Mabh Savage
Words and the world passing by; how it sings to me; how I clamour back.
NaPoWriMo Day Fifteen: Lark Transmogrified
Following the NaPoWriMo prompt to write a poem inspired by music.
I wish I could write a poem
Like Williams wrote
The Lark Ascending
Those trills and furls of sheer beauty
Capturing the essence of song
The spring morn,
The warmth of the sun on my back
There’s a word for that
That fails me right now
But then the world drops away
And the violin takes over
This English composer
Capturing the otherworldly bird voice
Between lines on paper and the strings of a violin
With a sweet Eastern influence
And a nod to a poem from
Thirty-three years before
Eyes closed, on the garden step
As the magic of the bird’s melody
Becomes mundane- not less, never less
Simply a fact, a part of the world
Then the rest of the world seeps back in
And the bird takes flight
On wings of sound
The full tapestry exposed
The curtain torn back
Oh Ralph, what beauty you gave
What beauty you read, saw, heard
You took the “silver chain of sound”
And translated back
In your own sweet language.
NaPoWriMo Day Fourteen: A Pun, My Soul
Several times a day I make my husband groan
Now that one’s not a euphemism, though it could be, I own…
But he despairs of my wit, or my attempt at it
The egg-cessive ingredients in the omelette
Working it out with a pencil (he was on the loo)
What a clean cut, when the soap snaps in half,
The Claret-ty of the wine
“You Plum”, he says
“More berries, really,” I quip
And remind him that divorce is expensive.
NaPoWriMo Day Twelve: The Starter
I can’t stop thinking about it
Living in my kitchen
Sealed in its jar…
Or so I thought.
It crept out one night
After we’d watched too much dark sci-fi
And the bubbles were more meaningful than ever
It crept out, right through the rubber seal
I knew it wasn’t supposed to be airtight
And apparently it wasn’t
Night-thief-knife-like terror
Squeezing through
Impossible cracks
I can’t stop thinking about it
Raining upwards like an
Impossible planet
Are you flora or fauna?
Animal, mineral, or vegetable?
You are alive, alive in my kitchen
You impossible thing.
NaPoWriMo Day Eleven: Yeast
I love yeast
I love the warmth of fresh baked bread
The buttery silk of a sharp cut slice,
Just cool enough not to crumble
Under the knife
I love the bubbling demijohn
Or brew bin
Singing in the night
A watery siren
That paradoxically pulls you closer
Once silent.
I love the jar on my kitchen side
Full of power
Potential
Preening itself as I feed it daily;
Home-cultured yeast,
From practically nothing
The oldest magic.
NaPoWriMo Day Ten: Numb
I describe myself as numb
To others
Because it’s easier
Than describing
The inexplicable drama
Banality
Humdrum hurricane
Of feelings fraught with April frost
Invisible beasts
Cold sunshine
Bubble-less yeasts
Tasteless sweets
Coffee that just makes you
Sleepy
A hiccup of anxiety
Expelled like a drunk’s belch
To describe all that…
I’d rather be
just numb.
NaPoWriMo Day 9: Bright
She said
What shape
Should this poem be?
Will it twist and turn and wind
And cover me in thorns, barbed words
To sting and recriminate, burning and cutting
Before sneering away to hide behind smug curtains
Of arrogance, cold and diamond-like, sharp and laser-made?
Like a diamond, crystalline and angular? Cold, hard
But straight lines, straight up, direct, you know,
No messing around, no false hope
Just right to the point
But painful
And too
Bright
NaPoWriMo Day 8: And Tales of Human Blood
Content Warning: Blood, donating blood, sickness. Inspired by the NaPoWriMo Website’s prompt to take a line from a poetry bot on Twitter and turn it into a poem.
And tales of human blood,
Oh, dear digital Shelley, these are
The tales for our times
The tales of inequality and disaster
Of poverty and desperation
Of disease not actually being
The Great Leveller
As those who are more level than us
Would allow us to believe;
Tales of human blood
Given in kindness, as donations
Given in metaphor, through effort
Charity and foodbanks
Nursing and healing and caring and even
Knocking on a door
Leaving a card that says, “I’m here”
These tales of human blood
Our history
Our legacy.
NaPoWriMo Day 7: Where the Rain is Made of Iron
Following the prompt for Day 7 from the NaPoWriMo site, sort of, as this poem is inspired by this news headline.
Where the rain is made of iron
And the sun is made of clay
See the flowers made of music
Fill the lava of the bay
There’s a mountain made of moleskine
Notebooks piled in stacks so high
The bottoms ones compressed and crushed
To coal made out of sky.
There’s a moon the size of Venus
Floating gently in the seas
While the fish of fur and feathers
Drift serenely on the breeze
The skies are always clear, they say
And hot enough to melt
The diamonds in the fox’s eyes;
The shoehorns on their belt.
Where the rain is made of iron
And the earth is soft like cloud
Dream yourself a kind endeavour
Because here, anything’s allowed.
NaPoWriMo Day 6: Date Night
He came down the stairs
In jeans and a smart t-shirt
I’d almost forgotten
What outdoor clothes looked like
Didn’t we live in
Comfies now?
Loungewear and PJs?
“Date night!” he exclaims!
And I clap in delight.
Such a thing, to be treated like this
To be given thought and attention
To be dressed up for
With nowhere to go.
So I snuck upstairs
And shucked my shameful shorts and vest
And found the stretchy dress
Forgiving to my figure
Of which I’m not ashamed,
Not at all,
But I knew the look I was going for
And I dug out my favourite earrings
And I tucked my protesting hair back
Into a half-up, half-down
Fae-like do
And sauntered back downstairs
Hovering in the doorway
Until noticed.
“Isn’t mummy pretty?”
He says to the star-eyed toddler
She’s more interested in the bricks
And that’s okay.
Date night never really happened.
All dressed up, and somewhere to stay
But the toddler got cranky and then poorly
So, the carefully crafted culinary treats
Dried out in the oven
And the stretchy dress
Helped in dashing up and down the stairs
The mountain climb of hope and healing
For our wee baby.
Mabh Savage 