NaPoWriMo Day 21: Say cheese

 
Day 21 of the NaPoWriMo challenge at www.napowrimo.net.
 
Prompt: Sawako Nakayasu’s poem Improvisational Score is a rather surreal prose poem describing an imaginary musical piece that proceeds in a very unmusical way. Today, try your hand at writing your own poem in which something that normally unfolds in a set and well understood way — like a baseball game or dance recital – goes haywire, but is described as if it is all very normal.
 
 
Say cheese
 
Take a piece of cheese and balance it on your nose.

See how that goes. If you’re hungry, try to lick it with the end of your tongue. Jiggle it. Just a little bit.

Invite passersby to watch, take out their mobile phones and photograph you for retrieval on Instagram. To caption. To label. To honour. To push to every corner of the hungry globe.

Make a wish to the cirrus clouds surfing the big blue. Hop on the nearest unicorn (ask permission first) and take a one-way ticket to the Milky Way. Do not nibble it on arrival. It might spoil your appetite.

Believe in yourself. If you can’t do that, believe in the person standing next to you. Or your cat. On second thoughts, believe in your cat. He will know the way forward. He is zen. He outclasses us all.

Dream upon the figure eight. Learn to skate. Unearth the deepest recesses of your mind and then realise you’re far too late to dig out those old memories because they got clouded by too many glasses of Pinot Noir.

Sleep. Wake up. Sleep. Make up. Sleep. Touch up. Sleep. Take up a new hobby. Revisit an old one. You’re never to old to reinvent. Unless you think you’re old. Then it’s a whole new avoidance sport.

Think of your favourite pet from childhood. Revel in the thought that you might meet him or her in the Milky Way on your unicorn. You have far to travel, but you’re almost there. Just one more Curly Wirly.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 23, 2025