]

OctPoWriMo Day 18. But They’ve Seen It

OctPoWriMo Day 18. But They’ve Seen It

Every so often some critic announces that poetry is dead. As if centuries of oral and written traditions had a heart attack and couldn’t be resuscitated. Of course, they’re wrong, but someone will say it again anyway. In a way, poetry is a cryptid: an extinct creature that manages to survive in the wild by hiding from most people. But the people who discover it, are very adamant about its existence.

Example Poem: “Mother Talks Back to the Monster” by Carrie Shipers from Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection

Mother Talks Back to the Monster

Tonight, I dressed my son in astronaut pajamas,
kissed his forehead and tucked him in.
I turned on his night-light and looked for you
in the closet and under the bed. I told him
you were nowhere to be found, but I could smell
your breath, your musty fur. I remember
all your tricks: the jagged shadows on the wall,
click of your claws, the hand that hovered
just above my ankles if I left them exposed.
Since I became a parent I see danger everywhere—
unleashed dogs, sudden fevers, cereal
two days out of date. And even worse
than feeling so much fear is keeping it inside,
trying not to let my love become so tangled
with anxiety my son thinks they’re the same.
When he says he’s seen your tail or heard
your heavy step, I insist that you aren’t real.
Soon he’ll feel too old to tell me his bad dreams.
If you get lonely after he’s asleep, you can
always come downstairs. I’ll be sitting
at the kitchen table with the dishes
I should wash, crumbs I should wipe up.
We can drink hot tea and talk about
the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.

~Carrie Shipers

Prompt: Remember your childhood monster. Did it emerge from the closet, or under the bed? What did it look like? What sounds did it make? What did it sound like? When did you grow out of it, or how did you overcome it? What would you talk about if you met it now?

Possible form: A narrative poem

~

But They’ve Seen It

When the power cut slid over the lane like a lid,

I counted the ceiling fan’s halted blades: three knives

pointed at the cot where my legs refused to straighten.

You lived in the inch between wardrobe and wall,

in the breath of naphthalene balls and damp notebooks,

your fur the color of dust bunnies and old chalk.

You announced yourself with the latch of the steel trunk,

that soft clink becoming footsteps if I listened wrong

and the pressure cooker’s hiss from the kitchen,

rising to a whistle I was sure was your name.

On the calendar Krishna kept playing his flute;

your shadow dog-eared the month and would not turn the page.

Some nights you were only a palm at my ankle,

hovering, patient, until I forgot the rule:

blankets must armor the shin, toes tucked like contraband.

Other nights you were the geometry of fear:

right angles of the study table, the gulf under the cot,

the theorem proving I was small enough to vanish.

I told Ma I needed a night-light; she gave me stories.

“Monsters hate numbers,” she said, “count to a hundred.

Monsters hate ginger,” she said, “breathe like tea.”

I learned to name you into fractions: half breath,

quarter scrape, a remainder of nothing at all,

until morning solved you with crows and school bell.

I grew taller than the wardrobe, left behind the street

with its neem tree and hammock of power lines.

I learned other latches: email, HR portals,

locks that open at a thumbprint and refuse to know me.

My monster, I outwalked you; or said I did;

into apartments where under-beds are storage, not abyss.

Tonight, after doomscrolling the usual shipwrecks,

I catch you again in the shiny emptiness of a screen,

in the pixelated static when the router blinks red,

in the quiet that follows a message I shouldn’t send.

Your breath still smells of damp and test ink.

You still lift the corner of everything I claim is firm.

Sit. The kettle is louder than we remember.

I won’t pretend you weren’t real; you were my first editor,

crossing out the easy endings, making me revise the dark.

Tell me what you do when children sleep:

do you keep the rules of blankets and counting,

or have you softened with age like old rubber bands?

I will tell you what it’s like to be outgrown:

how love tangles with worry like earbuds in a pocket,

how success has a hunger you recognize as kin,

how closets are cleaner and minds are not.

I’ll pour you tea, let the steam fog the mirror,

and we’ll watch ourselves appear, then fade, then appear:

until the fan hums back, until the router steadies,

until someone in a nearby flat laughs in their kitchen,

and we agree on this small truce:

you need the dark to stay mythic,

I need the dark to keep honest,

and both of us, for once, can share the bed.

~ Oizys.

[Some thoughts: The “monster” is fear: specifically the shape-shifting anxiety that starts in childhood and matures with you. As a kid, it’s under the bed and behind the wardrobe; as an adult, it morphs into email latches, HR portals, and the red blink of the router. By the end, we have to stop denying it and negotiates a truce: fear won’t vanish, but it can be named, managed, even… talked to. As prompt mentions, critics say poetry (or monsters) are dead; insiders insist they’ve seen the creature. I argue both are real, but mostly visible to those who look in the dark. It’s also an answer to: why keep writing? Because the monster (anxiety, grief, vigilance) keeps returning. Writing makes the visit civil. We never fully “outgrow” fear; we outgrow the story you tell about it.] 

OctPoWriMo Day 17. Lockstep

OctPoWriMo Day 17. A Howl in the Moonlight

In the compressed space of a poem, every word is very important and often does the work of many words. Poets love words with many meanings, and words that can be multiple forms of speech (nouns, verbs, and/or adjectives at the same time). If each word is so important, why would we use repetition? How does the same phrase or line transform as it’s repeated?

Example Poem: “The Wolves of Egremont” by Dorothy Quick from Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre(Aal)

The Wolves of Egremont

Beware the wolves of Egremont,
The wolves that prowl night after night;
Beware the wolves by any light
But surely when the moon is bright.

Beware the wolves of Egremont,
The wolves that run in deadly pack,
That wait in ambush to attack
And torture surely as the rack.

Beware the wolves of Egremont,
The wolves that run by night and day,
Who, when you hunt, are far away—
The wolves that only blood can stay.

Beware the wolves of Egremont;
The wolf pack numbers more than ten,
But others join them in their den.
These gaunt, gray wolves that once were men
The wolves of Egremont!

~Dorothy Quick

What effect does the repeated warning have? How does fear build in this poem?

Prompt: Write a poem of warning. Start each stanza with your warning. Leave an important detail until the end.

Possible form: Kyrielle

~

Lockstep

Beware the road that shines too clean,

the glass with no thumb-smear, no stain;

when paths are polished, it’s routine:

the danger knows your given name.

Beware the voice that flatters right,

that trims your laugh to “well-behaved,”

its praise fits tight as borrowed white:

the danger knows your given name.

Beware the tests that call you good,

the rulers carved from other ribs;

they weigh your breath like stacked firewood:

the danger knows your given name.

Beware the door that clicks like yes,

the lock that yields as if it cares;

you’ll learn, at last, what I confess:

I taught it how to spell your name.

~ Oizys.

OctPoWriMo Day 16. Measure with Your Mouth

OctPoWriMo Day 16. Screams in the Night

The voice of a poem is the style and perspective that a specific poet brings to her work. Each of us bring our unique voice to our poems which includes all of the choices that we make: the words, the line breaks, the stanza breaks, rhythm, rhyme, and repetition. The more we write, the clearer our voice becomes.

In Tony Hoagland’s The Art of Voice(Aal), he talks about distance as part of voice. One way to draw the reader close is to use apostrophe or specific address. He uses the example, “Listen, Daisy.” Who might you address directly in your poem?

Example Poem: “Apparition” by Mark Doty from Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection(Aal)

Apparition

I’m carrying an orange plastic bucket of compost
down from the top of the garden—sweet dark,

fibrous rot, promising—when the light changes
as if someone’s flipped a switch that does

what? Reverses the day. Leaves chorusing,
dizzy. And then my mother says

—she’s been gone more than thirty years,
not her voice, the voice of her in me—

You’ve got to forgive me. I’m choke and sputter
in the wild daylight, speechless to that:

maybe I’m really crazy now, but I believe
in the backwards morning I am my mother’s son,

we are at last equally in love
with intoxication, I am unregenerate,

the trees are on fire, fifty-eight years of lost bells.
I drop my basket and stand struck

in the iron-mouth afternoon. She says
I never meant to harm you. Then

the young dog barks, down by the front gate,
he’s probably gotten out, and she says,

calmly, clearly, Go take care of your baby.

~Mark Doty

What images does the poet use to express his “crazy” feeling?

Prompts: Imagine a ghost appearing to you while you were doing something you enjoy doing. How would you react? What would you say? What would the spirit say to you? Use sensory imagery to express your sudden change in mood.

Possible form: Speak the poem first – use a tape recorder and just speak until you get all your ideas recorded. Listen back and write down the best lines to form your poem.

~

Measure with Your Mouth

I was slicing mangoes for no one

when you leaned out of the yellow flesh,

with that grin; half-rotten, half-kind;

and said, “Still pretending sweetness?”

Grandmother, is that your hand guiding the salt again?
The kettle takes up its old siren you taught it to sing at the boil, to hush with a lifted palm.
The ghost could speak in the rhythm of recipes, instructing or correcting, and
I wrestle with memory and grief.

Steam fogs the window, and there we are,

your bracelets clattering in my wrists,

knife bright as a Sunday homily.

You say, Measure with your mouth.

I say, I am trying.

The lamp flickers like a bad memory.
You never believed in happy endings.
“Go on,” you say, “taste.”
The mango stings the cut on my thumb; like a lemon,
I want to forgive you and don’t.

Outside, the dog barks at nothing.

“Take care of your hunger,” you say.

I plate the fruit for no one,

and the room, at last, behaves.

Listen, old friend in the glass,
the kettle’s screaming again,
and for a second
I thought it was you.

I’m at the dish rack,
steam whispering down the spine of my shirt
when you fog the window and say,
“You still run from me.”

Steel bowl a small moon in my hands,

breath like a saw. You grin; half-rotten, half-kind;

“You said I’d never last.”

Steel answers steel; my pulse hammers time.

I count by salt: lip, wrist, tongue.

The light flickers; cheap tube-light thunder; and there’s that old staircase in my chest.

Between who I was and who I’ve built myself into,

And with that metallic steamy heartbeat, I climb anyway.

I was halfway through a book when the lamp flickered,
you always hated happy endings, didn’t you?
“You again. Tea or silence?” I offer the ghost.
“Sips,” you say. “Then we’ll talk.”

I pour into depth, rise through ache, building the life I refused you.

On the last rinse, you step back.

The window keeps only my breath.

“Okay,” you say, “now stay.”

Am I speaking to a lost love, or to solitude itself?
The ghost might say something that disarms my control.

~ Oizys.

[Some thoughts: The prompt asked me to address someone directly, to use apostrophe, like “Listen, Daisy,” or “Mother, are you watching?”. I tried to capture the moment a ghost appears while I was doing something ordinary or comforting. And, I used sensory detail to mark the emotional and physical shift, that “crazy” flick of reality turning on its head. For me, the haunting lives in the everyday. A grandmother appearing while you’re cooking, maybe you’re stirring risotto, and she appears in the steam. Like a ghost from your past, maybe an old version of yourself, appears in the window. You’re traveling solo again and a ghost sits beside you at a café. So it’s about voice meeting haunting, the moment the ordinary world and the unseen one briefly recognize each other, the collision of the everyday with the ethereal.]