NaPoWriMo (Day 8): The alter-ego (gecko)

For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 8

Here is our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today’s prompt comes to us from this list of “all-time favorite writing prompts”. It asks you to name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice. Maybe your alter-ego is a streetwise detective, or a superhero, or a very small goldfinch. 
 

The alter-ego (gecko)

Lygodactylus williamsi of the Gekkonidae family
is critically endangered out here in the wild.
The gecko’s electric-blue, black-striped sheen
attracts too many collectors who take them home
to enclose them in leafy terrariums under heat lamps,
a poor substitute for the glorious Tanzanian sunshine
and a playground of towering Pandanus palm trees.
 
These lizards span 31 inches from nose to tail tip,
with a surprisingly orange underbelly hidden away.
Adhesive toe pads mean they can stick to and climb up
just about anything, even glass. They’re easy-going,
but backed into a corner they will hiss at any would-be assassin.
Every few weeks they shed their skin in a slow striptease,
gobbling up their costume by the end of the day.
 
                                             ***
 
“I like to bask in the sun, daylight being my favourite time,
for at night you’ll catch me napping. I like the misted air of dawn,
catching dew on my tongue to drink, rustling through the leaf litter
on the ground as I creep my way through the forest floor.
 
We know the Collectors by sight and I’m fast to steal myself away,
out of fear of being caught and never seeing my home again.
No one has ever returned to tell the tale of where they’ve been.
I wonder if it’s another forest or somewhere completely alien.
 
Some people call us the turquoise dwarf or William’s dwarf gecko,
but mainly we’re known as the electric blue, although we females
of the species are sometimes green. Unusually, I’m a bright cyan.
I live in the Kimboza Forest snug in the foothills of the Uluguru Mountains.
 
My home is the Pandanus rabaiensis screwpine tree, and I’m fondest
of the leaf crown. My dinner is made up of small leaf insects and nectar
is my equivalent of a chocolate treat. My best friend, Amon, is brighter
than me, a brilliant blue with the power to dazzle you in the sunshine.
 
He is a gecko of many moods, prone to head-bobbing, tail-wagging
and even throat-puffing. I can never tell which way he’s going to go.
Our first batch of eggs was laid a week ago, two in total, and I’m excited
for them to hatch. It should take 60 to 90 days. Tell you a secret, I can’t wait.”
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 8, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 7): A bird in the hand

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 7

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying. They say that “all cats are black at midnight”, but really? Surely some of them remain striped. And maybe there is an ill wind that blows some good. Perhaps that wind just has some mild dyspepsia.  Whatever phrase you pick, I hope you have fun complicating its simplicity. Happy writing!

 
A bird in the hand
 
A bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush, so they say,
but some would argue the other way
and seek the bigger prize.
 
Yet wouldn’t you rather a blackbird
sit in the palm of your hand and sing,
its soft feathers fluffing, rustling,
the body shuffling forward for prominence,
almost asking you for a request,
always in tune, always off the cuff,
rhyme and reason matched in song,
these four toes cold to the touch,
obsidian eyes reflecting you.
 
With chin angled high, notes fly
from staves on a song sheet,
sending a letter into the sky
only you can read.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 7, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 6): Spring awakes with daffodils

  
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 6

Here’s our optional prompt for the day. Many of us had to write “acrostic” poems in school. These are poems in which the first letter of each line spells a word as you go down the poem. For example, the first line of an acrostic poem that spells the word “ghost” would start with a word beginning with “g”; the second line would start with a word beginning with an “h,” and so on. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’d like you to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line.
 
 
Spring awakes with daffodils
 
So the task is to write an acrostic poem,
paint the ways with ribbons of unique colour
ripped from the heart of a rainbow rising
in a sky dripping with the weight of rain.
Now is the time for a clean rinse of the blue.
Gone are the starlings who through this flew,
 
arching high, creating intricate patterns
willowing up and down on the ready breeze.
Awakens the night in a few more hours,
key to the opening of night-time’s lock.
Ebbing and flowing, the sea takes a turn,
surf leaping and laughing, ever being.
 
With the moon’s light we collect the stars,
inviting them to sup with us tonight,
to take a dip in the deep hazy ocean,
hearts of silver glittering on the wind.
 
Dancing in the pitch sky, they shimmer so,
an afterthought to dreams of bewitching dust,
forgotten as the hours make their journey
forwards, creeping quick and sinking slow.
Opens the dawn in a blitz of pink and yellow,
decadent in its curtain lift from the blue depths
in which it has slept the dreamscape of the night.
Little do we wonder at these everyday marvels,
so often we have seen them, so seldom gasped in awe.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 6, 2022
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 5): Dragons vs unicorns Sports Day

For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 5

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature. For example, what does Hercules do when he loses a sock in the dryer? If a mermaid wants to pick up rock-climbing as a hobby, how does she do that? What happens when a mountain troll makes pancakes?

 
Dragons vs unicorns Sports Day 

It was the Sports Day of the mystical ages,
the groovy one that should go down in history.
First up to prove their mettle were the scaly dragons.
Four of them marched forwards on sprightly claws,
 
refraining from disintegrating everything in flames;
they only snorted smoke with a tiny cough, eyes watering.
Their foe, the pearly unicorns, dazzled in a line,
heads raised, necks straight, their bright eyes fixed.
 
A heap of plastic rings decorated the grassy ground.
The intrepid task for the dragons was to hurl them high
and see just how many would do the hula home.
The whistle blew and the gargantuan dragons scrambled,
 
their muscly forearms grabbing for a ring. Throwing wildly,
most of them missed their target, the rings plummeting,
But now and then a dragon jumped up and down with glee
as a plastic ring rattled down a gleaming spiral horn.
 
And so it went until the final loud whistle blew.
Thirteen rings had landed true, eight for Davy Dragon.
Next it was the turn of the majestic unicorns to play –
and it was a call for a baking extravaganza!
 
The dragons were to breathe their fire carefully,
directly into the air above, so no bystanders were harmed,
and the unicorns had to exactly time a pancake throw.
With a blow of the whistle, they all galloped forth,
 
bent their heads and spiked a pancake on their horn,
and with a flick of their neck the wibbly things flew
towards the dragons’ fiery makeshift ovens.
It was a messy event, with blobs of pancake splattering
 
everywhere, covering the dragons with sticky clumps.
By the end of the whistle the ground was heaving
with a blubbering mass of wibbly-wobbly goo.
The unicorns managed to cook ten pancakes in all.
 
The crowd went wild for the dragons that day,
but also clapped for the disappointed unicorns,
for there are no real losers on Sports Day,
only friends at play, competing and eating ice cream.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 5, 2020
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 4): The meadow (poetry prompt)

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 4
 
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem . . . in the form of a poetry prompt. If that sounds silly, well, maybe it is! But it’s not without precedent. The poet Mathias Svalina has been writing surrealist prompt-poems for quite a while, posting them to Instagram. You can find examples here, and here, and here.
 
The meadow
 
1.   Wander into a lush, green meadow,
2.   breeze through the waving wildflowers
3.   and take a moment to learn all their names
4.   and indulge their individual fragrances.
5.   Count how many drops of dew are shimmering
6.   and thread your fingers through the tickly grass.
7.   Charge down the hill until your breath explodes
8.   and collapse lazily into a blanket of daisies.
9.   Pluck only one and count its soft, white petals.
10. The flower head holds the seeds of your poem.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 4, 2022
 
 
 

NaPoWriMo April (Day 3): The land of make-believe

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header, so you can read their poems.

Day 3

Today, our featured online magazine is Rust and Moth, which has been publishing quarterly since 2008. You can browse all of their past issues here.  From their newest issue, I’ll point out Leah Claire Kaminski’s lyrical “Flung Girl,” and Lucia Owen’s moving “The Gardener’s Prayer.”
And now for our (optional) prompt. This one is a bit complex, so I saved it for a Sunday. It’s a Spanish form called a “glosa” – literally a poem that glosses, or explains, or in some way responds to another poem. The idea is to take a quatrain from a poem that you like, and then write a four-stanza poem that explains or responds to each line of the quatrain, with each of the quatrain’s four lines in turn forming the last line of each stanza. Traditionally, each stanza has ten lines, but don’t feel obligated to hold yourself to that!
 
My four chosen lines from ‘Flung Girl’:
Last summer I walked on someone else’s ground.
When I was small, and the world was flat.
I would crouch at the edge of the yard and the forest.
Bundle myself in warm skin and chlorophyll.

 
The land of make-believe
 
There are strings attached with everything we do,
invisible lines we cannot see, but they are there still,
dangling in the air, resurrecting make-believe, and so
we carry on as usual, not noticing things echoing us.
The misty moonlight doesn’t care if anyone’s watching,
the stars still twinkle even though there is a spy,
and all I recall is the one time I confessed that
last summer I walked on someone else’s ground.
 
We are different to the image we feed to the world,
the reflection staring back from the looking glass.
We don’t stop to talk to strangers on the walk here,
fearing any stress, seeking the introvert inside.
Childhood seems a safety net a long, long while ago,
lost in the sanctitude of hot summers and joyful games,
a time of learning and marking our growth on a wall.
That time when I was small, and the world was flat.
 
To push our bikes up the steepest hill could take an hour,
just so that we could fly down in a minute’s streak.
Those buttercup days lasted twice as long as adult hours,
but it was all too soon 6pm and time to go in.
Growing up takes longer than the 18 years we’re given.
We’re works in progress, learning as we’re living.
Exploration was our middle name and we explored –
I would crouch at the edge of the yard and the forest.
 
I’m still at peace in the woods I find myself in,
wandering free among dank smells and green sights,
the peeking daffodils and scattered cracking twigs.
I only wish for a string of golden lights to guide me,
To bathe in the fantasy that I’m in a faery land,
hunting for a secret portal into the world below,
where there is only love and warmth, and I’d
bundle myself in warm skin and chlorophyll.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 3, 2020
 

NaPoWriMo April (Day 2): Vernality

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 2

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on a word featured in a tweet from Haggard Hawks, an account devoted to obscure and interesting English words. Will you choose a word like “aprosexia,” which means “an inability to concentrate”? Or maybe something like “greenout,” which is “the relief a person who has worked or lived in a snowy area for a long time feels on seeing something fresh and green for the first time”? Whatever you choose, happy writing!
 
I chose this tweet of Haggard Hawks:

Word of the Day: VERNALITY (n.) the spring, a spring-like quality; the greenness and freshness of springtime (1600s). Posted 7am, April 2, 2022.

 
Vernality
 
Over a hilltop we rise, sharing words
cast as in a talking game,
rash nonsensical afterthoughts
of truths and departing memories.
The hike takes us through meadows,
a purple lake of pungency. We stake
our claim on our last vestibules.
 
This is where the sky meets the soil,
cleanses it with the wind’s hands.
Every step extends our living roots
beyond the upright stretch of trees,
down into the depths of our mother
earth. We stand on ground trodden
by a hundred others, revisiting and
echoing, sewing spring paths on to
the back of others. A patchwork quilt
of knowledge and exploration,
soaking colour into the damp grass.
 
I can smell green when the breeze blows,
and only it knows where it leads me,
beneath the whispering of the leaves
and the solitary shine of the sun.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 2, 2022

NaPoWriMo April (Day 1): A story about the body

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. On the website, you can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 1

The prompt is based on Robert Hass’s remarkable prose poem, “A Story About the Body.” The idea is to write your own prose poem that, whatever title you choose to give it, is a story about the body.
 
 
A story about the body

One step forward, he stands alone, taking Sunday for granted, making it his own. One step back, he speaks alone, never takes people for granted, this rolling stone.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 2, 2022

A Poem a Day (498): Worms

 
Worms
 
He stands so small,
enclosed within tight fencing
 
soldier-straight to the sun.
The soil so soft to touch,
 
he buries his fingers in
deep, searching for movement.
 
In sienna shorts, long socks
and sandals, his golden locks
 
dazzle, blue eyes fixed on his task.
His pawing soon finds one. Tensing,
 
he surrounds it, digs it out.
It squirms, the pink flesh peeking
 
through his fist at the day,
seeking the safety of lost soil.
 
The boy laughs and runs inside,
grasping his trophy of the earth.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 2, 2022

A Poem a Day (497): Sunflowers

Today's poem is called Sunflowers. I wrote it for my poetry course. It's about the devastating situation in Ukraine. 

Sunflowers
 
We think on a thing that’s true,
talk of freedom, a reflection of the time
we cannot have, this yesterday of ours.
Boots stamp the hills of our country flat,
choke it with fire, wails and bullets,
black smoke, explosions splintering glass.
The snake rides its hide for 40 miles out,
carves a barren trench in our supple soil.
 
We hide inside our own shocked expressions.
This is not living. It’s a smothering of life,
this sharp shock to the consciousness.
He walks with death, this stickman, the usurper,
this mad dictator whose greed is his undoing.
The old women weep. They hug our hearts
to their chests. We are rag dolls. Sunflowers
nod beneath a pale blue, quaking sky.
 
Where are the saviours? Where are our rescuers?
We ask for our skies to be sheltered,
but we are pleading to the silence of fear.
People fight and people tower ever higher,
growing in magnitude to match their courage,
but we are small; the children are so small.
We ball our fists and scream into the dark,
wondering if our outrage will see us through.
 
The enemy is coming; he is close on our heels.
We can smell him through the smoldering wood
and he pretends to know our weaknesses.
But we are strong; we are united in our fight.
The sun may go down in our restless sky,
but we will never sink lower than the horizon.
We hold the sunflowers against our skin,
bathe in the golden glow they bestow.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, March 5, 2022