Day 19: What is poetry

Today is a good day, the Mavs won even without Luka to tie the series against the Jazz 1 : 1, birds are happy, the spiral looks up, these are my trees and here is my poem.

Prompt 19: “Today’s challenge is to write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as ‘Look,’ as plaintive as ‘Come back,’ or as silly as ‘Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.’“

What is poetry

See,
this poem starts here. 
There is no other time.
It knows no other
than first me,
then you,
and now this.

Look
how it peeks at all there was
because each poem has a history,
tactile memory,
the treasure chest of the senses.
It doesn’t exist in the vacuum.
It has travelled. 

Watch
where it goes from here.
The poem decides
how it shall end.
It is tempted to spiral 
downwards with the devil and lose,
upwards with the angels and lie.

A small bit of what was,
a big bit of what is,
a small bit of what is coming.

Have you noticed?
This poetry,
so much like life.

The last day in my NaPoWriMo history

2018: Reconstruction

As if the happiest door
saw for the first time
three years made into one –
notice how fresh improvement was done
with the mouth
or is it cheek?
Here is the entirety again,
now decidedly murky.

Read all.

2019: Abeceda

A bright, clear day:
each fascinating gaze
held immense joy.
 
Kid let mother near.
Opening pores.  
Quest ran smoothly  
to universal victory.

Warmly, 
xoxo,  
yours, 
Zero. 

Read all.

2020: Otherness

“The limits of my language
mean the limits of my world,”
said he.
Now the limits of my world
are the limits of my home.

“Hell is other people,”
said he.
Now hell is still other people,
even more so.

I was always picking this and that,
a stone, a shell, a leaf.
None in the last two months.
My camera does all the picking.
I touch nothing. 

Read on.

2021: Male gaze

Goodbye then, 
unknown man on the internet,
one in a billion,
I never loved you
but I had to kill you, 
you and your male gaze,
no matter that I know
men will gaze
just like lions will gazelle. 

Or in the words you quoted
and will be the last I ever see:
“Everybody is left 
where they made a wrong turn.”  

(Read all.)

This day in my blogging history

• 

  2014: Glimpse, by Janez Janša (with my translation. This is NOT political promotion. The guy tried.):

  .

  When my soul is food for moths
  open the closet door
  and send them flying
     When my thoughts come looking for
     a way to return 
     from the afterlife
     embrace them (Read on.)

• 

  2016: Dinnertime, children. Compilation of eating times.

• 

  2017: This is Earth calling from Tuscany.