Day 24: Body of work

Today I woke up, read the prompt, fell back into dreams, and awoke with the first part of the poem. It is also the birthday of my elephant-loving friend without a single elephant in my post and the election day in Slovenia.

Prompt 24: “Hard-boiled detective novels are known for their use of vivid similes, often with an ironic or sarcastic tone. … Today, I’d like to challenge you to channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile.” 

Body of work

Like a dream 
full of buzzards and hornets 
on a hot day,
like the path 
refugees and migrants 
are going to cut 
right next to her home,
like wrangling the dangling 
participle, Oxford comma, 
and every other fascinating bit of grammar
nobody cares about,
trying to assuage
the dreaded election day,
birthday of a faraway friend,
and the unfortunate loss
of the already won game,
her meandering mind 
is hard at work 
trying to make sense 
of what she wrote
and wondering 
what in the world
just happened.

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And finally:

Happy birthday, Taja! I love you and miss you. Have all the poppies from here and I hope to see you soon again.

Photo: Majerhold.

Here we are, birthday girl Taja and I, a long time ago, getting longer by the minute. More together moments and elephants are in the previous birthday posts available by clicking the (green) links below. The photos of the poppy field above were taken almost exactly one year ago. No such red explosions yet this year.

The last day in my NaPoWriMo history

2018: Hopeful elegy in 44 words

It’s not years gathered, is it.
It’s not like when a dog dies
and you say: 16, a good life.

Does it matter how you die?
When? Where?

(Read on.)

2019: Dictionary of New Slovenian Words

When you LOGIN,
make sure in your LOGISTICS
that the LOGO  
is equipped with LOJTRA /#hashtag/
which complements your LOOK
so that you don’t come off
as a complete LOSER
who merely LOUNGES all day,
waiting for a LOVE STORY
spurred on by LSD
with LUNATIC results
such as LUSTRATION  
by way of LYCRA  
or even LYME DISEASE.   
(See all elephants.) 

2020: Watermelon fun

How my grandma
would buy one of 8, 9 or 10 kilos
at the market,
walked home
and dragged it up
to the fourth floor
without a lift.
Talking about watermelon fun.
How I used to spit
but now I swallow. 

Read all and see more fruit.

2021: My elephant-loving friend

My elephant-loving 
friend 
does not spend 
many hours 
of each day 
eating.
She does not 
strip bark 
from a nearby tree 
and chew it 
until it makes 
a large ball.
She does not 
consume about 
100 kg of food 
and 100 litres 
of water per day. 

Read all and see more not elephants.

This day in my blogging history

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  2014: One song, one sea, one elephant.

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  2015: The family of friends in motion.

• 

  2015: Parmiggiana so good that it’s also for us who don’t like either tomatoes or eggplants and Elvis for the birthday girt.

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  2017: Taja, mother and elephants.

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  2018: Sixteen elephants gathered in the past year.

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  2020: Happy 50th elephant birthday!

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