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
