NaPoWriMo 2018: Day 6: Wrap It Up Already!

A

Break can

Completely help to

Determine whether a poem

Eventually will be seen as

Fine work, and the poet deemed

Good or bad based upon the ability

He or she has to know about when

It is time to wrap things up and not

Just keep blathering on and making the reader want to

Kill them in order to shut them up, finding themselves a

Lead pipe to bludgeon to death the overly verbose poet and their

Meandering lines of word after word after meaningless word, does this person truly

Not know when to shut the hell up, can they truly not see how

Obnoxious their run-on lines are, do they not know that they are an embarrassment to

Poets everywhere, have they no pride in themselves and the craft of poetry, had they a

Quill, I would break it and stab it through their heart so they couldn't write one more

Run-on line in the self-aggrandizing mess they believe to be a poem, they must really love the grating

Sound of their own voice, or at least the sight of their own words, I really hope they don't

Talk the way they write because listening to them would be like nails on a chalkboard, a completely, absolutely, and 

Utterly intolerable, never-ending flow of verbal vomit, which would cause anyone in earshot to flee, in order to escape the ceaseless

Vocal violence of endless words being spouted for the sake of spouting them as if the speaker had no regard for the

Weary listener, or for the craft of poetry or prose, or knowledge that the reader would rather throw themselves into a nest of

Xenomorph eggs and become host to an alien monster that would soon rupture from their innards and leave them in a foul mess of

Yellow bile and red blood, but even this this terrible fate is preferable to reading line after line of dreadful verse brewed up by a

Zany poet who really and truly simply does not understand the concept that less is more and they should have wrapped this thing up ages ago

~Cie~

Note:

The prompt asked for participants to stretch their comfort zone with line breaks, not realizing that I am very prone to hyperbole and that I would be likely to make everyone else suffer along with me.

 

Big Bang Bird

Notes first today. The prompt asks us to take a photograph and a poem in a language we don't know, then "translate" the poem as if it goes with the photograph. The language here is Belgian, and I don't know it. 

I will provide the translation after I have ruined...er...improved this poem!

A BIG BANG

er is niet meer nodig dan afstand om ons te zien zoals we zijn

het aangroeien en afsterven van tijdelijke structuren, licht

in het donker in het licht wij groeien in alle richtingen, een woeker

When night meets day, standing off to the side of the window

An awful grackle serves up a strident tittering as light comes

In his mind, he thinks the light is cue for his wrathful, ringing singing

er is niet meer nodig dan afstand om ons te zien: levende fossielen

in steeds dezelfde banen die rekenen op enen en nullen omdat wij

niet tellen, niet snel genoeg om start van finish te onderscheiden

When night meets day, standing on the side of the lawn like a fossil

A banal nightmare reckoning opens its obnoxious mouth

No telling, no saying from start to finish its song

laat staan om thuis te komen. Roodkapje met de zevenmijlslaarzen

haast zich door onderzeese glasvezeldraad een oor in aan de andere kant

van de wereld. Een wolf, een grootmoe, een meisje en een jager

The last stand is coming when this rude bird will meet its fate

The door groans open, and out the entry comes

Into the world, a wolf, groaning and hung over on Jager

dansen samen een binaire chachacha. Ga van het pad schat

het vraagt niet meer dan afstand om ons te zien: een defecte cel

in een sterrenstelselhersenpan, een interstellaire boodschap van

The vain bird dances a binary chachacha and takes a dump

He brags while night meets day, stands to the side and defecates

He stares like an interstellar badass

parasitair lichtgevend mos, synapsen van glasvezel maar dan sneller

neuron aan / neuron uit, mens aan / mens uit

mensen als banaal signaal.

This feathered parasite has the advantage over the glazed synapses of his foe

Whose neurons are unlit 

Sending only a banal signal

And now, the original poem and a translation

A BIG BANG

er is niet meer nodig dan afstand om ons te zien zoals we zijn

het aangroeien en afsterven van tijdelijke structuren, licht

in het donker in het licht wij groeien in alle richtingen, een woeker

er is niet meer nodig dan afstand om ons te zien: levende fossielen

in steeds dezelfde banen die rekenen op enen en nullen omdat wij

niet tellen, niet snel genoeg om start van finish te onderscheiden

laat staan om thuis te komen. Roodkapje met de zevenmijlslaarzen

haast zich door onderzeese glasvezeldraad een oor in aan de andere kant

van de wereld. Een wolf, een grootmoe, een meisje en een jager

dansen samen een binaire chachacha. Ga van het pad schat

het vraagt niet meer dan afstand om ons te zien: een defecte cel

in een sterrenstelselhersenpan, een interstellaire boodschap van

parasitair lichtgevend mos, synapsen van glasvezel maar dan sneller

neuron aan / neuron uit, mens aan / mens uit

mensen als banaal signaal.

A BIG BANG

nothing further is needed than distance to see us the way we are

the increase and decease of temporary structures, light

in darkness in the light we grow in all directions, rampant

nothing further is needed than distance to see us: living fossils

perpetually in identical orbit describing ones and zeros, as we

don’t count, not quick enough to distinguish between the start and finish

let alone to come home. Little Red Riding Hood in seven-league boots

dashes through the undersea optic fibre into an ear the other

side of the world. A wolf, a grandma, little girl and huntsman

dancing a binary cha-cha-cha together. Get off the path my love

all that is needed is distance to see us: a defective cell

in a cranial firmament, an interstellar message of

parasitic, luminous moss, glass fibre synapses but quicker still

neuron on / neuron off, human on / human off

people as a banal signal.

© 2014, Runa Svetlikova

From: Deze zachte witte kamer

Publisher: Marmer, Baarn, 2014, 9789460682223

© Translation: 2016, Willem Groenewegen

First published on Poetry International, 2018

A Fetchy Shadorma: The Blue Garage

The Blue Garage

Photoshop image by The Real Cie

I went down

 Went down to the blue

To the blue

Blue garage 

 Where I could hear the blues play

 But all was silent

You can still

Hear the blues playing

 A ghostly

Echo of

A voice that once was alive

A sound that rang strong

The music

Itself cannot die

Song is sung

On and on

But the blue garage is closed

Blue street is silent

From Pepper with love for Gerry

(who probably thinks this song is about him!)

Notes:

Today the prompt was to describe an abstract idea using concrete nouns, and I think I did that. The blue garage is a metaphor, at any rate. Music itself cannot die, but musicians sadly do.

Fetch is the story that won't die in spite of repeatedly being stabbed with steely knives. Check it out here if you're so inclined. 

The Most Spluvid of Splunge-Negators

Judge Dustbinn Knaprous has created a most pyfmont warning for his fellow VILE Awards judges regarding the worst Splunge-negating offenders among Netherworld musicians

The Most Spluvid of Splunge-Negators:

A Warning both Timely and Bropp

by

Judge Dustbinn Knaprous

Yokon, VILE Awards Council

Fellow Ovlon Diglin:

By far the worst of the worst

Of bands going above and beyond the muvip call of duty

To negate the spevid quality known as Splunge

Is the Young-led legion of the Splungeless

That figcrop of a band known as 

The Quick and the Undead

They plunge the Splunge to -666

Never should Vogon-kind see the day

When they are allowed to play

For a more wudlus day you will never see 

Yours in Splunge and Vogonosity,

Dustbinn Knaprous

Yokon Honourable

VILE Awards Council

Note:

This was supposed to be a list, but Vogons are notoriously lazy and unpleasant, so I didn't want to push Judge Knaprous for more.

Senryu: All of Me

I was unable to find the creator of this image. If anyone knows, I am more than happy to credit them.

I am very tired

 Of things being hard, you know

 She has had enough

~Cie~

The prompt today asked us to play with voice. So I wrote one line in first person, one in second person (sort of), and one in third person. 

I like short poems because they help me avoid creating verbal vomit, which is something I'm all too good at.

Senryu: Hidden

At the End of Everything Version 10

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

I am not ashamed

Of the one who haunts my heart

But must stay hidden

~Cie~

The prompt today asked participants to write about a secret shame. One of the suggestions was that one might be ashamed of eating "too many cookies." That's a trick statement, there is no such thing as too many cookies. 

However, that is not what this poem is about.

I decided to do a little twist on the prompt. What if the secret is not something shameful, but must be hidden anyway. What if the poem's protagonist is homosexual but comes from a homophobic family? What if, as in many dramas, the protagonist is from a rich family and falls in love with a poor person, and their family does not approve?

I actually wrote the poem from the point of view of Pepper, the female protagonist from Team Netherworld's WIP, Fetch. Pepper, a medium, loves Gerry, a ghost. There is actually nothing shameful about Pepper's feelings for Gerry. They are both older adults. However, the majority of the populace would not understand Pepper's feelings. Thus, in order to avoid becoming a pariah or even being institutionalized, Pepper must keep her feelings to herself.

Eldritch Senryu: The Rats In The Walls

"The Rats In The Walls" by KxG Witcher

Inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft tale of the same name

The scampering claws

 Of the rats within the walls

 Drive one to madness

~Cie the Lovecraft Devotee~

Prompts Used:

Hourly Writing Prompts 

The stars were right, the Cheese Factor was high, the prompts aligned, and this eldritch horror made its way effortlessly into the doomed world. Iä, Iä, Cthulu fhtagn!