NaPoWriMo - 2019 #17 - The days of your life beyond recounting

The days of your life beyond recounting

The days of your life beyond recounting
waiting at the junction in the rain:
the cars, the radio, and what accounting

can there be?  The billboard over there surmounting
the traffic island's fertile plain;
the grey life stories beyond recounting

crawling past each day.  Even discounting
repeated visits, the numbers are insane.
The tires, the radiators: what accounting

for metal in motion.  The tonnage mounting
as commuters fill the left turn lane
the lives of days spewed from a fountain

and then there's you--frustration mounting--
in the stasis of a queue.  You can't explain
the ways of a life beyond recounting,

the cars, the radio, the days... who's counting.

Dark skies

A poem inspired by a prompt from a Facebook poetry group.

This is a pantoum.  I like pantoums, but they are a very particular thing and I can understand if not everybody gets them.  They repeat a lot, rather like the villanelle, which is another form I'm fond of... I mean of which I'm fond.

In the case of a pantoum the repetition generates an intense feelings of stasis, claustrophobia, and/or nostalgia.  So they are ideally suited for emotive, introspective or contemplative subjects.

The Western pantoum is a hijacking of a Malay verse form, but I do not speak Malayan, so  I really cannot comment on whether we do them justice...

---

---

Dark skies


The gaps between the stars will draw her eyes.
She's lying on the back lawn in the dark.
The voids are better than more clouded skies.
She isn't waiting for the dog to bark.

She's lying on the back lawn in the dark
without the thought that anyone will come.
She isn't waiting for the dog to bark.
Such expectations leave her feeling dumb.

Without the thought that anyone will come,
she's none-the-less put on her special top.
Expecting too much leaves her feeling dumb
but clothing is an easy thing to swap.

She's none-the-less put on her special top.
Beneath her shoulders dew begins to soak.
Her clothing is an easy thing so swap
there's always extra cleaning with a bloke.

Beneath her shoulders dew begins to soak,
this sort of thing is starting to get old.
There's always extra effort for a bloke
increasingly it leaves her feeling cold.

This sort of thing is starting to get old.
The dark is better than a clouded sky.
Increasingly they leave her feeling cold.
The voids between the stars pull at her eye.

The Villainess

A villainess, earlier today

A villanelle whose subject was simply inspired by the similarity between the words "villanelle" and "villainess".

Here I'm affectionately mocking the clichés of those genres that like their villainesses clad in skin-tight leather catsuits...

The villanelle is my second favourite poetry form, after the sonnet.  Those two constitute most of the formal poems I write, although when I'm in the mood I will do pantoums.

---

---

The Villainess


She always wears her leather suit
when breaking in to steal the jewels.
She's focussed only on the loot.

To hide the fact she's more astute
than all the weak and lustful fools
she postures in her leather suit

and curls her hair to make it cute.
She takes deep breaths to keep her cool,
maintains her focus on the loot

and doubles-back to lose pursuit,
then checks her face, takes certain tools
from pockets in her special suit

and justifies her great repute
for mocking all the normal rules
by swiftly getting to the loot.

She throws the guard a flip salute,
then saunters past. He starts to drool.
She knows he'll see the skin-tight suit,
for years after she's fenced the loot.