stonepicnicking_okapi

I actually have written quite a few poems this month from participation in the

fandom_empire challenge.

1. better to be alone than wish you were [original, villanelle]
2. the blade runner's secret [English sonnet + 1, Blade Runner (1982)]
3. Rachael paints [quatern, Blade Runner (1982)]
4. ghost dance [Ghost in the Shell (1995)]
5. noble harts [original, ottava rima]

1. This is actually based on something I found on a post-it note stuck to my father's computer. This was after my mother had died and he had moved to a different town & state from the one I grew up in (but before he got remarried).

better to be alone than wish you were by okapi

scratched on a scrap, a proverb amateur
carelessly scrawled, blue ink on yellow square
‘better to be alone than wish you were’

what are you choosing, what do you prefer,
‘company kept is company earned,’ there,
scratch that on a scrap, a proverb amateur!

at ‘solo expedition,’ daydreams stir,
scaled peaks, breaths of singularly fresh air
‘better to be alone than wish you were’

you say, or write, and raw instincts concur
that’s truth, right there, gut feelings declare,
scratch it on a scrap: proverb amateur!

but later doubts surface by force majeure,
it sounds right, but is it true? is it fair?
‘better to be alone than wish you were’?

still don’t know if I agree or demur,
with what you left, years ago, unaware,
scratched on a scrap, a proverb amateur,
‘better to be alone than wish you were’

2. the blade runner's secret by okapi

dark hungry dystopian day. let’s play
a test designed to provoke a response
ex-runner recalled to the blade by way
of threats. twice-quit is reversed for the nonce.

implanted memories cushion the hold
of photographs left behind in a drawer.
tracking a trail, snake scales fall, fold by fold,
dead end at the business of feeling more

human than human. lost like tear in rain,
worn hunter hunts until broken and bruised,
but kill’s thrill is snatched by time and shared pain
retirement’s no good when everyone’s used

blade runner ignorant of his station
as a unicorn matchstick creation,
dog-blind to his own replication

3. Rachael paints by okapi

With ivory beneath her fingers, Rachael paints
her story. Music understands what she does not.
It fills in gaps. It smooths blurred edges. It acquaints
her with a past she really ought to have forgot.

Dystopian sheep dream of sleep-walking sheaves while,
with ebony beneath her fingers, Rachael paints
her present. It’s a gift though she has taken a file
to its serial numbers, erasing restraints.

Then she escapes. Up north. Up north, no music taints
survival. Striving claws at days until, at last,
with memory beneath her fingers, Rachael paints
a song with no future, only a recent past.

Surrounded by soft comforts, Rachael breathes fresh air,
at home with her garden-variety complaints,
and neither memory nor music can compare.
With only herself beneath her fingers, Rachael paints.

4. ghost dance by okapi

when I was a child, I spake as a child
assigned destruction, name on my dance card
a puppet master hacking through ghosts
I understood as a child, I thought as a child
seeking you out, among dystopian doubt
but when I became a man, I put away childish things
descending fathoms just to feel alive
to know how much me is human, I dive
for now we see through a glass darkly
we meet, we dance, we kill, we die, but, but…
but then face to face, now I know in part,
you’ve been seeking me, too, dreaming of dance,
but then shall I know even as I am known
after the dance, we abideth, not two,
but one, perhaps greater than me and you

5. noble harts by okapi [ Inspired by this photo of deer in the mist]

The noble harts stand in the rosy mist,
their antlers like tree limbs, dark silhouettes,
against the blush horizon. Wonder-kissed,
this muster, their profile, their epaulettes
of valor, between earth and sky, insist
on standing still as light distorts and frets
the sparrows ornamenting the tall grass,
which bends and bobs as the noble flanks pass.