Day 30 of NaPoWriMo. It’s been an adventure! I’m so happy to have done it. Such a great way of creating and sustaining a practice. Of course I couldn’t have done it without mates from Rhymes With Orange collective and general support of friends. I learnt a lot and had a place to put my unsettling quarantine feelings. So if you followed this journey and read my poems, thank you ❤️ it’s time to stop now. won’t make a shovel from a broken limb, relax white knuckles, wipe red eye

For though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer. Jubilate Agno, Fragment B, [For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry] Christopher Smart – 1722-1771 Cat, I adore you for very little reason. You twine round my calves when mood strikes, clamber up a diagonally placed plank, (with little grace, but you make it every time). Cat, you are black with white tie, white bits on your paws. Lying in a splash of sunshine. Watching you soothes me, gait neat and liquid, barely made jump to

what you put in the pot to cook and eat makes you. you, the cook. you, the pot, too. some days you’ll eat rot. sprinkle cheap salt, bitter laughter. some days, you’ll choke on, navy blue. poison will snake its way through or kill. oh yeah, healing’s on you. you’re given, then you make do. do, make make best of, live with. you the pot, the cook, the dish. always on heat. hot tin stove. stepping slowly, neatly painting tomato Pollock on the kitchen walls chopping tar into mozar

Apples and Snakes prompted on Twitter to talk about my age and this happened: 33. I don’t know how to birthday. 30th was kind of perfection. Solo show first. In later years, I took bull by the horns and threw brunches, cooking up a storm, to listen to friends from different zones of life try hard. I don’t even know. I tried hard. 33. Jesus age, apparently. In the first 3 months of it. Used to rush in now I drag my feet. Trying to get better. The end can come in weeks, days

Is Twitter real life or is it fantasy I don’t know, but I found meaning today in a thread of Cate Blanchett wearing a suit. dove gray, chequered loose or tailored hair slicked back, spike-gelled collars, décolletage serious-faced, grinning parted lips, spinning posed, relaxed open jacket, buttoned-up all I ever want is a library of suits so I too can move like Blanchett. #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poetry

box set I’m sad today – that’s not quite true I was sad before now I’m catching up on sadness of yore. cookies I want to make cookies round vessels of sweet pleasure get my hands in flour shape and cut and measure put sugar on my sour brain. #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poetry

climb up my spine like dread but with your tongue, melt it up my chest, a spiral staircase take me on a journey of myself as you glide around and around like you’re swirling ice cream, a shot of mocha in vanilla, you smile, I feel a jolt inside. I think I ripped something. A part of me that thought I cannot be loved is currently bleeding relief. . and I don’t want you to see, I try to wipe myself immediately, eyes dry on command, bleeding now contained, internal turmoil but y

I know how this goes Social media – a slippery slope Lots of information, keeps you on your toes I know how this goes I know how this goes Someone trusted has once laughed at Snopes And your friends are smarter than your foes And you’re smarter than average Joe I know how this goes Bill Gates’ name will surely be invoked When I question, an offended moue A suggestion to read up – no more You have research on YouTube to show All the while my disengagement grows I say “science”

I’m tired. Have started several (so many!) poetry pieces that I can’t finish today. So here’s my poem and I’m going to switch creative media and go bake focaccia. my head echoed, so I had a look inside there was nothing to find #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poetry

today I’m writing a thing. I’m asking noone, today, I’m writing, my thing, noone allowed me – today, I asked zero people’s permission to write – and capitalism also didn’t bite – just me myself and I. remember childhood. Heroines who wrote on stolen paper. Little girls who read books on hiding. My own sneaky ways reading books when I should’ve been in piano practice. writing journals that would then get stolen or lost. How luxurious is this. I am here. No Margaret Atwood visi

I used the different prompts today and they all came back to the same love story *throws hands up* when Shakespeare was concerned you were limbs and words, flying high, you were the verse it filled you curl by curl standing by your universe blinded and surprised only I have long since cursed the memory of your smile when Shakespeare was concerned you were hands and words, flying bye. #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poem #poetry

little pink monster with turquoise ears and big teeth novelty coin purse guarding one coin my one pound for the cupboard by the swimming pool be well, pink friend maybe some day soon we’ll go swimming again #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poem #poetry

I’m taking a day. I wrote a good twenty-odd mini-poems in last two days – I am all prompted out and tired. So it’s just me, blanket and books. And haiku. find what comforts you book is better than blanket both for best results #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poem #poetry

the notes of the saxophone glisten glissando making its way up and up and I listen let out a sigh forget I’m not alone mesmerised by the melody, the tone and the saxophone player without breaking her stride winks at me. #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poem #poetry

This poem should probably be edited down, but I had so much fun with this freewrite, I’m posting the whole thing! 1. I wonder what birds make of us We don’t sing for joy greeting the sun rarely offer seductive solo dances to chosen mates (not in public anyway) what are they thinking, tweeting happily in the sky like butter wouldn’t melt in their beaks How do you process the world when with a flick of a feathered wrist you can reduce a threat to a ground-bound fleck of dust Ma

Prompt by Apples and Snakes. Lublin. I was born Did all I could, had to leave If you don’t fit, go. London. I was born Into new language, only Cut off my big toe. #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poem #poetry

First I read Captain Awkward’s essay on middle class worldview in Way of the Artist (at her paid Patreon), then there was a Twitter chat and a prompt. The common denominator there was… horses. I think it was the horse that gave it away the gardens could’ve passed for public space the fireplace – pah, just a fireplace think it was my horse that gave me away. scarcity mindset will get in your way – work hard and you shall have a horse one day! I’m working class now, cos ac

if you are anxious before family meetings and interacting carefully, like strangers is your best-case scenario if you can’t trust your people to remember things as you remember if things are never light, only gaslight never relaxed, only tear-bright this poem is for you if you’re no son, daughter or sweet child of mine if you learnt to set boundaries by being so far that you want the distance to make it hurt less that you hope you can cope and say yes, you’re fine this po

it scared the water. down to blood its body heavy; frozen pond the trees are trembling in the wind. . it hurt the water. silver fish that glide soundlessly just beneath they kept on moving, racing through . and all above was frozen still and frantic movement down below . survival hinges on the warmth . it froze the water down to blood . can’t stop until the thaw. #napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #poem #poetry

Today the prompt from @GardensBritish on Twitter made me remember Emily of New Moon, from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books. And so, the poem: the starlight is a swimming pool that’s all that ever matters I bathe in mist of light like witches of old it’s cold and unpleasant and in their eyes I shatter the everyday illusion cast from ordinary moulds. I may be naked in stars’ gaze and shiver and deny but I am dressed in fabrics preconceived by others’ minds and of the body, in