stonepicnicking_okapi

Title: Pernickety Poisoner
Fandom: Original
Poetic form: Abecedarian
Rating: Gen
No. of lines: 28
Prompt: Persnickety
Summary: An abecedarian about how nothing in the persnickety's poisoner's cabinet is of any use! So vexing!

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Title: Choice Piece of Heart
Fandom: Original
Rating: Gen
No. of Lines: 28
Prompt: Compassionate
Notes: a poetry remix of a gen-rated animal AU fic of mine in the BBC Sherlock fandom where Sherlock is a raven and John is a wolf: The Wolf Bird. Also a fill for fffc: Little Special 216: Found Poetry
Summary: a raven shows compassion to an injured wolf

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And a poem!

Dressing the Body by Brittany Rogers

We—Detroit girls, Daughters of Motown—
knew before we saw the bronze casket

that Aretha would be dressed down;
some—Non-believers, Outsiders—

called it frivolous: two-day
viewing; eight-hour long service;

four outfit changes, each dress
more elaborate than the last.

Beautiful, beautiful gowns—accessorized
from jewels to pointed heels. I half-

expect her to break out a side eye
belt out a hymn to remind us

who the Queen is. There is,
of course, no such performance,

though we all huddle like crows,
waiting to see if she still looks

like herself. There is a protocol to this,
a right way to send

someone back to the lap of God.
Wearing their Sunday best.

So fancy they can be
mistaken for a bride.

Title: Indulgent
Prompt: Indulgent
No. of lines 28
Rating: Gen
Summary: a free form poem inspired by looking at the night's sky

the fairy lights serve no purpose.
they don’t illuminate. they don’t
enlighten. they glow (when I remember
to turn them on). pastel flowers,
something between lotus and rose,
they shine until they dim, they hang
in waist-high firmament under
the window, suspended, a spring-
like bough, under the sill on which
rest piles of seashells and a conch
and a statue of the Virgin
of Medjugorje, indulgent
and forgiving, gifts of the sea.

raise the blind, ignore the neighbors
and the dirty glass, and the screen

the night is always too wonderful
the stroke of indigo between
the darkness and light pollution;
the moon, whether absent or full,
or, like tonight, crescent and smudged
with clouds; the tilting of the head
required to partake; the stillness;
airplanes and satellites and stars.
could I be any more poet?
standing here, looking out, counting
the syllables in firmament,
indulgent, purposeless, just like
lights I’ve forgotten to turn on

Title: Reclaim
Poetic form: terza rima sonnet
No. of lines: 14
Rating: Gen
Prompt:
Summary: a terza rima sonnet about an island reclaiming itself after a crime

even before evil strikes, island sands
are lifting. as death assails, as horror stills
dead air, fine grains are shifting. a boat lands.

black boots imprint, clomp-pace, stomp-trample. wills
exert themselves: measure, collect, record
as flying grit abrades, as soft dune-hills

extend themselves inland, onto floorboard,
past threshold. silt alive, hungry in reach.
inquiries conclude. departures afford

unimpeded campaign to smooth each breach,
erase each edifice, to break each frame,
to bury all. seabirds above the beach

bear witness to the canvassing, they name
it in their echoed cries: reclaim! reclaim!

Sonnetto Rispetto in Praise of Literary Devices by okapi

the last carried away by ants, the power
of words at heartbeat until breath expires,
a pocket watch which tells more than the hour,
inflection, misdirection, wit which fires
wonder, a nemesis in pale pink wool,
descriptions which show-and-tell, prank-and-pull,
confirmed opinion of the Church of Rome,
and endings which stick, and clues which come home

for the breadth of an Ave Maria
a respite from the everyday, mundane
at play, anodyne and panacea
what’s gnawing inside is given a name
and maps and diagrams of Pangaea
and contranym, the same and never-same

Alma Perdida by Valéry Larbaud [trans. by Ron Padgett and Bill Zavatsky]

To you, vague aspirations, enthusiasms,
Thoughts after lunch, emotional impulses,
Feelings that follow the gratification
Of natural needs, flashes of genius, agitation
Of the digestive process, appeasement
Of good digestion, inexplicable joys,
Circulatory problems, memories of love,
Scent of benzoin in the morning tub, dreams of love,
My tremendous Castilian joking, my vast
Puritan sadness, my special tastes,
Chocolate, candies so sweet they almost burn, iced drinks,
Drowsy cigars, you, sleepy cigarettes,
Joys of speed, sweetness of being seated, excellence
Of sleeping in total darkness,
Great poetry of banal things: news items, trips,
Gypsies, sleigh rides, rain on the sea,
Delirium of feverish nights, alone with a few books,
Ups and downs of temperature and temperament,
Recurring moments from another life, memories, prophecies,
O splendors of the common life and the usual this and that,
To you this lost soul.


The Way We Live by Kathleen Jamie

Pass the tambourine, let me bash out praises
to the Lord God of movement, to Absolute
non-friction, flight, and the scarey side:
death by avalanche, birth by failed contraception.
Of chicken tandoori and reggae, loud, from tenements,
commitment, driving fast and unswerving
friendship. Of tee-shirts on pulleys, giros and Bombay,
barmen, dreaming waitresses with many fake-gold
bangles. Of airports, impulse, and waking to uncertainty,
to strip-lights, motorways, or that pantheon -
the mountains. To overdrafts and grafting

and the fit slow pulse of wipers as you're
creeping over Rannoch, while the God of moorland
walks abroad with his entourage of freezing fog,
his bodyguard of snow.
Of endless gloaming in the North, of Asiatic swelter,
to launderettes, anecdotes, passions and exhaustion,
Final Demands and dead men, the skeletal grip
of government. To misery and elation; mixed,
the sod and caprice of landlords.
To the way it fits, the way it is, the way it seems
to be: let me bash out praises - pass the tambourine.

Title: Altamont in Paris
Rating: Teen for dark themes (murder, serial murder, made-up corpses)
No of lines: 14
Poetic form: Bref double
Prompt:
Notes: Lines taken from "The Mirabeau Bridge" by Guillume Apollinaire [trans. by W.S. Merwin] I have included this poem (both the translation and the original French) below mine.
Summary: A spy comes across a crime scene and uses it to his advantage.

Altamont in Paris by okapi

Night comes the hour is rung for Mister Altamont
who is taking cover under Mirabeau Bridge.
Disturbing lies and spies, schemes and dreams, the Seine calls
an unforeseen dance, a chance rendezvous with fate.

Hand within hand, the lovers are blind to all, but death
has left a grotesque rouge on cheeks, a carmine haunt,
and stains of walnut leaves about unblinking lids
burnt cloves and troves of pearly sheen gild love’s last wait

And hope is so violent a thing. Altamont palls
before the scene, lined in fine soot, arranged in strange
folie à deux, but only for a breath, these deaths
absurd might serve to deconcoct affairs of state

The days pass the weeks pass and are gone. Murders taunt
multiply in disguise, distracting wicked dolls.

( The Mirabeau Bridge & Le pont Mirabeau )

April is National Poetry Month in the US. I am already seeing lovely poems on my feed.

The Academy of American Poets has a poem-a-day series. (https://poets.org/poem-a-day) For April, I am signed up to get the day's poem sent to my inbox or you can just check the poem-a-day page on the website. Here is today's poem and the poem which inspired it. Note: the formatting is not right here. Go to the poem on the Poets.org site to see the true formatting. https://poets.org/poem/magnitude-and-bond-0

Magnitude and Bond by Cortney Lamar Charleston

after Gwendolyn Brooks

that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses
indissoluble as blood impassioned by a serene swatch of sky—

envy of the blessing of birds and the divine shadow
cast to provide protective canvas for our bones of calcified light

the chains that wore us in the fashion of diamond-studded pendants
and the names that the ocean omitted from history with a wave

( Rest of poem + Paul Robeson by Gwendolyn Brooks )

Title: Gamy
Prompt: gamy
Fandom: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Rating: Gen
No. of lines: 14
Poetic form: Italian sonnet

from a pool of warriors, one lot is drawn
to slay the slayer, twisted and stunted,
predator and prey, hunter and hunted,
engage in a test of nerve, smarts, and brawn,
each piece is double-sided, so queen/pawn
proceeds though path blind and compass blunted
and guide, evil only briefly shunted
toward nightmare which breaks on bloody dawn

raw fear is a salt used by very few
its tang known by most in form spare and mild,
but the mad chef has a lamb to tame, he
sprinkles it liberally and turns into
an apex threat uncaged, hungry, and wild,
enjoying a kill which tastes rather gamy

Title: Cross the river bravely
Fandom: Original
Rating: Gen
No. of Lines: 14
Prompt: brave
Notes: This is a spiritual poem based on a passage from The Dhammapada, which is a collection of sayings by the Buddha. The phrase from the work (as translated by Sri Eknath Easwaran) is: cross the river bravely, conquer all your passions, go beyond the word of fragments, and know the deathless ground of life.

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